Castle Aching

[BG John]

Sorry for rambling away from model railways.

Model railways? What have they got to do with this?

 

I don't think I've posted this before. Edwardians wandering around doing everyday stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfGa_aGC2dA

 

This is where I found it, and it has some notes on what was done with the film

http://www.vintag.es/2015/08/amazing-footage-of-england-in-edwardian.html

[uax6]

A fair number of old photos were hand coloured from mono originals, but they may well have held their colour better. I am afraid I don't have coloured photos to offer but there are some interesting ones - ones for the plastic rod and human hair modellers. Muriel in the top photo is my mother. The third photo is of her uncle Percy and his wife and baby in the side car. He and Marjory were motorcycle enthusiasts with Harley Davidsons and a Bristol-made Douglas figuring in their 1920s machines.

 

Elsie, Marjory, Phyllis & Muriel c1922.jpg

Phyllis Marjory & schoolfriends Hereford 1918.jpg

Percy Pritchard with wife & child on bikes.jpg

Marjory & Phyllis on Douglas motorcycle c1925.jpg

That sidecar is very familiar. My parents had (and possibly still have) one of those sidecars, except that it was mounted on a trailer chassis. And it was recorded that they used it in the 70's with my brother.. The celluloid screens were yellow when I last saw it. I had no Idea it was that old. I'll have to find out if it still exists....

 

Andy G

[phil_sutters]

That sidecar is very familiar. My parents had (and possibly still have) one of those sidecars, except that it was mounted on a trailer chassis. And it was recorded that they used it in the 70's with my brother.. The celluloid screens were yellow when I last saw it. I had no Idea it was that old. I'll have to find out if it still exists....

 

Andy G

I don't suppose there was that much call for new designs, so they might have carried on for years between the wars. I am glad the photos brought back memories.

[Northroader]

That era was dominated by the music hall still, so besides the G&S operettas, you could have have a full range from comic "I'm 'enery the eighth, I am" to the sentimental "last rose of summer" . They're both in the Orpheans repertoire, if you come to the Washbourne Temperance Hall. (It's only a tin shed, mind)

Edited October 16, 2016 by Northroader

[Clearwater]

I was prompted by the discussion to have a quick search on likely songs. My first thought was to try the world war 1 song, Tipperary, but I was surprised to find they were mostly written as late as the year or two before the war.

 

In the absence of television, radio etc, it would be unsurprising if songs took longer to reach saturation point particularly in rural, remote communities. Wouldn't surprise me if songs sung were many years old. However, the railway would have provided some more rapid transmission of popular culture!

 

David

[Bedders]

Slightly earlier than the CA period, but still popular might be someone like Charlotte Alington Barnard known as Claribel.  
 

In the 1860s and the later part of the 19th century her ballads were performed by the most famous singers of the day

Music critics described Claribel’s ballads as ‘mawkish’ and ‘trashy’. Audiences, on the other hand, demanded encores whenever they were performed. Not for nothing were they known as ‘parlour songs’. With the availability of sheet music and pianos in Victorian homes, Claribel’s songs found a wide and appreciative audience. They were not too difficult to sing, and the piano accompaniment was relatively easy.

 
http://louthmuseum.org.uk/people/charlotte_alington_barnard.html

 

Railway connection - She laid the foundation stone for Louth station in 1847 as the 17 year old daughter of a local worthy, who later defrauded her and ran off to to Belguim with his wealthy second wife

Edited October 16, 2016 by Bedders

[BG John]

As we're engrossed in Edwardian pictures at the moment, how about a different subject for modelling? Rather than the Victorian or Edwardian era, why not model the present as they thought it would be? It would be an interesting challenge . It's also interesting to see the things they didn't expect to change in 100 years time.

 

http://www.vintag.es/2015/10/12-vintage-postcards-from-1900s-depict.html

http://singularityhub.com/2012/10/15/19th-century-french-artists-predicted-the-world-of-the-future-in-this-series-of-postcards/

[wagonman]

As we're engrossed in Edwardian pictures at the moment, how about a different subject for modelling? Rather than the Victorian or Edwardian era, why not model the present as they thought it would be? It would be an interesting challenge . It's also interesting to see the things they didn't expect to change in 100 years time.

 

http://www.vintag.es/2015/10/12-vintage-postcards-from-1900s-depict.html

http://singularityhub.com/2012/10/15/19th-century-french-artists-predicted-the-world-of-the-future-in-this-series-of-postcards/

 

 

In I think the 1870s the Commissioner of Traffic for the Metropolis – or whatever he was called – expressed concern that, extrapolating from the current rate of growth of traffic, the City would be knee deep in horse muck by 1920. Then along came Herr Daimler...

 

We call it disruptive technology nowadays; no idea what they called it then.

Edited October 17, 2016 by wagonman

[Stubby47]

Slightly earlier than the CA period, but still popular might be someone like Charlotte Alington Barnard known as Claribel.  

 

 

 http://louthmuseum.org.uk/people/charlotte_alington_barnard.html

 

Railway connection - She laid the foundation stone for Louth station in 1847 as the 17 year old daughter of a local worthy, who later defrauded her and ran off to to Belguim with his wealthy second wife

Didn't she also form part of a famous double act with Miss Oakley ?

[Nearholmer]

The future was to have been filled with the form of transport below, which combines the lightness and flexibility of the bicycle, with the rigidity and load bearing capacity of the monorail, to provide something which offers the least appealing aspects of both, combined in a single package.

 

There was one of these at Great Yarmouth.

 

K

[Stubby47]

There is still one at Flambards in Helston, with added disadvantage of a fake helicopter body...

[Edwardian]

The future was to have been filled with the form of transport below, which combines the lightness and flexibility of the bicycle, with the rigidity and load bearing capacity of the monorail, to provide something which offers the least appealing aspects of both, combined in a single package.

 

There was one of these at Great Yarmouth.

 

K

 

One for Stubby, I would have thought!

[Nearholmer]

There's a suspended monorail version of the bicycle monorail at a children's theme park near where we live, which we're no longer keen to use, since a neighbours small son broke his leg while riding it.

 

Don't let that put you off though, stubby. An animated model would be very entertaining.

 

K

[BG John]

There's a suspended monorail version of the bicycle monorail at a children's theme park near where we live, which we're no longer keen to use, since a neighbours small son broke his leg while riding it.

 

Don't let that put you off though, stubby. An animated model would be very entertaining.

 

K

Modern kids are such wimps. In the good olde days they had playgrounds like these!

http://historydaily.org/playgrounds-of-the-1900s/

[Nearholmer]

BGJ

 

The first one looks very like a thing that my father constructed for us, using roofing-ladders, when I was a boy. My mother commanded that it be dismantled, because she thought it was a death trap; he maintained otherwise; my brother then fell off it, and ended-up in the first-aid bay at the cottage hospital; it was dismantled within milliseconds, and my father spent a week (almost literally) in the dog-house.

 

I'm not going to show it to my offspring, because they will copy it, using my ladders, while I'm not looking.

 

It does say a lot about risk-tolerance, though.

 

There is very solid evidence that, as risk from disease and warfare reduce in any society, tolerance of controllable risks also reduces. In Edwardian society, there was a pretty high probability that offspring would die through "natural causes", or be killed in warfare; in comparison, 'death trap' play equipment presented a mere blip in the statistics.

 

I always find this a bit odd, because it might be assumed that living in a high-risk society would make each individual child more precious, not less so, but, as I say, the evidence is solidly in the opposite direction.

 

K

 

(Are we nearly off-topic yet?)

[BG John]

I always find this a bit odd, because it might be assumed that living in a high-risk society would make each individual child more precious, not less so, but, as I say, the evidence is solidly in the opposite direction.

 

K

 

(Are we nearly off-topic yet?)

It also teaches kids about risk though. Surely removing risk creates a positive feedback loop, where each generation becomes more risk averse, until they daren't do anything. Then they die of obesity rather than from falling off things!

 

Perhaps Castle Aching could have a children's playground, so we could be back on topic!

[Edwardian]

It also teaches kids about risk though. Surely removing risk creates a positive feedback loop, where each generation becomes more risk averse, until they daren't do anything. Then they die of obesity rather than from falling off things!

 

Perhaps Castle Aching could have a children's playground, so we could be back on topic!

 

When I was growing up, the countryside was my playground.

 

The brook that flowed through our garden, which, when feeling brave, we followed as far as the long rat-infested culvert running under the Midland mainline.  The meadow and hedgerows behind us. The large arable field beyond, from which the farmer would chase us, though we came back after the straw was cut, because they still used old rectangular bails that we used to use to build fortifications to assault (Vauban had nothing on us).  The river and the weir. The copses and abandoned barns, which often showed signs of recent occupation and illicit fires, though we never found whoever was responsible.

 

Yet, this was tame stuff compared with my father.  In those days the village was divided into two gangs, and, once, upon capturing a rival gang member, they tied him to a tree and set a fire beneath him!

 

I suspect it came as a relief to my grandparents when he moved on to girls and skiffle.

[BG John]

Today you could find yourself standing for the defence or prosecution if any kids were caught doing that sort of thing!

[Nearholmer]

Hmmm ...... rural gang-warfare must have been common in our fathers' generation. Our local vet had a severe squint in one eye, caused by an arrow, fired during a gang battle that my father was present at - he used to point out the exact location of the incident to us, always adding "it was a field then." (It was a young wood in the 1960s, and now a school playing field). After a decade in the army, my father got into skiffle too, his cool style capturing my mother.

 

Anyway, back at Castle Aching .......

[Donw]

That photo could almost have been taken quite recently, although the verges may be a lot more scruffy now. The road surface is very smooth, even though it's not tarmac. You can almost imagine someone driving past in a modern car!

 

A lot of farm tracks even today are like that road.

 

Don

 

[TheQ]

Who said back too Aching, this character in this story http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/00/a4117600.shtml

was at school with my Dad !I some playground he had, though my Dad is a little younger.,

I went to the same school some years later. the Yanks had long gone home, all we found were a few machine gun belts with blank rounds.

 The site of the air field he look off from is just off of, my under construction model railway.

[Donw]

A fair number of old photos were hand coloured from mono originals, but they may well have held their colour better. I am afraid I don't have coloured photos to offer but there are some interesting ones - ones for the plastic rod and human hair modellers. Muriel in the top photo is my mother. The third photo is of her uncle Percy and his wife and baby in the side car. He and Marjory were motorcycle enthusiasts with Harley Davidsons and a Bristol-made Douglas figuring in their 1920s machines.

 

Elsie, Marjory, Phyllis & Muriel c1922.jpg

Phyllis Marjory & schoolfriends Hereford 1918.jpg

Percy Pritchard with wife & child on bikes.jpg

Marjory & Phyllis on Douglas motorcycle c1925.jpg

 

At the start of the fifties I rode in a bicycle sidecar before progressing to a seat on the back of my mother's bike while my sister occupied the sidecar. these were replace by a motorbike and sidecar in which both me a my sister rode. By the late fifties that had been replaced by a Car witness to both the general economic progress and advancement of my father's career.

Don

[K14]

...horse muck...

A rarely modelled feature, but all part of the picture even in genteel Dawlish (which appears to be closed in this photo):—

 

 

 

On the subject of 'working class' dress I give you these:—

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And in the middle-classes-having-a-nice-day-out category:—

 

 

 

 

 

Finally... some Urchins:—

 

 

 

Pete S.

[Edwardian]

A rarely modelled feature, but all part of the picture even in genteel Dawlish (which appears to be closed in this photo):—

 

CWA116 W3899 Dawlish from Station.jpg

 

CWA116 Crop.jpg

 

On the subject of 'working class' dress I give you these:—

 

CWA096 W7675 Fish Market, Barbican, Plymouth.jpg

 

CWA096 Crop_01.jpg

 

CWA096 Crop_02.jpg

 

CWA096 Crop_03.jpg

 

CWA028 W7674 Barbican Quay, Plymouth.jpg

 

CWA028 Crop.jpg

 

And in the middle-classes-having-a-nice-day-out category:—

 

CWA050 W5614 Tea Gardens, Cheddar.jpg

 

CWA050-Crop_01.jpg

 

CWA050-Crop_02.jpg

 

CWA050-Crop_03.jpg

 

Finally... some Urchins:—

 

CWA101 W2104 Crop.jpg

 

CWA132 Crop.jpg

 

Pete S.

 

Superb pictures, thank you.

 

The Barbican was a fascinating part of Plymouth.  Until the Luftwaffe arrived, that is.

[TheQ]

Those Workers style of dress is about how I remember my grandfather, tweed type jacket, white open collar shirt, sometimes a kerchief round his neck tucked in, flat cap heavy duty trousers and boots. no reflective jackets working on the track those days (He retired late 1960s). interestingly he would have been working on or near the junction to Tidworth which as I type is the next thread down...

Edited October 18, 2016 by TheQ