Wright writes.....

[Focalplane]

I am not too bothered as to how I am addressed as long as the addressee is polite and somewhat deferential to my age.  Surely I have earned some respect for living more than the 3 score years and ten?  So I too dislike the Mate word, after all, the person using the term is quite simply not, and is not going to be, my mate!

 

When in France the terminology is quite well defined.  There is a retirement home nearby and I find myself consciously addressing my neighbours using the appropriate terms.  If someone appears to be older than me, I say "Bonjour monsieur, madame" etc.  Sometimes I am surprised by someone who I obviously see as older than me, using "monsieur" when addressing me.  Then I remember that looks can deceive.  This is all normal in winter when only the local population is in residence.  Come summer and the visitors from Toulouse, Lyon and Paris find our outgoing friendliness quite perplexing!

 

I don't really think this is a particularly French way of life, more the difference between country living and city living.  I suppose if you said "Good morning" to a complete stranger on Piccadilly they would have you locked up!

 

The French also have a neat way of separating given name from family name.  The latter is often written in capitals.

[cctransuk]

 

The appalling substitution of "can I get" for "may I please have" or "I would like" also makes my blood boil ................

 

Ohhhh, don't !!

 

I *long* to hear a barman / waiter retort "You can get whatever you please, sir / madam - it you say 'Please'" !!!

 

Regards,

John Isherwood.

[robertcwp]

I'm not sure whether being addressed or referred to as "young man" is patronising or a compliment given I'm now well past the half-century.

[jukebox]

The rather more relaxed social mores of my native land mean that buddy, mate, et al. are all everyday, comfortable, and not frowned up ("Sir" and "Mister" being formalities generally reserved for courts and funeral directors).

 

What *does* raise my hackles are somewhat older members of the fairer sex, who often look like they could play the barmaid at the local theatre production, using "sweetie" and "dearie"... or "love", to a middle aged man they are a total stranger to.

 

The feeling is almost always never mutual.

[Clearwater]

In my black cab to the pub earlier tonight, the driver addressed me as "sir" throughout the journey...

[jrg1]

I really am impressed with the way LB has developed; the last photograph of the A1 at the head of an express appeals as the layout becomes a complete diorama for ideally showing off the trains and what the Eastern region steam railway was like in the fifties. 

[lee74clarke]

It is Mike!

 

I'm suitably admonished.

 

A better way of saying it would be I've lost only one since then...............

 

Thanks for all the comments about modes of address. If folk are happy being called all sorts of 'names' then they're right - there are more important things to worry about.

 

That said, I think I live in the past in some ways. At the senior school I attended all the boys were addressed by their surname. Occasionally, we'd address each other in that manner. Doesn't that seem strange now? Flogging was on the curriculum, which is even more strange today.

 

I once told a (new) senior master where he could go when he suggested at a staff meeting that it would be a good idea if pupils called us by our Christian names. My memory, on leaving the profession for good, was of him being 'eaten alive'! With regard to the use of the term Christian name, I refuse take the politically-correct view these days as to its (none) use. It's on my birth certificate, it was given to me on my christening and re-affirmed at my confirmation. Though I'm now an atheist, I still think it's appropriate; not that it's got anything to do with railway modelling.

 

New buildings 03.jpg

 

This has, though. In a rush of 'architectural' modelling, I've completed the second of the wooden dwellings. Though they hardly qualify as architecture (not even in the vernacular sense), this pair of single-storey wooden homes was at LB in 1958. There was another pair across the road, but we don't have space for those. At best, though the footprint sizes are correct, these are just guesswork. Access to the rear one was via a footpath behind the pair of semis (still to be built). Fencing still has to be completed.

 

The 2P on the MR/M&GNR is my renumbered/modified Hornby item, hauling modified RTR/weathered RTR stock. The O2/2 on the Up minerals is my modification of a Heljan O2/3.

 

New buildings 04.jpg

 

Seen from the lane from Witham on the Hill, an ex-works N2 scoots southwards light-engine after shopping at the Plant. This is a renumbered/detailed Airfix body for which I made a Comet chassis.

 

New buildings 05.jpg

 

Looking from the MR/M&GNER formation, the relationship of the cottages is clear. There is still much to do with regard to the gardens - little sheds, vegetables growing, washing lines, dustbins, another privy, etc - all done by guesswork because any inhabitants of the dwellings are now long-gone. Where they're sitting (not where they're sat!!!!!) has long been a shelf for visitors to place boxes on. Not now, and I've just been painting the signpost to go in the 'V' of the junction. The site for the pair of semis is clear. In 1958, neither one had a garage.

 

If nothing else (at least to me), this shot 'captures' the 'wide-open' aspect that the LB team has created. Here, you've got a 13-car express (loco by John Houlden, train modified/made by me) which doesn't fill the visible scene, doesn't go round 'daft' visible bends and, if we're in a jolly mood, can go at over a scale 90 mph. In less than 32 feet, with a width at the station area of over four and a half feet, would it 'work'? Probably not.

Good Morning Tony,

I guess I come from a generation where titles are not too critical, actually some of the titles I call the lads at work I couldn't even print. (type?)

However, one of our salesmen insists on calling everyone 'chap', I hate it, drives me mad.

But then, I do genuinely believe he is a fool.

Back to Bytham, those wooden bungalows look very good. I never knew the rear one was accessed via. a pathway behind the houses.

As far as I recall, my folks place and obviously the adjoining 'semi' were built by the Midland (or the M&GN?), would the wooden bungalows have been put up at the same time, by the same company? Not sure on that.

Got a feeling my Dad told me the man that lived in his place around '58/'59 was signalman in the M&GN box.

Anyway, all looking very good, can't wait to see Station Road finished.

 

Best Regards

Lee

[Clive Mortimore]

Good Morning everybody,

 

I must be just that slightly bit younger as I do not feel any resentment in how people address me as long as it is in a friendly manner with one exception. That is "Buddy". I use to work with a bully who addressed those who he was bullying as "Buddy" so when someone calls me Buddy or Bud it reminds me of him and his actions towards others and me.

 

Looking at the small wooden dwellings on the site of "Wright's Manor", I wonder what the occupants would thought that in a building about the size of their home now had a model of their home in it at the same location?  

Edited April 22, 2017 by Clive Mortimore

[Tony Wright]

Good Morning Tony,

I guess I come from a generation where titles are not too critical, actually some of the titles I call the lads at work I couldn't even print. (type?)

However, one of our salesmen insists on calling everyone 'chap', I hate it, drives me mad.

But then, I do genuinely believe he is a fool.

Back to Bytham, those wooden bungalows look very good. I never knew the rear one was accessed via. a pathway behind the houses.

As far as I recall, my folks place and obviously the adjoining 'semi' were built by the Midland (or the M&GN?), would the wooden bungalows have been put up at the same time, by the same company? Not sure on that.

Got a feeling my Dad told me the man that lived in his place around '58/'59 was signalman in the M&GN box.

Anyway, all looking very good, can't wait to see Station Road finished.

 

Best Regards

Lee

It's on the plan we've got Lee. It also states iron railings alongside the railway. The plan shows the footprint of the wooden dwellings. I've arranged for one to have a corrugated iron roof (RPM, I think is the term) because I spoke once to a relative of one of the inhabitants of the one nearer the railway. She stated that on a certain summer date in 1938 her great aunt told her that the metal roof clattered like mad as it was showered with cinders from the loco of the fastest train she'd ever seen pass by - MALLARD, no less! She was in the garden and just avoided being singed!

 

I'm sure the wooden dwellings were originally railway property. The pair we have no room for (just on the edge of the triangle, on Andrew Murphy's land) were built by the Midland Railway (because they were on its land). There's a picture of them in the Willoughby. The wooden buildings I've built were on GNR land, and pre-dated the 1911 quadrupling (hence the retaining wall). I've no idea when they were demolished, but some time after 1958. 

 

One thing I've got to 'plant', somewhat lugubriously, is a tree in one of the gardens where one of the inhabitants hanged himself!

[DavidB]

I was taken aback to be addressed as "chap" in a restaurant a year or so back.

 

Chris

 

That's very Oxfordshire - I'm 'chap' down at Didcot station and it was a frequent form of address at the Oxford O Gauge group in the 80s. Assuming it was a Bedfordshire restaurant, it sounds as if someone has finally plucked up the courage to cross the county line.

 

David

[Tony Wright]

Point of order Mr Wright - unless it was some form of medical emergency, it is likely that your "Christian" name was given on your birth certificate long before any christening. 

 

Frankly I don't give a damn since I was neither registered nor christened as Andy and I suspect that Tony is also not an "official name".

 

Edited to add:  which all sounds very academic until you end up in the bureaucracy of Europe, where I am registered in Germany as Andy, but registered in France under my "official name" of Andrew.  I am waiting for the day when the two systems link up and we get a "does not compute" message

Thanks Andy,

 

You're right, of course.

 

One of the problems of pedantry is the situation of being 'hoist by ones own petard', or words to that effect. I learned, not long ago, that a petard is a small grenade/bomb, so the term is quite violent. 

 

Whenever my full Christian name was used as a child, I knew I was in trouble - at home or at school. 

[The Johnster]

In my view a salesman will want to get on first name 'friendly' terms as quickly as possible because some customers may find it harder to haggle when it comes to the price.

 

I am well old enough to be a grumpy old man and I can grump with the best. However, I have no problem with being called mate, buddy, bud, chap, 'moosh' (a local thing) or whatever as long as the greeting is genuine. What bugs me enormously is a fake 'sir' because that's what they've been told to say.

 

Similarly a person shortening my name to 'Trev' as a means of getting round me will have the opposite effect. My real friends can call me whatever they like as long as they have a smile on their face. To me facial expression or body language count for a lot regardless of the words spoken.

 

 

 

My opinion about formality of address is in line with yours, Trevor; it is the intent of the greeting that counts and I have never been happy being called sir, as I am no better (or worse) than anyone else until I, or they, have proven it.  'Butt' is a common South Walian greeting, not as rude as it first appears because it is a contraction of Butty, an anglicised/Wenglish version of Bwtti, Welsh for mate in the workmate sense.

 

Wenglish is a constant delight if you live in these parts.  'Come from over by there to over by 'ere now just', 'alright, mam, now in a minute' makes perfect grammatical sense in Welsh, a language few of us speak but which lingers in this sort of folk memory.  Long may it survive!

 

You can't shorten John much, but I get a bit vexed when people lengthen it to Jonathan, which is not my name.  This happened a lot when I was an anklebiter for some reason.  My father, christened Harry, used to get similarly upset when he was called Henry or Harold.  My mum, Johanna, youngest of a family of 13(!) was for some reason never explained known to everybody as Nancy; it never bothered her!

 

I am also a skilled and practiced grumpy old man.  You have to have a backup hobby for when you aren't modelling...

Edited April 22, 2017 by The Johnster

[Mallard60022]

I was taken aback to be addressed as "chap" in a restaurant a year or so back.

 

Chris

Yes, 'chap' is a term I've heard up this way (36E) a few times. Occasionally used by the Constabulary, in a friendly way.

Phil

Edited April 22, 2017 by Mallard60022

[TrevorP1]

Recent posts have reminded me that my father would call male strangers 'Jack' as a friendly greeting, which puzzled me a lot as a toddler because I always wondered how he knew their name...

 

I have a friend from Buckinghamshire who uses 'chap' as a greeting. Closer friends are 'Will' or 'Willie' and I usually return his greeting in a like manner.

 

Now I'm remembering my Uncle John, who was actually Robert.

[Re6/6]

'Chap' is commonplace down here!

 

Regarding the response to people whom l don't know (or wish to know) that address me as John usually get reminded that they should address me as Mr... such is my old fashioned/pompous view of the correct method of address unless the person is a friend or at least known to me.   

 

When on the railway years ago we had a switchboard operator who wouldn't tolerate familiarity and would reprimand people who wished to be put through to 'Fred. Bill etc..up at the engineers' by responding "oh, you mean Mr So and So".. ....oh and he wore a bowler hat to and from work!

Edited April 22, 2017 by Re6/6

[Mallard60022]

Enough of this chaps. May I alert you to the latest Railways Remembered Archive Film Show from Bob Foxon? If you suggest not then I'm going to anyway and TW can see me after Assembly.

The current show is about the Flying Scotsman, Train and Locomotive and includes "much more". Items include GNR trains at Wood Green in 1896 and on to Deltics, IC125s and ECML Electrification. 

If you CBA to find out about this I can supply the information about dates and venues for this show. 

If I go it will be to Newark (Palace Theatre) on May 11th.

What's this got to do with this thread? I suspect it could be the subject matter?

Have a nice day y'all.

A. Bloke.

Edited April 22, 2017 by Mallard60022

[Dominion]

My Granddad, a Yorkshireman, often used to say "I don't care what you call me as long as it isn't late for dinner."  

As a child I thought "late for dinner" was a very strange way to refer to anyone, until I realised that his word play meant that at dinner time he would prefer to be notified promptly.  

I occaisionally use the phrase here in Canada, creating predictable bemusement.

Tom

[gr.king]

In Lancashire and Cheshire, John is Jack.

 

 

I thought that applied everywhere. It seems "standard" enough in North Lincolnshire anyway, and I assume it applied in Victorian East Anglia, from which my paternal grandfather hailed, since it was not considered at all unusual by any older members of my family. That does create a slight puzzle of course. The family tree shows several generations of oldest son of oldest son, with name alternation between John and Jack in each successive generation. Maybe that was just to give the family members half a chance of knowing who was who, but as any outsider would be free to call any of the Johns "Jack" , or to assume that the Jacks were really Johns, it must have been very confusing. There were three generations of Gertrudes too......

 

Gert, Gertie and Trudi, in case anybody is wondering.

Edited April 22, 2017 by gr.king

[glo41f]

I just love those pictures of LB with the recent building additions. It shows the railway in a landscape which is not usually an attribute of a 4mm layout. The new additions down Station Road show a marked contrast in greenery to the embankments where the "grass" seems a tad dead!  Perhaps time to be out with the magic grassing tool Mr W.

 

You must be delighted now that it is all coming together as you first envisaged. There now must be a large number of photo locations to try out. I particularly like the trains on the embankments as they equate to a view that we would have if we were walking up the road.

 

All in all a fantastic layout and one that will prove inspirational to us all.

 

Martin Long

Edited April 22, 2017 by glo41f

[The Stationmaster]

I was taken aback to be addressed as "chap" in a restaurant a year or so back.

 

Chris

 

That's very Oxfordshire - I'm 'chap' down at Didcot station and it was a frequent form of address at the Oxford O Gauge group in the 80s. Assuming it was a Bedfordshire restaurant, it sounds as if someone has finally plucked up the courage to cross the county line.

 

David

 

How peculiar.  I was born and bred in Oxfordshire (real Oxfordshire that is, albeit the southern end) and now live there again and have never come across that usage at all except i the context of reference to 'that chap' - never asa  form of address.

 

Didcot of course was in Berkshire and is a relatively recent addition to Oxfordshire (1 April 1974 in consequence of the 1972 Local Government Act) so in any case has a mainly Berkshire originating heritage although nowadays it's a very changed place from the town of even 40 years ago).  In that part of Berkshire and the area west of it towards the Vale of the White Horse 'chap' never seems to have been used to address folk although it was, as around here, used in reference to someone.  However west of Didcot, and definitely by Harwell - the next village down the road, but now almost contiguous - the common form of reference was frequently 'that old boy' which, I very quickly learned from the conversations of relatives living in the area, could be used to refer to any male over the age of about 14 or 15.  Thus for example what we, or others, might refer to as 'a gang of yobs' would be referred to in that area as 'those old boys' although in reality all them would probably still be in their teens and in fact it is still a term used by an uncle of mine who was brought up in the area around Wantage and was used frequently by a man from Harwell village who worked for him in the past.

 

Chap might possibly be north Oxfordshire judging by a comment about its use in Buckinghamshire but it very definitely isn't used round here and in my memory - which of course only stretches back something over 60+ years - never seems to have been, be it in everyday working situations, in pubs (my memories there only go back a bit over 50 years of course ), or in meeting folk in the street, and so on.

 

By the way Jack seems to have been a common form of address to someone christened John - my grandfather, born in the Vale of the White Horse proper, was known by many as Jack rather than as John.

[Tony Wright]

I just love those pictures of LB with the recent building additions. It shows the railway in a landscape which is not usually an attribute of a 4mm layout. The new additions down Station Road show a marked contrast in greenery to the embankments where the "grass" seems a tad dead!  Perhaps time to be out with the magic grassing tool Mr W.

 

You must be delighted now that it is all coming together as your first envisaged. There now must be a large number of photo locations to try out. I particularly like the trains on the embankments as they equate to a view that we would have if we were walking up the road.

 

All in all a fantastic layout and one that will prove inspirational to us all.

 

Martin Long

Thanks Martin,

 

The embankment grass has been down for seven years now, so it's probably faded a bit. Being on a (limestone) slope, it would never be as bright as grass on the level, though it could do with a bit of 'greening-up'. 

 

I think a major part of the appeal of modelling Little Bytham was the topography over quite a short distance. The main line railway formation is level (as it should be at the station) but it's higher than the general level at the north end and lower at the south. I've yet to exploit every photographic viewpoint, but I'll try. 

[Richard E]

The discussion of forms of address is interesting. I'm old enough to have gone through school being addressed by my surname, when I started work the Manager and his assistant were always addressed as Mr.

 

Nowadays it has moved to christian name and surname. However I find that the current 'breed' of younger people have little or no respect for older folk. Mind you I have for a long time been taken to be 5 to 10 younger than my birthday count so perhaps that has something to do with it. On my daily travels I have now found, after a spell of gout a couple of years ago (as a side effect of medicine I need to take and use of a stick) that carrying such a thing creates a lot more respect ....

[Atso]

Good evening everyone,

 

I hope that Tony (Mr Wright as I addressed him upon meeting him for the first time at Warley last year!) doesn't mind me sharing a couple of in progress photos again now at some 'mojo' has returned from a recent (very) low spell. 

 

 

Above is a D49 Hunt class variant. I've just done my initial fitting of the handrails but it looks like I need to do a little tweaking around the smokebox front. This variant of the D49 class used rotary cam operated Lentz poppet valves so I'll be doing some trimming and altering of the valve gear when I pluck up the courage! I don't know which member of the class this will be yet but hopefully the future owner will know this when I remember to ask them! I do know it needs to be painted in BR mixed traffic black however.

 

 

This one is one of the original Shire builds which I've just finished fettling and will be receiving its handrails in the next day or two. This one is for me and will become Lincolnshire as it was briefly allocated to Kings Cross between 1928-29; in my universe, it remained as a Kings Cross locomotive into the 1930s and will be seen on Pullman and semi-fast links - the only unknown at this point is whether I adopt the pre or post 1928 apple green livery.

 

Both models utilise 3D prints of my own design, Dapol Schools locomotive chassis, heavily modified M7 bogies and Dapol B17 tenders (shortly to have the bodies replaced with the earlier stepped group standard tender design). There are a couple of minor tweaks to the loco body dimensions but I personally feel that they are already starting to look the part.

Edited April 22, 2017 by Atso

[jjb1970]

I regularly attend meetings where people are addressed as "sir", "ma'am" or by surname when in session, and there is no desire to change it. That said, outside of that particular environment it is invariably Christian name terms.

[Clive Mortimore]

 

Good evening everyone,

 

I hope that Tony (Mr Wright as I addressed him upon meeting him for the first time at Warley last year!) doesn't mind me sharing a couple of in progress photos again now at some 'mojo' has returned from a recent (very) low spell. 

 

D49 Hunt Class.jpg

 

Above is a D49 Hunt class variant. I've just done my initial fitting of the handrails but it looks like I need to do a little tweaking around the smokebox front. This variant of the D49 class used rotary cam operated Lentz poppet valves so I'll be doing some trimming and altering of the valve gear when I pluck up the courage! I don't know which member of the class this will be yet but hopefully the future owner will know this when I remember to ask them! I do know it needs to be painted in BR mixed traffic black however.

 

D49 Shire Class.jpg

 

This one is one of the original Shire builds which I've just finished fettling and will be receiving its handrails in the next day or two. This one is for me and will become Lincolnshire as it was briefly allocated to Kings Cross between 1928-29; in my universe, it remained as a Kings Cross locomotive into the 1930s and will be seen on Pullman and semi-fast links - the only unknown at this point is whether I adopt the pre or post 1928 apple green livery.

 

Both models utilise 3D prints of my own design, Dapol Schools locomotive chassis, heavily modified M7 bogies and Dapol B17 tenders (shortly to have the bodies replaced with the earlier stepped group standard tender design). There are a couple of minor tweaks to the loco body dimensions but I personally feel that they are already starting to look the part.

 

Hi Steve

 

I was thinking "Why bother with 3D printing a D49 body?", until I got to "Dapol B17 tenders". I then had a second look , they are not 4mm models are they? Well done the bodies look very good.