Wright writes.....

[EHertsGER]

Please forgive my ignorance, Gavin,

 

I'm old enough to remember no one ever being christened Summer, or Sky, or Chardonnay, or Chantelle, or Brooklyn, or any other 'modern' names given to children these days. I think the most exotic name given to any of the bods I went to school with was Gregory (after the actor?), though I did once teach a Buddy (after the singer?), and a Tyrone (after the actor?). Teaching in Wolverhampton, great christian names like Spencer, Winston, Wellington, Horatio and Florence were not uncommon. 

 

I'm glad I was born when I was. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

That's all very well for you lot to pontificate about people and their names - I am surrounded by them over here...or should I say 'I am, like, erm, surrounded by them over here? Like, whateverrr...' 

[Tony Wright]

Coming from my neck of the woods, I would be asking "Tyrone - after the county?"

 

Sky is a very old name indeed - an abbreviation of the old Germanic 'Schuyler' (which I've seen rendered as 'Skylar', though only by Americans). Chantelle is almost as old but didn't often crop up in the UK (though it's worth noting that Chaucer, in his Nun's Priest's Tale, features Chanticleer, whose name is derived from the same source). Wellington as a forename is a surprisingly recent development - I'm struggling to find anyone bearing it before the 20th century.

 

Chardonnay and Brooklyn, though... not my cup of tea. 

 

(My mother once taught a girl called Dakota Armor. You'd wonder what on earth - or, indeed, if - her parents were thinking...)

 

Regards,

Gavin

 

P.S. I'm glad you were born when you were too - I am always immensely grateful when you share your reminiscences of ECML mainline steam, as it's a recollection of a firsthand experience I shall never have.

I hope these two are not readers of RMweb (they were shown to me in the register of a class taught in another school by a mate)............ It was not a wind-up; the register was one of the most important documents for a teacher to accurately record. 

 

Yoric Hunt and Dwayne Pipe. You couldn't make it up, could you? 

 

They'd be in their late '50s by now. Assuming they haven't murdered their parents and been incarcerated (though they's still be that age). 

Edited May 24, 2018 by Tony Wright

[Black Marlin]

I hope these two are not readers of RMweb (they were shown to me in the register of a class taught in another school by a mate)............ It was not a wind-up; the register was one of the most important documents for a teacher to accurately record. 

 

Yoric Hunt and Dwayne Pipe. You couldn't make it up, could you? 

 

They'd be in their late '50s by now. Assuming they haven't murdered their parents and been incarcerated (though they's still be that age). 

 

We need a 'gobsmacked' response icon...

[Northmoor]

Yoric Hunt and Dwayne Pipe. You couldn't make it up, could you? 

 

I suspect they never actually came to class, but were added to the register at the beginning of term, by some "miscreants"..........

 

At Uni lectures we would sign our names on an attendance sheet.  As this was Liverpool in the very early '90s, perhaps it's not surprising that J.Barnes and R.Whelan were apparently on my course.  There was even an I.Engine who attended a few lectures.

[Suddaby]

Please forgive my ignorance, Gavin,

 

I'm old enough to remember no one ever being christened Summer, or Sky, or Chardonnay, or Chantelle, or Brooklyn, or any other 'modern' names given to children these days. I think the most exotic name given to any of the bods I went to school with was Gregory (after the actor?), though I did once teach a Buddy (after the singer?), and a Tyrone (after the actor?). Teaching in Wolverhampton, great christian names like Spencer, Winston, Wellington, Horatio and Florence were not uncommon. 

 

I'm glad I was born when I was. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Hi Tony,

 

Jayne once taught a "Pebble", named after the baby in the Flintstones!!

 

Also on the subject of what people name their kids, when I was at college, I was in hall with Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway and Ian Fleming. I also worked with Colin Collins!! Finally another girl I worked with named her son Jack Daniel Surname, she wondered why we referred to him as Whiskey boy!

 

All the best to you both,

 

Kevin

Edited May 24, 2018 by Suddaby

[chris p bacon]

Without going too far off topic but for some amusement.  I help the local Athletic club run some schools cross country relays (as a timekeeper)  when processing the timesheets and putting names against race numbers, out of approx 60 boys, there were 14 named 'Connor' but the variations on the name were, Conah, Conor, Connor, Connar, Conner, Connah, Connagh and a solitary Konnah.  Of the 50 + girls there were barely 2 with the same name.

 

It reminded me of Harry Enfield and Kathy Burke as 'Wayne & Waynetta' when they talked of naming their child 'Spudulike' as they thought it was Exotic.

[Richard_A]

I can remember working in Ashburton in Derbyshire, where I saw a plumbers van, on which it had the name "Dwayne Pipe"

[Tony Wright]

I suspect they never actually came to class, but were added to the register at the beginning of term, by some "miscreants"..........

 

At Uni lectures we would sign our names on an attendance sheet.  As this was Liverpool in the very early '90s, perhaps it's not surprising that J.Barnes and R.Whelan were apparently on my course.  There was even an I.Engine who attended a few lectures.

I assure you that they were in the register, in their correct alphabetical place. 

 

At the beginning of each term I would write down the names of all my class in the register (in alphabetical order), then call out each name at the beginning of every day. How would 'miscreants' add names? The pupils never had access to the register. When I began teaching (in Birkenhead, in 1970) I was told that failure to keep an accurate class register (in every way) would result in (strict) disciplinary action. The school secretary collated the registers every Friday and the weekly attendances were sent to the LEA offices. 

 

Just across the Mersey, 20 years before, things were obviously different from the way they were in the 'Pool, as they were in Wolverhampton in 1974. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Edited May 25, 2018 by Tony Wright

[Tony Wright]

Hi Tony,

 

Jayne once taught a "Pebble", named after the baby in the Flintstones!!

 

Also on the subject of what people name their kids, when I was at college, I was in hall with Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway and Ian Fleming. I also worked with Colin Collins!! Finally another girl I worked with named her son Jack Daniel Surname, she wondered why we referred to him as Whiskey boy!

 

All the best to you both,

 

Kevin

Thanks Kevin,

 

I trained with a bloke whose christian names were Christopher Robin. Apparently his parents liked the names but wouldn't transpose them because 'RC', when pronounced, was rather unflattering. 

 

Still, not as bad as parents whose surname is Hunt who christen their son Michael. 

 

Thanks to all for their amusing comments on names. 'Daft' names, in some cases, are common on ECML locomotives, so they are apposite. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

Edited May 25, 2018 by Tony Wright

[Tony Wright]

I can remember working in Ashburton in Derbyshire, where I saw a plumbers van, on which it had the name "Dwayne Pipe"

So that's where he ended up.

[Enterprisingwestern]

I assume you didn't call out Yoric Hunt out too loudly, and ensured you pronounced it with phonetic perfection.

 

Mike.

[Tony Teague]

A late addition on the topic of names - whilst travelling in New England a few years ago, my wife and I picked up and estate agent's brochure to browse. There was a picture inside of a particularly attractive agent whose name was Stormy Bulloch.

 

It seems she is still in practice: https://www.century21.com/real-estate/stormy-bulloch/P10272240/

 

Tony

[Tony Wright]

I assume you didn't call out Yoric Hunt out too loudly, and ensured you pronounced it with phonetic perfection.

 

Mike.

I never had to, Mike,

 

As I said, his name appeared in a class register shown to me by a mate who taught in another comprehensive school. I assure you, it was true. 

 

Anyway, as we fast-approach 1,000 pages on Wright Writes, let's hope the 'big moment' has pictures and notes about model railways, rather than peculiar names. 

 

I've got two friends visiting today, so I hope they bring something for me to photograph. One of them was an operator on the late John Webb's stunning depiction in EM of Ambergate. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure what happened to this masterpiece, though I heard it was being converted to P4. 

 

I think it's the range of models shown on Wright Writes (certainly not just by me) which makes this thread so interesting to me. It's not just about what I do, and not just what I've made (heck, I couldn't get near this standard), but a whole raft of top-drawer model-making done by others - personally.  

[Enterprisingwestern]

Could be worse.

 

 

Mike.

[Black Marlin]

Anyway, as we fast-approach 1,000 pages on Wright Writes, let's hope the 'big moment' has pictures and notes about model railways, rather than peculiar names. 

By way of penance...

 

 

An empty loco coal train, destined therefore for the Up Slow line (i.e. heading north) on Girtby Sea (although it is here viewed on my previous layout, Starlingford). I sometimes forget that while loaded mineral trains look excellent, a balanced working requires empty wagons to head in the opposite direction!

Edited May 25, 2018 by Black Marlin

[copleyhill007]

Congrats on 999 pages, Tony!!

[Bucoops]

I hope Tony will excuse the copying of one of his own photos as a celebratory picture

 

 

From page 200 as it happens so another milestone!

[Tony Wright]

By way of penance...

 

J39 Loco Coal.JPG

 

An empty loco coal train, destined therefore for the Up Slow line (i.e. heading north) on Girtby Sea (although it is here viewed on my previous layout, Starlingford). I sometimes forget that while loaded mineral trains look excellent, a balanced working requires empty wagons to head in the opposite direction!

Thanks Gavin,

 

Balanced workings like these?

 

 

 

Since I took these pictures, any unlettered/numbered wagons now have their correct brandings. Both are around 45-wagons long (the empties should be longer?). 

 

I believe that the full train would have originated from the Notts pits and the empties are returning there (via the junction at Grantham). Any coal from the Yorks pits would probably have gone down the Joint Line, either to the GE via Cambridge or the GN via Peterborough. 

 

I must admit that in my trainspotting days, other than taking the locos' numbers, I paid trains like these little attention. At Retford, they were an irritation inasmuch as they interrupted traffic on the main line over the flat crossing, and at Chester on the CLC/GC they were really of little interest (even though I could see them from my bedroom window). Though scores of the types of locos which hauled them are underlined in my rotting Ian Allan abcs, I really have no real recollection of them individually - other than a gleaming O4/7 heading for Dee Marsh Sidings through Blacon (near Chester). The working wasn't unusual, but a clean O4 certainly was. It must have just come out of Gorton.

 

Happy days indeed. 

[APOLLO]

 

Now what loco will we see on page 1000 ?

 

Congratulations and thanks to Tony and all contributors to this very interesting thread.

 

Brit15

[sandra]

Tony,

 

Ambergate was certainly a superb layout, I remember seeing it at St Albans where it looked truly impressive. However it was also very large and due to the triangular layout of the station, an odd shape.

 

The story I have heard is that it was put for sale on ebay and sold for £250. However it was bought and has been converted to P4 and now lives in its own purpose-built room. There are photographs of it on the Scalefour forum.

 

It does rather highlight the problem of disposing of large layouts once they are no longer wanted for very few people would have the room for a layout such as Ambergate or the funds to build a home for it.

 

Sandra

[Black Marlin]

I must admit that in my trainspotting days, other than taking the locos' numbers, I paid trains like these little attention.

 

I find that interesting, because it chimes a little with my 'tastes' in research. When I was younger, nothing but the gleaming expresses would do. Now, though? Give me goods or freight any day of the week. The variety of rolling stock, the condition of the vehicles, the loads themselves all intrigue me far more than the more uniform passenger services. 

 

Is that a heresy on LB?

[jamie92208]

In anticipation of the Millennium here's a photo that Sir took on my last layout "Long Preston" I used to use it as the last slide in a talk about the Midland's West Riding Lines that neve got built and illustrated what might have been at Oakenshaw if they'd been built.

As an aside re the previous post, that rather large layout mainly got broken up, however the station area is on permanent display in the village hall at Long Preston and apparently the WI insist on having the curtains drawn back and the lights on when they have their meetings.

 

Jamie

 

PS the page number is rather appropriate as the loco 999 was a regular through the village en route to and from Carlisle.

Edited May 25, 2018 by jamie92208

[Bucoops]

I hope Tony will excuse the copying of one of his own photos as a celebratory picture

 

post-18225-0-93016400-1434226469.jpg

 

From page 200 as it happens so another milestone!

 

D'oh I got so excited to find the picture I got the post ready but didn't actually intend to post it yet! 

[t-b-g]

I was talking to the gentleman who has Ambergate now at a recent exhibition. 

 

It is P4, has been brought forward in period (I can't remember if it is now an LMS or BR layout) and is set up in a new permanent home.

 

There was an article on the conversion to P4 in the MRJ, which described how the existing trackwork was altered from EM to P4 by easing the rails outwards on their soldered joints. Quite an accomplishment with those double junctions.  

Edited May 25, 2018 by t-b-g

[Black Marlin]

For those of you keen to keep an eye on 'Wright Writes's Milometer', post #24975 will be the last on page 999.