Thursday, 29 August 2013

Cyril Coltart RN

My Uncle Cyril was a very respected naval commander with years in the submarine service in both World Wars. Because I now find that the National Maritime Museum Greenwich has an album from him I have used Facebook to pull together many of the leads and I clip in this post below. Hopefully it will work for you. Buried in it is a photo of Uncle Cyril wildfowling in Iceland in 1941 from HMS Hecla!

Today is for Uncle Cyril: Cyril Coltart RN. Why? Because I wised up to http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/538848.html
 
and then found many internet references including http://royalnavymemories.co.uk/hms-glasgow-captains/comment-page-1/#comment-13558
 
(second Captain of HMS Glasgow in 1938. Dotted around our Military Matters album here and also the Railway Philately page are other links to him.
Like · · Unfollow Post · · Promote
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,

Sunday, 25 August 2013

Trust, Society and Religion


As I woke up. I was listening to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23825465 . This soon activated my brain as I completely disagree with his thesis. Sacks appears to say because we abandoned "religion" and thereby trust, societal collapse is all our fault. Effectively the original Genesis fall story. By contrast I largely blame the present situation on those very religious institutions. Examples from the personal and general. The biggest general failure has been religion's inability to deal with Science with many elements still wanting to believe in a crude creationism. A very specific failure throughout my life which continually impedes on us all is the "chosen race's" treatment of its neighbours and subjects in the "Holy Land". This does nothing to recommend religion to people of a sensitive disposition.

At a personal level ( I will spare you specifics but shout loud this is not a matter of "abuse"), more than once over  a forty year period I have felt specifically betrayed by Church of England power brokers. Matters of betrayals of confidence and bad process. However my personal gripes are as nothing compared with the very well publicised instances of sexual abuse. Sacks worries about lack of trust: clerical sexual abuse and then cover ups are the acid of that.  And to end: nothing new under the sun.


William Blake (1757–1827).  The Poetical Works.  1908.
Poetical Sketches
Prologue, intended for a Dramatic Piece of King Edward 
the Fourth
O FOR a voice like thunder, and a tongue
To drown the throat of war! When the senses
Are shaken, and the soul is driven to madness,
Who can stand? When the souls of the oppressèd
Fight in the troubled air that rages, who can stand?        5
When the whirlwind of fury comes from the
Throne of God, when the frowns of his countenance
Drive the nations together, who can stand?
When Sin claps his broad wings over the battle,
And sails rejoicing in the flood of Death;        10
When souls are torn to everlasting fire,
And fiends of Hell rejoice upon the slain,
O who can stand? O who hath causèd this?
O who can answer at the throne of God?
The Kings and Nobles of the Land have done it!        15
Hear it not, Heaven, thy Ministers have done it!




And sung by Loreena McKennitt / Douglas Campbell http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJF3Myn1FKw
Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Friday, 9 August 2013

Niall Cowley, bullying and Traditional Britain

There is a side of me (maybe the image https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=499190543488039&set=a.105313889542375.9337.100001912940850&type=1&theater) which is inherently a right wing old fashioned conservative man which means I should (and indeed sneakily have) liked http://www.traditionalbritain.org/
 
(It also has a Facebook page). However there is that phrase "still waters run deep". One simple thing puts me off Traditional Britain altogether (notwithstanding all my Unionist tendencies), the first image on their site says so much. All MEN looking gloomy and serious. Now if you check out https://twitter.com/niallcowley and remember him recently on BBC breakfast, he was pure 1916 Dublin intellectual but his cause anti cyber bullying has my vote 100%.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels:

Is this hubris?

In http://www.railstrategynorth.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Summary-document.pdf
 
and from the COHERENCE section:
"A more coherent and user-friendly network: a network with the visible coherence of the London Underground delivered over the North’s wide geography".

Surely we have been here before? What was Network North West? Who remembers that? Why was it binned? Why do I feel these reports repeat the same platitudes over and over again and the change achieved is not a function of their verbosity? Can you pull out the industry produced Future Rail North East which called for Leamside and Stillington re-openings twenty years ago? As for the opening sentence how realistic is it at all? What is the point of local rail in Chester having the same marketing makeover as in Berwick? Berwick shows in the summary's map when no local trains by Northern operators even serve the place. That is the extent of the knowledge of those who write these things.

And I lift from the Northumbria Rail Franchise lobby discussion on Facebook:

David Marshall
Rail North strategy out for consultation - a visionary approach for the future or a recreation of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway? It's a bit sniffy about reopenings like AB&T or Leamside!!!!!
Rail Strategy North
 
www.railstrategynorth.com
A long-term rail strategy for the north of EnglandWe want rail in the North to grow. The reason for this is simple: growing rail will support a growing economy. More than this, a growing rail network will help the North’s economy meet its full potential.Download the complete Long-Term Rail Strategy ...

  • Robert Forsythe Exactly as you say. I keyed Blyth into the text as a search and got one return mentioning the port!!!!. The North East is just not connected to this process and despite trying to hold a debate, I think this document shows how in the last three years the North East has failed to promote itself and will reap the result come the next franchise.
    Wednesday at 16:42 · Like · 1
  • Robert Forsythe page 72 I thought Middlesbrough going electric WAS part of the Northern hub plan, it does not look as if it has any schedule at all. I thought Northallerton Middlesbrough electric was the one concrete infrastructure gain that Northern Hub would deliver us.
    Wednesday at 16:49 · Like

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: ,

Thursday, 8 August 2013

Sublime in its awefulness

If you open  (successfully) http://www.librarything.com/catalog/RobertForsythe&deepsearch=Transport+Ticket+Society you will find an analysis of the 12 Transport Ticket Society books that I have. This might seem unaccountably boring but it is anything but. This morning a large white envelope came through the door. I have been a member of the TTS for years but this does not mean my finger is on the pulse of everything and in publishing their occasional books the TTS timeline can be fluid. What has just been achieved is the publication of the 2008 and 2010 presidential addresses. The latter by Matthew Davis is a very useful guide to contemporary credit card sized tickets used on the national British network.

The other that fell out of the envelope prompts my post title "Sublime in its awefulness". They say of war that it is an awful lot of frightened boredom and a few minutes or hours of active hell. In most wars, most of a population do their best to carry on. This naturally includes transport systems and Marco Moerland in his 2008 presidential address made it his task in 74 pages to look at the impact Hitlerism made on transport tickets. Wow. What a poignant and staggering result as step by step these little pieces of paper chart civilisation's disintegration and recovery. There is a definite political edge to the presentation with the author's view and therefore treatment that World War Two lasted from November 1918 to October 1989. I learnt that the Warsaw ghetto ran its own tramline, that Rotterdam had Nazi styled tram police and there are many examples showing the territorial aggrandisement of the Reich. A Stuttgart tramway map ticket is turned over to become a bullying piece of propaganda. Russian towns started having to issue German language tickets. Pen portraits of key personnel in the abuse and their transport impact are given.The impact of the chaos is shown even in Britain and in the immediate post war recovery and division of Europe. Many of the arrangements were quint-essentially ephemeral. The TTS is an organisation dedicated to ephemera and here in this volume is an apex of that dedication.

Guilty Tickets by Marco Moerland is published by The Transport Ticket Society. ISBN 978-0-903209-76-2. Priced £14.95 or 18 Euro.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,

Thursday, 13 June 2013

Wikimedia, Tyne & Wear, Charles De Lacy

We posted at the start of our time as Wikimedian in Residence with Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums and now near project's end, time for some reflection. The hard detail is all here. I should certainly mention my appreciation: to Daria and Jonathan at Wikimedia UK in London; to Carolyn, John, Ian, Alan, Anne, Emily and a good number more at Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums. I have been made very welcome. Naturally people might wish to know what have been highlights. I can safely say one was working with La Bonche. It has been a pleasure to help provide material in "virgin territory" on Wikipedia. Jimmy Forsyth (no relationships) and Foyboats are two varied articles. It has been very pleasing to help get people on board with Wikimedia. 21 new accounts at the last count.

There has been one quite late arrival which has gripped my imagination. Throughout the project it was clear that Warships built at Elswick attract an international response.What I had not expected though was the chance to develop linkages to a painter who had not hitherto featured on Wikipedia. His name is  Charles De Lacy. The Wikipedia result is here.

De Lacy attracts because he is one those Victorian/Edwardian artists increasingly being recognised. He is a SUNDERLAND lad, right from the centre of the brief. As things were unpacked we have been able to identify 13 De Lacy pieces hitherto not readily found which are in the Tyne Wear collections. As I write two are now on Wiki Commons and one will be shown.






To make sense of one particular item archives 450/1 I made up a table. It is beautifully bound but random compilation of Armstrong Whitworth launch ephemera from the turn of the 19th/20 centuries.


Index Name    Navy and name as in 450/1    Date of Launch    Artist    Note
673    Torpedo Boat Destroyer 673    1899 May 6th    None   
674    Torpedo Boat Destroyer 674    1899 June 28th    None   
ABDUL HAMID    Imperial Ottoman Cruiser    1903 Sept 25th     None   
ACHILLES    HMS Achilles    1905 June 17th    None   
ADVENTURE    HMS Adventure    1904 Sept 8th    B Woodrow   
AFRIDI    HMS Afridi    1907 May 8th    None   I think   
ALBANY    USN Albany    1899 Jan 14th    None   
AMETHYST    HMS Amethyst    1903 Nov 5th    B Woodrow   
ASAMA    HIJMS Asama    1898 March 22nd     J J Jelley   
ATTENTIVE    HMS Attentive    1904 Nov 22nd    B Woodrow   
BAHIA    Brazilean scout    1909 Jan 20th    Charles De Lacy    two images
CONSTITUCION    Chilean Battleship Constitucion    1903 Jan 12th    B Woodrow   
D CARLOS 1     Royal Portugese D Carlos 1    1898 May 5th    J J Jelley   
EIDSVOLD    Royal Norwegian Eidsvold    1900 June 14th    None   
ERTHOGROUL    HIM The Sultan of Turkey Yacht Erthogroul    1903 December 30th    B Woodrow   
HAI CHI    HICMS Hai Chi    1898 Jan 24    J J Jelley   
HAI TIEN    HICMS Hai Tien    1897 Nov 26    None   
HAMPSHIRE    HMS Hampshire    1903 Sept 24th    B Woodrow   
HATSUSE    HIJMS Hatsuze    1899 June 27th    J J Jelley   
IDZUMO    HIJMS Idzumo    1899 Sept 19th    J J Jelley   
INVINCIBLE    HMS Invincible    1907 April 13th    Charles De Lacy 1783 + 1907    two images
IWATE    HIJMS Iwate    1900 March 29th    J J Jelley   
JENERAL BAQUEDANO    Chilean Training Ship Jeneral Baquedano    1898 July 5th    J J Jelley   
JULY THE FOURTH    ????? July The Fourth    1898 July 4th    J J Jelley   
KASHIMA    HIJMS Kashima battleship    1905 March 22nd    B Woodrow   
LANCASTER    HMS Lancaster    1902 March 22nd    B Woodrow   
MINAS GERAES    Brazilean Battleship Minas Geraes    1908 September 10th    Charles De Lacy     two images  Discovery of Brazil and Minas Geraes
NORGE    Royal Norwegian Norge    1900 March 31st    Swainse and J J Jelley   
PARANA    Argentine gunboat Parana    1908 April 28th    Charles De Lacy   
ROSARIO    Argentine armoured gunboat Rosario    1908 July 28th    Charles De Lacy   
SEUGHUDLU    HIM The Sultan of Turkey State Barge    1903 Sept 25th     None   
SUPERB    HMS Superb    1907 Nov 7    Charles De Lacy    three images
TOKIWA    HIJMS Tokiwa    1898 July 6th    J J Jelley   
               
 and  there is item 696-7-5    Elswick 1911 and the Chao Ho  signed      Charles De Lacy    .


Loads of questions remain. Flesh to be put on  J J Jelley and B Woodrow. If you can help do react.

There is going to be a final wrap up event for Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums staff, volunteers. The official notice says "Wednesday 26 June, 2-3pm, Discovery Archives Education Room: Robert Forsythe - Looking forward: TWAM and Wikimedia This session brings to a close Robert's Wikimedian Residency. Robert will share with us his key findings, talk about the collections research which he has enabled and suggest next steps for TWAM and Wikimedia."
             
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,

Tuesday, 4 June 2013

Walk Northumberlandia

The Friends of Prudhoe Woods would like you to join us for an evening walk on Thu, 13 Jun at

“Northumberlandia, The Lady of the North”

We will meet at the car park of Prudhoe Waterworld at 5:45 pm and leave at 6pm. Please confirm your attendance by contacting

Paul Muto at 01661 831511 or

James Dobson at 01661 833895

Let us know whether you need transport or if you can provide transport. We aim to return to Prudhoe Waterworld by 9pm.

Northumberlandia is a stunning human landform sculpture of a reclining lady. Made of 1.5 million tonnes of rock, clay and soil, she is 100 feet high and a quarter of a mile long.
Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)