Setting the scene for several posts about The Jacobite.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the latest installment in this series of posts about my Scottish holiday. We have reached the Thursday, on which day my parents were scheduled to look at houses in the Fort William area (about two hours drive from where we were staying) and I was hoping that The Jacobite, a steam train journey from Fort William to Mallaig, an hour in Mallaig and then back, would be available as a way to fill my day.
THE PRELIMINARIES
The advance bookings for The Jacobite had closed, but tickets were available for purchase on the day. With this in mind we set forth from Ferry Cottage at about 7:30AM. Barring the very start of it I had never previously experienced the route between Glaick and Fort William before, and although the best pictures I got of it were on the way back having mentally noted potentially good possibilities on the way down, I did get a few pictures on this journey.
The white spots at the top of this hill are unmelted snow.
FORT WILLIAM STATION
We got to Fort William station just after 9:30, and an inquiry at the ticket office saw me pointed to a queue for the train. I joined this queue although I was not expecting success (I was assuming ill-fortune so that I could not be disappointed, only get a welcome bonus). However, as time passed and the queue moved forward with no-one being turned away I began to speculate on the possibilities. Then came the moment when I was the next person to be served and I thought that it would be seriously rough luck to miss out at that juncture. I was duly issued with a ticket and took my place in coach C. Lady Luck’s support had been limited – although I had a seat it was an aisle seat facing against the direction of travel, which meant that taking pictures of the journey would be a challenge.
The Jacobite, Fort William StationInside Coach CSlightly blurred, but proof that even from an aisle seat I could take pictures through the window.The ticketThe back of the ticket.
An account of the NAS West Norfolk day at the beach hut.
INTRODUCTION
I am taking a one-post break from my series about my holiday in Scotland to cover last Sunday’s NAS West Norfolk activities centred on the Mencap beach hut at Old Hunstanton which we had for the day.
GETTING THERE
Having checked on google maps to remind myself of the distance between Hunstanton and Old Hunstanton I decided to get the bus to Hunstanton and walk from there. Having a choice between Stagecoach and a local operator (Lynx) I naturally decided in favour of the local operator. This decision was rewarded with a fare that was less than I would have paid on Stagecoach:
For a sunny Sunday in June the traffic was quite light, and the bus reached Hunstanton pretty much on schedule. I then set off on the walk to Old Hunstanton. I have stated before on this blog that the shortest route is not always the best on my reckoning, and this was another situation where my chief criterion was not shortness. For reasons that I will not insult the intelligence of my readers by elucidating my sole criterion for choosing my route was to stay as near the sea as possible.
Old Hunstanton Beach. I initially failed to identify the correct beach hut, but after a few minutes scouting I was noticed by one of the others.
PRE-LUNCH – THE LIFEBOATS
Having got to know the beach hut some of us took the RNLI up on their kind offer of a tour as they explained about what they do, their boat and their hovercraft. This latter is one of only four in the whole country. The boat has to be towed into the water by tractor, and anyone familiar with north Norfolk beaches at low tide will therefore have little difficulty in understanding why the hovercraft which is an amphibious vehicle is sometimes necessary.
I took these first few pictures before the initial tour – the building was open and no one attempted to stop people from looking.
One of the bits of equipment the beach hut have – a wheelchair specially adapted for going to the beach (btw it did get used as we had someone who uses a wheelchair in our group).
Net at the beach hut
The beach hutIdentifying a lunch spot.
The first layer of a lifeboat person’s gear – this one is for warmththis wetsuit with built-in wellington boots goes on next to ensure that you don;t get absolutely soaked.
The ensemble is completed with a helmet that has a ;protective visor and a lifejacket with a few extras.
The cab of the tractor – it has two steering wheels and multiple openings.
This tractor has particularly large wheels – that is me standing next to one of them.
LUNCH
I went to the Ancient Mariner for lunch, and it was quite excellent. I also had an outside table, which meant opportunities for taking photos.
Cliff face viewed from Old Hunstanton beach
A pint of Adnams Ghostship – excellent for a sunny day in June
These are a subject of some controversy – personally I find this view, which shows humans at long last attempting to take care of their planet to be a lovely one.
Post 2 in my Scottish holiday series (there will be more later today). This post describes the journey there.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the second post in my series about my holidayin Scotland. This one focusses on the first day, when I travelled from King’s Lynn to Kyle of Lochalsh and then walked across the bridge to Isle of Skye, where I stayed the night at Saucy Mary’s Lodge.
THE FIRST LEG OF THE JOURNEY-
KING’S LYNN TO PETERBOROUGH
With my envisaged train for the next leg of the journey leaving Peterborough at 9:46 and the bus journey reckoned at 1 hour 20 minutes or thereabouts I decided that prudence dictated being on the 7:34 rather than the 8:04. The journey ran fairly smoothly and I arrived at Peterborough Train Station at just after nine o’clock.
PETERBOROUGH TO EDINBURGH
The 0:946 to Edinburgh Waverley, scheduled to get there at 13:20 arrived in time and was not absolutely packed, although it is clearly a popular service. I got a window seat in a designated quiet coach (both parts of which represent significant bonuses to me – the latter even more than the former). This was the start of the portion of the journey that is not so familiar to me, and also therefore represented the point at which the camera got pressed into service…
Taking photos through the windows of moving vehicles can be frustrating (and all bar a few taken when the train was at rest were taken thus)
On the approach to York, the first stop after Peterborough
At Darlington, one terminus of the world’s first passenger carrying railway, the Stockton & Darlington.
A first glimpse of the sea just north of Newcastle
Edinburgh Waverley
EDINBURGH TO INVERNESS
A slightly late arrival at Edinburgh meant that I had to move fairly fast to make the change to the train to Inverness. A combination of the fact that some idiot at Scotrail (part of Abellio, the profit-making subsidiary of the Dutch state railway company) had deemed three carriages sufficient for this train and the heat of the day made this leg of the journey like travelling in an oven on wheels. However, neither of these factors kept me from taking photographs…
INVERNESS TO KYLE OF LOCHALSH
Arriving at Inverness over half an hour late I then discovered that the train I had expected to catch to Kyle of Lochalsh was being replaced by a bus service. There were two different buses, and there was some confusion of who should go on which, but we set off at the appropriate time. I continued to ply my camera…
My first sight of the Skye Bridge, and a by then very welcome sign that the journey was nearly complete. When I first travelled this way in 1994 there was no bridge, just a regular ferry crossing.The approach to Kyle of Lochalsh, with Kyleakin visible in the distance.
THE WALK TO SKYE
It was still pretty hot even at 8:45PM as I began the walk to Saucy Mary’s, which according to my instructions was 2.5 miles. The reason for this is that the bridge to Skye actually starts a good half-mile beyond Kyle of Lochalsh, is itself a longish crossing and then on the other side one has to go back along the Skye shore to Kyleakin which is directly opposite Kyle of Lochalsh. I arrived at Saucy Mary’s thoroughly exhausted and went straight to reception. There I was greeted with news that I had been relocated from my dorm bed to a room normally used only by staff. The reason for this was that the people who had booked the other four beds had revealed at the 11th hour, having not mentioned it while booking, that they were travelling with two babies, and the manager had decided that it was unacceptable to put me in the dorm room in that circumstance (absolutely right, and thankyou very much).
The two manifestos to which I refer are those the Labour Party and the We Own It Campaign. In this post, which as a purely political post features text that alternates between red and green I will share links to some of the posts that the Labour Manifesto has already generated, and links to both manifestos and some of my own thoughts.
THE WE OWN IT MANIFESTO
This is a must-read document about public ownership. At the end of the document there is a link to click to enable you contact your candidates to ask them if they will support these measures – I have just done so. As a sampler, here is the section on Railways:
As a coda to the above I point out that most of our railways are in the hands of profit making arms of other countries state owned railways – the Dutch state owned railway by way of Abellio operates more track in this country than there is in the whole of the Netherlands.
THE LABOUR MANIFESTO
I recently shared the draft version of this manifesto with you, The final version was released yesterday, and is every bit as good as expected. The screenshot below shows the scope of the document. Please do read it in full – primary sources are always better than secondary, even on those occasions when the authors of the secondary sources don’t have axes to grind.
MORE ON THE LABOUR MANIFESTO
In this section I will share four links to posts concerned with the Labour Manifesto:
The Skwawkbox have produced a piecethat combines commenting on the Labour Manifesto with showing the sheer desperation of the Tory response to it. This post also has an excellent accompanying graphic, reproduced below:
I have no objection to tactical voting where such represents a chance to be rid of a Tory. In certain seats, notably Brighton Pavilion which they already hold and the Isle of Wight among others I would unhesitatingly call for a vote for the Greens, given that they have stepped aside in no fewer than 30 seats to improve Labour chances there and that I have a great deal of time for the Greens. In my own constituency of North West Norfolk there is only one way for any progressively minded person to vote – for Labour Candidate Jo Rust. Make sure you use your vote on June 8th.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Just a few photos to end this post:
Lot 1107 in James and Sons upcoming auction.1107-a – A Northern line train of 1956 stock.1107-b: The last two items in the album.Mama duck with her brood, the Gaywood River near Beulah Street.
Much of this post will be sharing finds from elsewhere, but there will also be some pictures of my own. I will be starting with politics, moving from there on to transport, then some science and finishing up with some stuff about autism. Other than in this introduction most of the text will be coloured, and links as usual will be in bold and underlined.
POLITICS
There is a particular reason why I am mixing red and green in this section and priveleging green by having it come first. The Greens have pulled out of a number of seats in the upcoming general election to make Labour’s task easier. These seats include at least one held by a current cabinet minister. I urge Labour to reciprocate by at the very least not fielding a candidate in Brighton Pavilion (the only seat currently held by the Greens), and preferably also by leaving a clear field for them on the Isle of Wight, and in a few other seats that the Greens are particularly targetting. In my own constituency of Northwest Norfolk Labour is the only party with a chance of unseating the Tory, and I will thankfully be able to vote Labour with a smile as they have very sensibly reselected the excellent Jo Rust as their candidate. My first two shares are both about Labour’s plans to deal with tax avoidance. The two pieces in question are:
I conclude this section with a reference to Labour’s manifesto, now in the public domain. I have read the document in full and urge you to do likewise by clicking here. As both an aperitif and a lead-in to the next section of this post I reproduce the transport section:
Having covered water creatures and the ancestors of air creatures we finish with land creatures, and the largest fossilized footprints ever discovered, with a diameter of 1.7 metres. These dinosaur footprints are located near Broome in northwestern Australia, a place I visited in 2006. The largest creatures living there these days are crocodiles which at an absolute peak might grow to a body length of six metres. The article is titled “World’s largest dinosaur footprints discovered in Western Australia” and accompanied by some good pictures, one of which I reproduce below.
The prints indicate enormous animals that were probably around 5.3 to 5.5 metres at the hip. Photograph: Damian Kelly/University of Queensland/EPA
AUTISM
I have several pieces to share in this section, starting with two from americanbadassadvocates as follows:
I finish this section with a link to piece from thesilentwaveblog. There is another very recent post from this same blog that will be featuring in the post I shall be producing for my birthday. As a clue I will tell you that due to the particular number it will be I am calling this birthday the “Douglas Adams Birthday”. Today’s link is to a post titled “Asperger’s / autism and microaggression” with the picture reproduced below:
PHOTOGRAPHS
Just a few photographs today, mostly of items going under the hammer at James and Sons next auction (full catalogue available here):
Lot 359 – five images.
Various cigarette card lots, all in the 1100s
A 2016 £2 coin, commemorating the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London, the first I had ever handled (taken just before I handed over as part of a bus fare).
A whistle-stop tour of some railway themed cigarette cards.
INTRODUCTION
This post is dedicated to the last of four lots that fell my way at James and Sons’ April auction (all exceedingly cheap – uncontested minimum bids in each case), lot 1186 which was a stout booklet of railway themed cigarette cards. This set dates from 1938.
PAGE BY PAGE THROUGH THE BOOK
I have organised these images showing pictures first and then the text on the reverse for each page, except for a couple where I forgot to photograph the text.
SOME CLOSE UPS
I also took some close ups of particular cards that caught my fancy.
CLOSE UP 1: LONDON UNDERGROUND STOCK
This prototype was not adopted on a large scale – the 1938 stock that came into service just after these cards were produced did not have the frontage that this stock did (I travelled on 1938 stock in my childhood, since the last specimens were only withdrawn from service in 1985, and even after that a few were used to run services on the Isle of Wight Railway). My estimate from the picture is that this particular train was somewhere near Southgate when it was photographed. There is a carriage of 1938 stock on display in the London Transport Museum, Covent Garden.
CLOSE UP 2: A LONDON UNDERGROUND SIGNAL ROOM
Even in 1938 most signals on London Underground were automatically triggered by trains, but there is human input as well…
CLOSE UP 3: TWO TRAINS IN ONE
The sheer quirkiness of this appealed to me:
CLOSE UP 4: THE FFESTINIOG RAILWAY
This relates to my previous post. You will notice that the spelling on the cards is ‘Festiniog’. This is a reflection of anti-Welsh prejudice at the time (the Ff beginning is a Welsh language formation). For the low-down on today’s Ffestiniog Railway please visit their website.
Showcasing some railway themed postcards I have recently acquired and unveiling a personalised roundel.
INTRODUCTION
Hello and welcome to this post which focuses on some postcards I have recently acquired very cheaply at auction.
THE RAILWAY POSTCARDS
I won two lots of railway postcards at James and Sons’ last auction. The first of these lots to end up in my possession was…
LOT 1015: FOUR BLACK AND WHITE CARDS
Three of these cards were of London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) locomotives while the fourth was of a railway station, tentatively identified in the catalogue as Ardley. Further research on my part revealed that the station is in point of fact Ardlui, a tiny dot on the map near the northern end of Loch Lomond. Here are some pictures of the cards:
While I was pleased to acquire these cards, especially at that price, the lot that meant most to me was…
LOT 1017 – TEN COLOUR CARDS
OF THE FFESTINIOG RAILWAY
These cards had a particular resonance because I have travelled on this railway many years ago. It is a very narrow (1 ft 11in) gauge heritage railway which runs to about 40 miles.
Here is a promotional video from the official website of the Ffestiniog Railway:
Before I show the postcards, here is a link to the Wikipedia page for the Ffestiniog Railway.
Now for those postcards, starting with the official image that everyone saw:
Now here are the pictures of these cards taken in my own home:
All ten postcards in one shot.Postcards 1-3Postcards 4-6Postcards 7-10Individual pictures of each postcard…
THE AUTISM ROUNDEL
This is based on an autistic spectrum symbol that I found out about courtesy of Laina at thesilentwaveblog (seethis post for more details). I was thinking about coming up with a suitable logo for my London transport themed website, and considered the possibility of using the rainbow infinity as the disk part of the famous London Underground roundel. If I decide to go with it, this is what my personalised roundel looks like:
A post for “Earth Day”, which argues that every day should be Earth Day. Read, enjoy and please share.
INTRODUCTION
Today is “Earth Day”, and it is all well and good to name it so, but the truth is that we should by now be capable of realising that every day should be considered to be Earth Day. This post is therefore dedicated to “Earth Day” but also to realising the inadequacy of “Earth Day”. There is a parallel here with the various “Autism Awareness” days, weeks and months (yes there is one of each) and their unfitness for purpose which I written about elsewhere. All of my own text in this post will be in green because it is about nature. Links where they appear will be in bold and underlined.
INTRODUCTION TO “EARTH DAY” COURTESY OF LIVESCIENCE.COM
Four days ago I came across this excellent post about the development of “Earth Day” on livescience.com. It is simply titled “Earth Day: Facts & History“, and it is an excellent read. The screenshot below will serve as an aperitif:
A MESSAGE FROM SWEDEN
Five days ago Annaput a post sharing a poster created by one of her friends under the title “Power listen to the voice of nature“. Anna’s message in that post is simple and compelling. Below is her friend’s poster which inspired it:
Poster by Margareta Arnedotter Jansson
A THUNDERCLAP
This one is for those of you who are on any of facebook, twitter and/ or tumblr. I have shared it before, and on its final day I do so once again. It is titled “Birds Join Bees this Earth Day“, and focuses on the damage pesticides are doing to pollinators.
A GCSE IN NATURAL HISTORY
I consider this to be an excellent idea. Once again this is something that I have shared previously, and with eleven days to go until the deadline on this petition I do so again, considering it perfect subject matter for “Earth Day”. Pleasesign and share if you are UK citizens and have not already done so – let’s use today to get this past 10,000 signatures!
THE NETHERLANDS STEAM AHEAD WITH TRAINS POWERED BY GREEN ENERGY
ALL trains in The Netherlands are now powered by wind generated (i.e renewable) electricity. For more and a video (also embedded below) please click here.
CYCLISTS NOW HAVE THEIR OWN VERSION OF THE ‘BECK MAP’
Since he gained permission from his employers to unveil it to a wider public in 1931 Henry C Beck’s schematic diagram of the London Underground network, known colloquially as the “Beck Map” has taken the world by storm and become the template for public transport maps across the globe. Now, in it’s home city a Beck style map has been produced for the benefits of cyclists. There is a detailed article about this on indy100.comfeaturing this map, which is reproduced below for your benefit:
EVERY DAY SHOULD BE EARTH DAY
We need to appreciate nature and the Earth every day of our lives. One day per year is most emphatically not enough. We also need to remember to very important things:
1. There is no “Planet B” at this moment – if we turn this planet into somewhere completely inhospitable to Homo sapiens we have nowhere else to go.
2. Following on from that first point we need to always bear in mind that we need Earth more than Earth needs us.
To finish this post, save for a few of my own photographs I turn again to Anna, and a piece of artwork I have shared before which she created based on comment that I made on one of her blog posts:
These pictures of items that will be going under the hammer on the 22nd,, 23rd and 24th of May at James and Sons.
I travelled on this railway in my childhood, too many years ago to mention.
This picture, reminding us of where we and everything else on earth comes from seems an appropriate one to end the post.
A post hung on a horse brass. This post enables you to follow the trail of the internet explorations that this item inspired me to carry out.
INTRODUCTION
I have recently been given this horse brass:
A combination of my knowledge of geography, the name of the railway company at the top of the brass and the fact that the locomotive depicted is a Great Western Railway one told me that this railway was located in the county of my birth – Gloucestershire. This was sufficient for me to look further…
THE DEAN FOREST RAILWAY TODAY
Today the Dean Forest Railway is a heritage railway, but through tickets valid on it can be bought on ordinary railways. They have a websitewhich looks very detailed to me.
It would seem that if you are based anywhere close to west Gloucestershire this railway can offer you an excellent day out.
MORE ABOUT THE
DEAN FOREST RAILWAY
There is a very detailed Wikipediaentry about this railway, which started its railway existence (it was a tramway before then) as the Severn and Wye Valley Railway in 1868, and entered its current phase of existence in 1971.
THE HORSE BRASS FULL GALLERY
Here are the photographs I have of this item, ending with a picture of it in its current place:
The whole thing.Close up of the title.Close up of the inscription on the locomotiveThe whole locomotive.In its new niche – my hot water tank is behind this door btw..
Politics and nature combine to form one YUGE blog post!
INTRODUCTION
In my part of the world there are local elections happening on May 4th, so I thought I would use some thoughts about them as the starting point for this blog. I will go on from that to sharing various interesting and important stuff, and of course there will be some of my own photographs.
LOCAL ELECTIONS
Although my polling card is safely in my possession I have yet to receive any communication from any of the candidates, and can therefore talk only in general terms. I will definitely be voting. Since I became of voting age more years ago than I care to reveal I have only once failed to vote in an election I was entitled to vote in, and that was in the first election for Norfolk Police Commissioner. I will not be voting for any right wing parties or individual candidates. After their massive betrayal of those who voted for them (myself one of them) in 2010 the Liberal Democrats have much ground to make up and at this moment the odds against me putting my cross in that particular box are of the “write your own ticket” variety. While it is possible that I will be impressed by someone standing as an Independent candidate it is not very likely. This leaves me looking at two options:
Labour – if the candidate is of the right type and not someone who will use their entire campaign to bash their party’s twice elected leader I may be induced to vote for them.
Green – this party stands for many of the things that I believe in, and I am not going to hold the entire party to account for a mistake made by one of its co-leaders (Jonathan Bartley endorsing “light it up blue”, which readers of this blog will realise is an absolute guarantee of an entry in my bad books). If they can find a candidate with the qualities shown by Sian Berryin her campaign for London Mayor and subsequently in her work as a Greater London Assembly member I will certainly by influenced in this direction.
I will probably be voting Green because I see the way forward as being in a red/green partnership, and I think the Green side of that partnership needs strengthening. Also, a Green vote has the merit of being a vote cast unequivocally in favour of Proportional Representation.
After this start it is time for some…
POLITICAL SHARING
I start with a piece by Richard Murphy titled “Time For a New Political Party?”, in which he looks at a suggestion originally made by Richard Dawkins in a piece in the New Statesman. While I would say that the launch of a new political party should be delayed until FPTP is replaced with PR (under FPTP the Tories have a built-in advantage that would only be strengthened by the addition of a new party) I believe that Professor Murphy is pretty well on the money with his suggestions about this new party. Please click on the screenshot below to access this post, and if so inclined add your voice to those commenting on it:
Next, from the Skwawkbox comes the most recent piece on the story I have dubbed Coynegate – the massive breaches of the Data Protection Act by right wing candidate for Unite general secretary Gerard Coyne. To read this story, titled “EXCLUSIVE: COYNE TELLS BBC HIS LABOUR DATA USE ‘CONCLUDED’. IT ISN’T.” please click on the image below:
My next link is to the homepage of the We Own It Campaign’s website. To find out for yourself what they are all about click on the screenshot below:
The focus, including my photographs is about to shift to Nature (note to my many fellow autistic bloggers although you do not feature in this post I have some of your finest stuff bookmarked for use in the very near future), and the turning point is a campaign against the large scale felling of trees in and around Sheffield. I have two links in connection with this. First, for the benefit of those of you who use social media, a Thunderclap, which you can boost by adding your own connections on facebook, twitter and tumblr. I link to it by way of the screenshot below:
The second link on this subject is to the page that lists all the campaigns in and around Sheffield that are now grouped under the umbrella of Sheffield Tree Action Groups (STAG). I link by way of a screenshot once again:
The last piece of shared content for today before moving towards my photographs comes to you from Sweden, and has a section to itself:
ANNA INTRODUCES EMMELINA
Anna is a Swedish blogger who needs to no further introduction to readers of this blog. As for Emmelina, that will have to wait for the moment. Yesterday Anna put up a post about a very curious little creature she had photographed on her door, which she called “Who’s This?”I thought that the little creature was a stick insect, but the reveal when it came today was far more interesting. It turns out that the creature is actually a moth that resembles a stick insect. Here is a link to the piece in which Anna reveals the identity of the creature. Finally, revealing the Emmelina part of the title, here is Wikipedia on Emmelina Monodactyla.
PHOTOGRAPHS
To end the post here are some of my own photographs…
The first bee I have caught on camera this year.
Using a derelict shop front to explain the importance of King John to King’s Lynn’s history is sensible. My main quibble with the new statue of him being…That is bad quality work, not that it is of a bad quality human (though he was certainly that, in spades).
The first ducklings of the year. I hope that some at least of them survive the marauding Herring Gulls (this is NOT a joke btw)
I have bagged a number of peacock butterflies of late, but these light coloured ones fly both faster and for a greater percentage of their lives, so for the third time today this is a first of the year.
