Drama in Dhaka and a Photographic Walk

A personal account of the opening day’s play in Dhaka, and a photographic walk concentrating on trees. Some interesting links at the end.

INTRODUCTION

As well as my view on the opening day’s play in Dhaka which I listened to earlier this morning this post contains details of a walk around King’s Lynn that I took after play had finished and some interesting links.

DRAMA IN DHAKA

A wonderful opening day in the second Test Match between Bangladesh and England in Dhaka has finished with England 50-3 in response to Bangladesh’s first innings 220. When Tamim Iqbal and Monimul Haque were speeding along at four an over Bangladesh seemed to be headed for much for than 220, but Tamim’s dismissal shortly after completing a sparkling century triggered a collapse from the high water mark of 171-1 to 220 all out, Moeen Ali picking up five cheap wickets. The loss of Cook (captaining the England test team for record equalling 54th time), Duckett (just starting his international career) and Ballance (who has not been batting long enough lately for anyone to see what kind of form he is in) meant that by the close Moeen Ali was batting, and with some assistance from the weather he and Joe Root managed to hang on.

In some ways this match has similarities with Old Trafford 1902, when a lightning century from Victor Trumper (who reached the landmark before lunch on the first day) gave Australia a strong start which was then hauled back. Australia had a brief mid innings revival on that occasion and reached 299. England lost early wickets but then two middle order batsman, Len Braund and Stanley Jackson steadied the ship, the latter reaching one of his five test hundreds (all scored against Australia in England), and England were a mere 37 behind. A magnificent second innings bowling performance from England saw Australia all out for 86, and when England in pursuit of their target of 124 reached 92-3 the game appeared to be done and dusted, but then England panicked and started losing wickets, Clem Hill took a spectacular catch along the way, and suddenly debutant Fred Tate found himself going out to bat at 116-9 – he snicked one four, survived two further deliveries and was then comprehensively bowled to give Australia victory by three runs. If this match is as close I will be delighted, and as I stated in an earlier post, I will be particularly delighted if said close result goes against England because I believe that a victory against top table opposition for Bangladesh will be good for cricket as a whole.

To finish this section, although Bangladesh are pretty new to international cricket, Dhaka under its old name of Dacca has a much longer connection to the game, being one of the few cities to have hosted home games for two different countries. Going back further still, Bransby Beauchamp Cooper who played for Australia in the first ever test match in 1877 was born in Dacca.

A WALK FEATURING TREES

I got the idea for doing a walk in which I focussed mainly on trees at this transitional time of year from Anna, who put this post up recently (I recommend that you check the comments as well!). This then is my version of a tree walk…

SETTING OUT

As this first set of pictures, taken from my outside space show I don’t have far to go to be able to see trees:

Heading across Baker Lane Car Park towards the Purfleet which I was then going to follow the Great Ouse provided these pictures:

A SOUPCON OF HISTORY AND ALONG THE RIVER

Since I wanted to be in that vicinity to photograph trees on the other side of the river anyway I took one non-tree related photograph before heading along the river, and this set of pictures actually features a second. This stretch ended with a brief diversion from the river front to skirt Bole Quay.

dscn6899 — The second non-tree related photo.

SKIRTING BOLE QUAY AND LEAVING THE RIVER

After skirting Bole Quay I briefly rejoined the river front, before leaving it by way of a path through Harding’s Pits.

HARDINGS PITS TO SEVEN SISTERS

From Hardings Pits I headed by way of the South Gate to Seven Sisters where I entered the parkland area.

THE PARKLAND

I headed from Seven Sisters to the Band Stand, and the from the Band Stand to St John’s Walk, which I followed until I left the parkland heading in the direction of the train station:

HOMEWARD BOUND

Even after leaving the parkland there were a few more photographs:

dscn6954 — Decorative brickwork above a pair of shops on Norfolk Street.

dscn6955 — The upstairs portion of the building that houses an imaging business – I have never used it, but you can get digital photos printed here among other things.

LINKS

My first is a little gem from travel vibes on twitter, introducing the word thalassophile (not all readers of this blog are on twitter, and this is a goodie).

First the definition: Thalassophile (n): Lover of the sea, ocean. Here are the real reasons for posting this, the accompanying pictures:

Next come two autism related links:

As NAS West Norfolk Branch Secretary I am delighted to publicise NAS’s latest campaign “Close the autism employment gap”.
My second concerns the Kevin Healey petition calling on Brentwood County High School to expel a gang of bullies who have been preying on an autistic student. Since I put up a link to this petition in a previous post details have emerged of a second shocking case of bullying at the same school. For more details, please click here. As a coda it is sadly abundantly clear from the comments that bullying has been a major problem at this establishment for a long time and that the head teacher in particular and other senior staff have been taking the ‘ostrich’ approach to the problem.

My next link is to a campaign to secure better working conditions for Uber drivers (and now is a particularly good time to pile on the pressure as Uber have just taken a hit in court). Click here for more details and to support the campaign.

I give the final word to Britain’s youngest MP, Mhairi Black, here hammering Concentrix – and managing to be very funny in the process:

2017 Photographic Wall Calendar

A sneak preview of the 2017 Photographic Wall Calendar.

INTRODUCTION

As some of you know I created photographic wall calendars last year. I recently mentioned that I was going to do again this year. This morning my inbox contained an offer from Vistaprint that was too good to refuse, so the calendars will be arriving with me some time around October 20th.

THE FRONT COVER

This time, there will be no borders, and no added text. It will surprise few who have followed this blog recently to find out that I have chosen an Inlandsbanan picture for the front cover…

The actual calendar will be much bigger than this of course.

THE MONTH PAGES

Here are the individual pages for each month…

feb — This picture was taken quite recently, but I decided that it looks wintry enough for February.

june — This picture is one of my Swedish ones, but not inappropriate for the month.

sep — This picture was taken on Heritage Open Day, which in King’s Lynn is always the second Sunday in September.

oct — Two pictures both from October 1st joined together.

dec — Another two pictures from very recently joined together for this purpose.

Musical Keys MKII

A brief account of the resumption of Musical Keys sessions for NAS West Norfolk.

INTRODUCTION

Yesterday saw the resumption of Musical Keys sessions for people with Autism in the King’s Lynn area. The sessions will now take place fortnightly at the Scout Hut on Beulah Street (youngsters 3PM to 4PM, older people 4PM to 5PM). The sessions are now being run by two new people, John and Kirsty.

FIRST SESSION BACK

The biggest change other than in personnel was the absence of i-pads – we were using real instruments, with the focus being on percussion…

You can see here five drums that need to lifted above ground level to be played, one box which you sit on to play, generating sound by hitting the front, a wooden instrument that like the drums needs to be lifted to be played and a second wooden instrument (partially concealed), which comes with its own striking implements.

Once we had made our selections it was time to start playing, initially to instructions.

The side of the drum I chose.

After a while I was introduced to a new instrument, a wooden frog with a hollow centre, which comes with a wooden striking instrument.

Later still I switched drums to one of the larger ones…

dscn5500 — With this larger drum I could position the frog in the centre and vary the sound according to whether I struck the frog or the drum.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the session. John said that if anyone indicated that they wanted a particular instrument to be available they would try to make it happen.

SOME NEW PHOTOS

With one exception these pictures are all from today, from walks at each end of the day…

dscn5493 — This poster was on display at the Scout Hut yesterday.

dscn5528 — These last three pictures are from this evening.

Side By Side

Some musings on the county championship (cricket), and an acknowledgement of King’s Lynn’s latest effort to advertise its heritage.

INTRODUCTION

I am posting about two unrelated matters, hence the title, which is borrowed from a series of Bridge Magazine articles written many years ago by Terence Reese. The firs topic of the day is…

CRICKET

As another English season draws to a close there are two topics to cover in this section, first of all…

A THREE WAY TUSSLE FOR THE COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP

Thanks to Somerset continuing their late charge with a 10 wicket victory over Yorkshire, and Lancashire earning a draw against leaders Middlesex the final round of games will commence with Middlesex, Somerset and Yorkshire in that order all in contention for the title. Owing to the fact that a decision to alter the structure of the two divisions has meant that there is only one promotion place up for grabs the second division is now settled, with Essex having secured the promotion.

In the final round of matches Middlesex will play Yorkshire at Lord’s, while Somerset face already relegated Nottinghamshire. While my chief emotion as a cricket fan is gratitude that the championship race is going down to the wire, I cannot claim complete impartiality – despite having grown up in London and possessing a Yorkshire surname, it is my support for the underdog that wins out in this contest – I will be rooting for Somerset. Somerset have never won the championship (Northamptonshire and Gloucestershire are also in this position, although the latter were named as champion county three times in the 1870s, before the official start of the county championship in 1890). Apart from being a historic first, a championship win for Somerset this year would also be a fitting reward for Marcus Trescothick as he approaches the end of a long and distinguished career with the county.

The change in the structure of the two divisions mentioned earlier, moving from nine teams in each to eight in first and ten in the second, is not the most significant one happening in English domestic cricket, that distinction going to…

THE INTRODUCTION OF CITY FRANCHISES

Yes, it has been decided by a vote of 16-3 in favour to augment the existing domestic T20 competition with an eight-team city based competition. I am not going to say either yea or nay at this stage, waiting to see how it works in practice before making a judgement. I mark the break between this section and the second section of the post with some recent photographs from King’s Lynn…

dscn5392 — This is the uncropped version of a butterfly picture

butterfly-close-up — And this is the cropped version.

A CODA TO HERITAGE OPEN DAY

Beales Department Store which is near thus bus station in King’s Lynn has recently closed down. Rather than leave the frontage as blank windows, it has been used as an opportunity to advertise our town’s heritage, as shown below…

dscn5258 — Save for the planning notice at the end, these pictures are presented in the order in which they were taken.

Heritage Open Day: Post Lunch

The conclusion of my series about Heritage Open Day.

INTRODUCTION

This post completes my account of this year’s Heritage Open Day in King’s Lynn.

A HOUSE, A CLUB AND A FERRY

On way out for my afternoon’s explorations I poked my head round the door of the Rathskellar, but decided not to go in. Queues and crowds notwithstanding I decided that my first port of call of the afternoon would be…

CLIFTON HOUSE

This house is the residence of the current head of English Heritage, and featured rooms open to the public on five different levels, and viewing area on yet a sixth (basement, ground floor, the four intermediate floors of the tower and the roof of the tower). The first part of the building that was opened up featured the cellar, the kitchen and a couple of rooms which could be viewed but not entered. I started by going down to the…

CELLAR

When the house was first built the cellar had been accessible direct from the river (which is now about 50 yards west of the house), and a system of ropes and pulleys was used to offload cargo…

dscn5200 — The first three pictures were taken en route to the cellar.

dscn5203 — Note the vaulted ceiling of the cellar.

dscn5204 — Three iron rings through which thick ropes could run enabled cargo to winched from boats into the cellar. I am not certain if all three are visible in this picture, but I tried to show them all.

After the cellar, it was time for the rest of that part of the building, and on towards the tower by way of…

THE KITCHEN

There were some very interesting things to be seen even though this had the feeling of being merely on the way to somewhere else, because of course what everyone was really interested in seeing was the tower.

dscn5205 — These canons were in a reception area just outside the kitchen.

dscn5206 — The remaining four photographs were all taken in the kitchen.

Apart from one last major queue because of limitations on the number of people being allowed in there at any one time (for obvious safety reasons) it was now time to venture the…

TOWER

There were interesting things to see on each level of the tower…

dscn5210 — These antique maps and the model of the house were on the first floor of the tower.

dscn5213 — One floor up was a room set up for a Jacobean supper.

dscn5216 — This room was a further floor up

dscn5227 — The ‘Prospect Room’ is one floor below the roof.

The views from the roof were amazing. Conscious of the number of other people who were waiting to savour the views I restricted myself to a few minutes taking the view from all angles, before heading back down.

dscn5223 — The Lower Purfleet from above

dscn5219 — The view focussing between St Nicholas Chapel and the docks.

dscn5224 — My humble abode viewed from the top of the Clifton House Tower.

Leaving Clifton House I headed for Ferry Lane, where I paid a call at the premises of

THE OUSE AMATEUR SAILING CLUB

This establishment, which has about 5o sailing members and somewhere around 500 ‘social’ members had opened its Ferry Bar to the public for the day. I consumed a pint of a splendid beer brewed in Lowestoft (just into Suffolk, but possibly close enough to count as local, especially as the other featured brewery is based in Southwold, a little further away). Having purchased my drink I took some photos inside…

I then went outside on to the balcony overlooking the Great Ouse, and took some photographs from this great vantage point…

It was at this point that my attention was caught by something downriver, which turned out to be…

THE ARRIVAL OF A FISHING BOAT

Given the role that fishing, and indeed the sea as a whole has played in the history of our town this was a particular splendid sight…

dscn5250 — Turning into the docks and therefore presenting a side-on view.

After finishing my pint I headed for the

FERRY

I finished my day by taking the special ‘Heritage Open Day’ trip on the ferry, which involves a small amount of travel along the river as well as across it. This was my first trip on the new ferries, which are equipped with caterpillar tracks for crossing the exposed mud at low tide. The King’s Lynn Ferry has been in operation for over 800 years.

dscn5255 — The other historic bus (my second post in the series featured the one put on by Towler’s), this one a routemaster.

Heritage Open Day: Towards Lunch

A continuation oof my personal Heritage Open Day 2016 story which takes it up to lunch.

INTRODUCTION

This is my second post about Heritage Open Day 2016. There will be one more covering my post lunch activities.

THE ATTRACTIONS

On leaving the London Road Methodist Chapel I walked through the parkland and past the train station to the edge of the bus station and the..

LYNN MUSEUM

I took advantage of the fact that it being Heritage Open Day admission was free to have a look round this establishment. The trip round the museum starts with…

SEAHENGE

This is a circle of standing timbers revealed by a particularly low tide (the North Sea coast has been progressively moving west since the end of the last period of glaciation some 10,000 years ago, and a lot of land from even historic times is now below the surface, including the well known fishing grounds now called Dogger Bank) and ever since taking its place in the museum has been the prime exhibit…

dscn5142 — This is one of two historic buses doing duty on the day, of interest because Towler’s are local, being based near Wisbech.

dscn5146 — There was too much reflection from this side!

dscn5152 — These last two pics are of a speculative model of Seahenge in it’s original surroundings.

The rest of the museum, although it plays second fiddle to Seahenge is by no means devoid of interest either…

dscn5161 — This sort of poster could do with being pressed back into service!

ichthyosaur — With apologies for the reflections, about which I could do nothing. This was a marine reptile and a contemporary of some dinosaurs but not a dinosaur itself.

After this museum I got an inside look at something I had witnessed being worked on from my own humble abode…

NEW BUILD ON BAKER LANE

This owes its presence on the Heritage Open Day roster to the fact that it is in a conservation area and therefore obliged to be in keeping with what is already there. The stairs by means of which my flat is accessed are directly across Baker Lane car park from this development. I was reasonably impressed by what I saw…

I next paid a brief call at the building on Queen Street (Baker Lane is a side street off Queen Street) where the Civic Society had set up shop, where my eye was caught by this tapestry map of Norfolk…

I saw three more places before breaking off for lunch…

ALMSHOUSES, A COLLEGE AND A SECRET GARDEN

The Victorian almshouses, which like the Baker Lane development are visible from my flat, allowed admission to the upstairs of the front of the building and to a courtyard..

The Great Hall at Thoresby College has something in common with Headingley cricket ground – looking up is better than looking down!

dscn5194 — This is why I recommend that visitors to the great hall at Thoresby College look up!

dscn5195 — This A3 sheet shows some of the attractions in and around King’s Lynn

The secret garden mentioned in the header of this section is behind Hampton Court, where my aunt lives. The land-facing wall is an old warehouse frontage which back in the day (14th century) abutted directly on to the river so that cargoes could be offloaded direct into the building. Later, when the river had assumed its current position, about 50 yards west of the old warehouse the site of what is now the garden was a waste dump. There is one original door, which used to provide access to Summerfeld & Thomas.

LUNCH

My aunt had laid out some food on her kitchen table, for which I was very grateful. It was very good food too.

Thoughts on Public Transport

Some jottings on public transport.

INTRODUCTION

This post arises from several issues: changes to the bus services in my region, and the way in which the company in question has handled those changes; a campaign that has recently come to my attention to restore rail links to Wisbech, and finally the fact that I have recently been in Sweden and thus privileged to see at first hand how a properly run public transport system works.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT SHOULD MEAN PUBLICLY OWNED TRANSPORT

The more I see of public transport (and as a 41 year old non-driver I see plenty) the more convinced I become that private companies should play no role in running it. Whether you consider the blatant failures such as the current situation involving Southern Rail, the high and increasing prices of tickets across the board or the frequency with public transport in Britain is affected by delays or suspensions of services, it is plain for all to see that private companies cannot do the job.

I regularly see people in Fakenham, where I work, who have missed a connection due to a late running bus. A missed connection means a loss of at least one hour, possibly more due to the infrequency of services.

A NOTE ON INTEGRATION

Those of you who are familiar with my London Transport themed website will have noticed that I am strong believer in integration of services, which is manifested on that site mainly by my suggestions for improvements to existing lines. Ideally all routes would be interconnected.

TWO CASE STUDIES

My first case study concerns…

STAGECOACH BETWEEN KING’S LYNN AND NORWICH

There have been two major changes on this route recently. Firstly, the service between Fakenham and Norwich has been halved (it is now hourly rather than half hourly), albeit with a couple of gaps in the service between Fakenham and King’s Lynn closed to make that a proper hourly service. The effect of the axing of half of the services between Fakenham and Norwich has been that for the first time standing passengers are a regular feature of that route. A week ago today the X8 designation vanished, the whole route now being referred to as X29. While there is a certain logic to taking this step, especially if it means that all Norwich-Fakenham buses go through to Lynn, the way in which it was handled earns Stagecoach a major black mark. Apart from messages on the screens at King’s Lynn bus station (the way I learned about it), this change was given no advance publicity, with the result that those passengers who do not use King’s Lynn bus station were caught on the hop, and even on Friday evening the sight on X29 to King’s Lynn was still capable of causing confusion with certain passengers.

THE TRAIN BETWEEN KING’S LYNN AND LONDON (WITH A SIDELIGHT ON PROPOSALS INVOLVING WISBECH)

The train service between London and King’s Lynn is hourly, and after a non-stop run to Cambridge it splits into two, with four coaches continuing north to King’s Lynn and four returning to King’s Cross. The necessity to be in the front four coaches if going beyond Cambridge can mean standing all the way to that station or even beyond (I have stood from London to Waterbeach at least once). I am aware that the restriction to four coaches beyond Cambridge is due to the shortness the platforms at some the intermediate stations, but there are least two possible solutions, and variations thereon:

In addition to the through services from London run regular (half hourly, or even quarter hourly) shuttle services between Cambridge and King’s Lynn). This (especially with the more frequent services) would mean that not everyone journeying between Cambridge and King’s Lynn or intermediate stations would need to board through trains at Cambridge – I for one would aim to make the return leg of a trip to Cambridge on one of the shuttles rather than a through service.
For points north of Cambridge have an interleaving of shuttle services as above with faster through services calling at only the stations with long platforms (Ely, Downham Market, King’s Lynn), so that services between London and King’s Lynn would consist of hourly through services, with changes at Cambridge, Ely or Downham Market as appropriate for intermediate stations) which would be augmented by shuttle services on the Cambridge-King’s Lynn section.

You will note that I have not even touched on the possibility of lengthening the platforms at Waterbeach, Littleport and Watlington so that eight carriage trains could call at those stations – I have merely mentioned the possibilities that do not require work on the existing infratsructure.

WISBECH RAIL LINKS

I found out about the campaign to bring the railways back to Wisbech via twitter. They have a website which gives considerable detail about their proposals. I conclude this post by aking use of one of more recent bargain basement acquisitions, this what Wisbech’s rail connections looked like in 1947…

Heritage Open Day 2016 – Starting the Day

My first post about Heritage Open Day 2016.

INTRODUCTION

It is now a well-established tradition that Heritage Open Day in King’s Lynn takes place on the second Sunday of September. I had already decided that I was going to concentrate this year on places I had not previously seen. You can see what I wrote about Heritage Open Day 2015 (and indeed the text relating to Heritage Open Day 2014 – the pictures have been deleted due to lack of storage space in my media library) by clicking here. Also, since the whole point of Heritage Open Day is usually inaccessible places are opened to the public the outsides of buildings do not feature very much. The series of posts about Heritage Open Day 2017 will be different again as I have volunteered to help out at one of the attractions.

WORKING OUT A PLAN OF CAMPAIGN

The weather on Saturday had been downright bad, so it was with relief that I looked out of my windows to see blue sky and bright sun. Leaving my flat at 9:30 (living in the heart of the town it is almost a case of leaving my flat and instantly being in the action I headed for the Tuesday Market Place where I picked up a brochure about the day, and took a photograph of one of the classic cars…

Having established that All Saints Church, a small establishment concealed from wider public knowledge by Hillington Square, was not opening up until 11:10 I set off to do other things until it opened (I was determined to see inside it, having photographed the outside a number of time). I was delighted to note that the Jewish Cemetery was open, and took a closer look at this little landmark that I previously viewed only through a locked gate.

THE JEWISH CEMETERY

This is a fascinating little place, and there was lots of information on display. This made an excellent first attraction of the day:

dscn5088 — Information first (pics 1-7), then some general pics)

Just across the road from the Jewish Cemetery is…

THE PUBLIC LIBRARY

There cannot be many people who are more familiar with the areas of this building that are open to the public on a regular basis than me, but I had not previously seen either the manager’s office or the turret room (home to the Stanley Collection, a gift from the 15th Earl of Derby). Unfortunately I was stopped from taking photographs, so I have no pictures of the latter collection, and only a few from the manager’s office.

dscn5102 — This was one way to make sure your books did not get stolen!

Passing through The Walks I spotted that the fountain had had some kind of bubble bath added to it…

My next port of call was South Quay, where there was a…

A ‘PILOTS’ BOAT

The pilots in question are responsible for ensuring that ships dock safely, and in the case of the team on this boat the area includes the Great Ouse from just north of Downham Market to the Wash and also the mouth of the Nene, the river which serves Peterborough. As part of their responsibility they position buoys to indicate dangerous areas (it takes about ten minutes to shift one of these buoys once it is in position because they are anchored into position by one ton blocks of iron. There was one such on display so we could see closer than usual what they look like.

dscn5107 — A rowing crew approaching the jetty.

dscn5199 — Marriott’s, viewed from the ramp down to the jetty, thriving as would be expected.

My next port of call was…

THE GUILDHALL OF ST GEORGE

This was both an opportunity to look closely at a historic landmark and an opportunity to have say in its future. They had three plans on show, and it was the third that I particularly approved of. I filled out the questionnaire that they were using to collect information. This looked like being a real consultation ( as opposed to for example ‘we are building a new road, where would you like it to go?’ or ‘we are building a new runway, which airport would you like to get it?’). Once you have seen the photos below and before reading on, why not see if you can guess which plan I liked best…

My preferred option of those on show was the third one. I hope that this building’s theatrical connection which stretches back six centuries will be maintained.

Walking through the Vancouver Quarter on my way to the next landmark I was pleased to spot a disused shop being put to good use…

Finally, it was time to visit…

ALL SAINTS CHURCH

This little church is reckoned to be the oldest in King’s Lynn, with parts of the current building dating back almost a thousand years. On the outside it is an attractive building, on the inside…

I finish this post with the last religious establishment I was to visit…

LONDON ROAD METHODIST CHAPEL

On the outside this is a smart but unspectacular brick fronted building. The inside of the building is very impressive…

dscn5135 — The view from the centre of the upstairs gallery.

James and Sons July Auction

An account of yesterday’s auction, complete with photos, a link to a book review and a (well-merited) swipe at Stagecoach.

INTRODUCTION

This is my account of the latest auction held by my employers, James and Sons, which took place yesterday at the Maid’s Head Hotel in Norwich.

THE JOURNEY IN

Stagecoach, who have subsumed Norfolk Green, have very recently and without anything approaching proper communication cut a large number of services. One casualty of this piece of axe wielding is the 6:10 AM from King’s Lynn to Fakenham, which used to become the 6:55 from Fakenham to Norwich, and would see me arrive at the venue around about 8am, as needed. Fortunately, having been alerted to the mayhem while at work on Tuesday I had the foresight to check the timetables posted at King’s Lynn Bus Station and was able to come up with a back-up plan – I bought a single ticket on the X1 to Dereham and Norwich which is run by First Eastern Counties, departing at 5:55am and was in Norwich at the appointed time. This single fare and the single fare back from Fakenham (having travelled from Norwich to Fakenham as a passenger in the company van) amounted to £10 between them (£6 and £4 respectively) instead of £5.50 for a Dayrider Plus, to say nothing of the uncertainty created by the ham-fisted way in which these cuts were made. Surely if significant cuts to services are to be made (and I consider cutting what was the first bus of the morning on a particular route to be significant on its own – and I also know that half of the services that used to run between Fakenham and Norwich have been axed) the announcement should be made long in advance of the cuts happening, and every bus travelling on an affected route should be well stocked with new timetables that accurately reflect the planned reduction in services. Also, especially given the parlous state of public transport services in Norfolk, I consider any cuts to be unacceptable in any case.

THE LAYOUT

With people arriving to view stuff not long after we had got there, there was not a lot of scope laying stuff out artistically, especially given how much of it there was, but a couple of areas were reasonably well done nevertheless…

DSCN8067 — Part of the toy display – inside that suitcase marked is lot 363 was a large collection of items of rolling stock.

Part of the toy display – inside that suitcase marked is lot 363 was a large collection of items of rolling stock.

DSCN8068 — A little cluttered, but at least the three smartest hats got due prominence.

THE SALE ITSELF

I am glad to be able to report that there were no IT issues at any stage of the sale. While the coins & tokens, some of the militaria and some of the ephemera sold well, the stamps did not go well, and the vinyls did less well than we would have liked.

Once the auction finished we picked out all the stuff that had sold to bidders not in the room, loaded the van up for the return journey and were able to head back. I was able to catch the 17:38 rather than have the dicey prospect of relying on the 18:35 not having been cut (if they can cut the first bus of the day, why not the last?). However, I was not yet at liberty to relax – there was still the matter of watering a few plants at Hampton Court, Nelson Street. Thus, it was almost exactly 14 hours after I had left my flat that my time was my own again.

MY ROLE AND LOT 450

There are two members of James and Sons staff who can manage the IT during the auction, so we swap duties during the day (auction days are the only time I regularly do front-line customer service). My colleague did an IT session between lots 200 and 300, at which point we had a scheduled break. I then did the first 75 lots after the break, before swapping for 100 lots or so, for a period when a few things I was interested in were coming up, before I then went back to IT duties until the end of the sale.

The first items that I was interested in were five sets of railway postcards, lots 391-5:

These as expected went beyond my possible price range. Next to command attention was lot 403, a book of views of Cambridge:

Again, to no great surprise this rapidly went beyond my price range.

The next items of interest were some antique maps, which I was fully aware I would not be able to afford but enjoyed seeing go under the hammer. This set the stage for the last lot to command my interest, and unlike any of the foregoing it was one that I was determined to get if at all possible. Lot 450, “The Bus We Loved: London’s Affair With the Routemaster”, was not an item that I as someone who runs a London transport themed website could happily countenance going elsewhere. There was a mini bidding war as someone else was also interested, but when I went to £10 that secured the item. For more about the book please visit my review of it that is on my website.

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS

Yesterday was a very demanding day, both physically and mentally. However, everything went fairly smoothly. Given the Stagecoach schemozzle referred to earlier, the travel element of the day was as good as I could have hoped for.

The Last Two Days

Images from the last couple of days at work and a mention of a future plan.

INTRODUCTION

A decision to attend an evening meeting in the fine city of Norwich yesterday somewhat limited my computer access then, hence I am sharing stuff from more than one day.

AUCTION IMAGES

Here are some images of auction lots taken over the last couple of days…

The first of nine images I took of lot 390

391-d — The specs of two supersonic aircraft – fans of Matthew Reilly will recognize the top one as the plane that replaces the destroyed Halicarnassus (Boeing 747) at the end of the Five Greatest Warriors.

392 — Another aviation book that warranted multiple images

392-e — Colour pics of the two supersonic aeroplanes.

Lot 393 – local interest as it is about one of Norfolk’s most famous families.

SOME NON-AUCTION WORK IMAGES

These images were required for use on Ebay…

COMING UP ON ASPIBLOG

On Wednesday I attended the AGM of the West Norfolk Disability Forum, courtesy of an invite that came from Councillor Squire by way of NAS West Norfolk branch chair Karan McKerrow. I hope to put up a post about this tomorrow but for the moment as an appetiser, here is a montage featuring the extraordinary upstairs window of King’s Lynn town hall…

	Karan on A Cornish Christmas 1: A Curat…
	GP on A Cornish Christmas 1: A Curat…
	Renegades Blown Away… on England Fightback Comes Too…
	The First Two Days i… on A Successful Auction
	Marizanne’s Mastercl… on From Victory to Rout in Two…