Timber Movers & Shakers

Based at what was once RAF Rednal is North Shropshire Timber, the yard of which is stacked with sawn timber and virtually whole oak trees, and home to a variety of workhorses. Atop a container is a long wheelbase Land Rover, in need of some recommissioning.

In common use though is an AEC Matador artillery tractor. The Associated Equipment Company's Matador, with an ash-framed cab, was built from 1932 as a two-wheel drive civilian truck, and gained four wheel drive during WWII - known as the Mat.

AEC produced a six wheel drive version that was also known as the Matador, but officially designated the Marshall. This was developed into the Militant (above), available in both 6x4 and 6x6 variants, a vehicle still in use by the military in the 1990s.

A set of wheels has a suggestion of traction engine about it. Only slightly more complete is a Douglas truck, possibly one of their AEC Matador-based load-movers. Douglas, now part of Dennis, still makes specialised tugs, very many of which are seen at airports and docks.

Farmer Phil's - Tanks on the Lawn

Held each year since 1998 at Ratlinghope (pronounced "Ratchup"), 15 miles south of Shrewsbury, is Farmer Phil's Festival. The festival attracts about 3,000 people, some of whom arrive in style. Above is a 1964 Bedford CA Dormobile Romany.

Up a notch scale-wise is a 1953 ex-MOD Austin K9 tipper, towing a vintage caravan. Farmer Phil Harding wins out though, with a 55 ton Chieftain main battle tank.

Altogether more ethereal is the display of inflatable kites. The larger of these - the newt is a good 25 feet long - are hoisted into the air with the assistance of a lifter kite.

On a windy day the kites demand tethering using rope rated to 1,000 pounds - the sort of thing used to land giant tuna or marlin.

Ekco - Rounds Three & Four

Taking full advantage of the plastic properties of Bakelite, Ekco introduced in 1934 the first round radio, the AD65. The cabinet of this was largely designed (two years earlier) by the ex-patriate Canadian architect Wells Coates, famous for his Isokon building, Hampstead - the Lawn Road Flats in which lived Agatha Christie. Coates was interested in circular motifs, at the time to the fore in the drum-shaped London Underground stations of Charles Holden, best seen in Arnos Grove and Southgate, on the Piccadilly Line.

Over the next eleven years, Ekco brought out another four round designs. The AC76 (left) was released in 1935, and sold for eleven guineas. A black and chromium version was £12.1s.6d. An AC/DC version was available as the AD76, and a wooden stand, rather like a stool, could be bought for £0.29s.6d.

The AD75 (right) was released in January 1940, its rather plainer design and smaller diameter, 14 instead of 15½ inches, a reflection perhaps of wartime economies. It sold for seven guineas. The set was re-released in October 1946, now four guineas more, and can be distinguished from the 1940 version pictured by an on/off switch to the side of the cabinet.

Note: Ekco's ADs ran on both alternating and direct current, whilst their ACs ran on alternating current only.

Cley (No More) Next the Sea

Cley Mill, a tower windmill, was built about 1819. It consists of five storeys, the sails originally powering two pairs of stones, increased to three pairs by 1876.

The mill was converted to residential use, as a holiday home, in 1921, when the machinery was removed and the sails and cap immobilised. The brake and crown wheels were cut in half and used as door arches, their morticed teeth still very much in evidence.

The sails were replaced in 1960, and a new fantail was fitted in 1987. The mill has been run as a bed and breakfast since 1983, the granary and outhouses providing additional accommodation.

When built, the mill was next to the village's quay, but the port silted up in the nineteenth century. The beach is a 15 minute walk away. Even so, the mill flooded to a depth of eight feet when north Norfolk was inundated by the great sea flood of 1953.

Amidst the marshes is an Allan-Williams Turret, a pre-fabricated steel defence installation of WWII. This housed a crew of two and a light machine gun, and could be rotated through 360°. The design was not favoured by the army, and only 199 were built, most upon airfields.

Taking the Chiltern Hundreds

Watlington lies close to the ancient Icknield Way, and was likely in settlement from the sixth century. The little town was famous in the nineteenth century for the large number of its inns. Methodist George Wilkinson alone bought up and closed six, in a religiously-inspired effort to limit human enjoyment.

The Watlington and Princes Risborough Railway opened in 1872, but closed to passengers in 1957. The Chinnor and Princes Risborough Railway preserves that section of the line between those two places, which ran until 1989 to carry cement.

Historical note: MPs are not allowed to resign from the House of Commons. Persons appointed to Crown offices of profit may not be MPs. Thus, a legal fiction provides a get-out, in that MPs wishing to resign are appointed to such a post, for as little as part of a day. The two offices currently employed for this purpose are the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham, and the same of the Manor of Northstead.

Anything That Goes Car Show

Hosted annually by the Whitchurch Motor Club, and held at the Blue Bell Inn, Tushingham, near Whitchurch, the Anything That Goes Car Show this year attracted over 120 vehicles.

Naturally, given the nature of the club, a member of the Motor Sports Association, very many of the cars are campaigned, and there were, thus, a good number of Ford Escorts on show (top).

Seen far less often is the Simca 1000 Rallye (second photo) and the Hillman Avenger Tiger Mk2 of 1972, in Sundance yellow, a real Ford Escort Mexico killer.

Most brutal was a MG Metro 6R4 (six cylinders, rally car, four wheel drive), introduced in 1984. The works car produced an immense 410 bhp. Group B rally cars were banned at the end of 1986. The 6R4 moved into rally-cross, turbo-charged to a mad 600 to 700 bhp.

A great variety of non-racing machinery was also on display, including an early Ford Mustang (above) and a Ford Lincoln Mercury Monterey Marquis, a car that somehow manages to be a block longer than its name.

Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share,

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.

Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbad: nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.

Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, --

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn;

'There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high.
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

'Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

'One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

'The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne,-
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.'

The Epitaph

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God.

Thomas Gray, 1751, Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard

The Sport of Queens

The grandstand at Ascot, which accommodates 30,000 when full, was built between 2004 and 2006 to a design by Populous, an architectural practice that specialises in large sports venues. 1,600 feet long, the elegant steel, concrete and glass building has a shallow-arched parabolic form, with six tiers of corporate boxes to one side and a semi-open 'atrium' to the other.

The £185 million redevelopment was very heavily geared to corporate entertaining, and criticised by some for failing to provide raised viewing for everyday punters, the course itself being elevated above the lawns that lie in front of the grandstand. Accordingly, a  further £10 million was spent in late 2006 to re-profile the external concrete terraces, not entirely successfully.

A Load of Old Horlicks

Horlicks, makers of the eponymous malted barley and milk drink, was founded in Chicago in 1873 by brothers William and James Horlick, originally from Ruardean, Gloucestershire. In 1890 James returned to the UK and commenced importation of the product. A UK factory, above, was built in Slough between 1906 and 1908. In 1945, the American company was acquired by its British cousin, itself bought in 1969 by the Beecham Group, now a part of GlaxoSmithKline.

Manchester - Mad For It

Although Manchester has its roots in Roman times, when a fort was established near the junction of the River Irwell and the River Medlock - above, from Oxford Street - it owes its dominant feel to swift urbanisation in the early 19th century. A textile manufacturing boom led to the building of a great many factories that saw Manchester become the world's first industrial city, which status was granted in 1853.

The factories, small and large, were built of a dark red brick, often ornamented with terra-cotta detailing. Many of these have been cleared, or converted into loft apartments, but the seemier side of the city is just around the corner. Soap Street, above, is in the heart of the Northern Quarter.

Close to the Arndale Centre, of the 1970s, are a number of commercial premises that, whilst they might look like something straight out of a Dickensian portrait of the industrial city, are very much in business today, such as the office furniture store on Withy Grove, and a comic emporium that could be of New York.

Friedrich Engels lived in Manchester for two years from 1842, writing The Condition of the Working-Class in England. Vibrant and in parts exceedingly affluent, the city streets are yet home to many who have nowhere else to go. Engels would assuredly recognise as of Manchester scenes such as that under the railway arches near Charles Street, below.

Manchester's layout is largely dictated by its railways, rivers and canals. The Rochdale Canal runs dark under later buildings carried upon stilts, hard by the Piccadilly Basin. Numerous police notices read: "It is an offence for any person to engage in public acts of lewd, obscene or sexual behaviour. Anyone found committing any such act could be arrested and prosecuted." Manchester - all human life is here.

Completely Jiggered

Brownhills, near Cannock Chase in the West Midlands, quickly grew in the mid-19th century from a village of just 300 people, to a town of over 13,000, due to the coal mining industry. The last pit closed in the 1950s, and the town has never recovered. Its mining heritage is celebrated by a stainless steel sculpture, 46 feet high, by John McKenna, erected in 2006 and known as Jigger, after Jack 'Jigger' Taylor, killed in 1951 when the roof of Walsall Wood pit collapsed.

Jeanne d'Arc, Rouen

The church of St Joan of Arc, completed in 1979, stands on the site of the Place du Vieux-Marché, Rouen, where ritual humiliations and executions were undertaken in the name of religion. Jeanne d'Arc was burned alive here in 1431 for 'heresy' - a cross outside the church supposedly marks the exact spot. It is speculated by some that Joan may have suffered from what we now know as severe migraine auras.

Louis Arretche designed the church to echo the shapes of a flaming pyre. Many early Christian churches were formed in the shape of an upturned boat, and Arretche's design reflects this too. The naval form chosen is that of a ship of the Vikings, who overran Rouen in the ninth century. The overlapping maritime and Christian theme is carried through to the nearby market halls, which resemble small overturned boats and gaping fish.

The exterior has overtones of Le Corbusier's Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, completed in 1954, with flourishes worthy of Antoni Gaudí. The glorious stained glass is from the church of St Vincent, largely destroyed during WWII, and the remains of which stand a few hundred yards away. The windows had been removed for safe-keeping.

Bakelite Beast

Leo Baekeland invented the first true, i.e. fully synthetic, plastic in 1907. Ekco's first Bakelite radios were introduced in 1930 for the 1930/31 season, in the form of the models 312 and 313, designed by L. Smithers, both with separate loudspeakers. (Note: at that time, the wireless set industry worked in seasons, the models for the next season shown at autumn trade fairs. The industry's mostly women workers were hired at the end of summer, and fired around about Easter, each year.)

The U49 set was introduced by Ekco in 1947. This utilized the same cabinet as the August 1946 AC-only A23, but was instead AC/DC. It is an impressively large, and somewhat brutal, chunk of Bakelite, 22 inches long, 13 inches high, and 10 inches deep. This houses a chassis that provides for short-, medium-, and long-wave reception. There is also a channel for television sound, and a bank of five pre-set station buttons. The cabinet features on its front face, in Bakelite, Ekco's later logo. Original price £23.2s.0d plus purchase tax.

Whalley - Ancient

Whalley Abbey was founded in 1296 by Cistercian monks from Stanlow Abbey, on the Mersey, and consecrated in 1306. The church, of which remain only the foundations, was completed in 1380, but the bulk of the abbey was not finished until the 1440s. Building continued right through to the 16th century, when Abbot Paslew built himself a luxurious lodging.

The abbey was dissolved in 1537, in which year Paslew was executed in connection with the Pilgrimage of Grace of the year before. The abbey lands were divided and sold in 1553. Richard Assheton bought the monastic buildings, demolished the abbot's house and infirmary, and built a country house. Whilst the church and remaining monastic buildings were largely pulled down in the 17th century, the country house remained, and was sold to the Church in 1923. It is now a retreat and conference venue.

Whalley - Modern

The Whalley Viaduct, of 49 arches, is the longest railway viaduct in Lancashire, 2,034 feet long and 70 feet above the River Calder. It was built between 1846 and 1850 for the Bolton, Blackburn, Clitheroe and West Yorkshire Railway. The engineer, Terrence Wolfe Flanagan, filled the two arches closest to nearby Whalley Abbey with brick screens decorated in Gothic style. The viaduct contains over seven million bricks, and over 16,000 cubic yards of stone.