All Aboard The Brighton Line

It's My Birthday today! Looks Like I'm travelling The Brighton Line for the next 12 months!
I got to Harrogate Turkish Baths at 9 am this morning.Above is a photo Chris took of me there.
Last night I went with some of the Lads from The Rochdale Hamam for a Birthday Curry in Whitworth.
[This Time next Year Rochdale Turkish Baths Will have been knocked down.I have been going there for 28 years..what will I be  doing  then?]
This afternoon I went with Cath & Chris to The Stubbin Wharfe Pub in Hebden Bridge for a meal.

Click here for some more photos.

Postcards From Italy by Beirut

Italian Mick was due to finish my plumbing today in my place in Italy.Now it's already 80% complete (even before today) which might sound fine , but 20% missing  is a worry if you need a "#2" when you go powder your nose, if you get my drift............
Once that's sorted out ,I can invite people over to stay in it + help.Me & Phil The Ex-Fireman should be going over to Pennedomo late August..to start internal decorating.
The 3rd week in September I return again to Abruzzo to help Mick & Shelley with a LA VITA Italian Workshop.

If Push Comes To Shove; I Love This Bit Of Popery Above All Other.Think Of It as A Birthday Gift To Myself.............Is this the power peace
Or merely the connection ?

read about Gene Clark's :"No Other"

My Sepia Saturday post is on my Hebden Bridge blog this week.

.........In Sociology, the Harrogate Effect pertains to occasions where something awful happens to someone in the company of a group, but no one does anything to help. The phenomenon was first observed by the renowned sociologist Jeremy Clarkson on a visit to the town in 1987. On that occasion, a child laid dying in the street whilst Clarkson and a number of the town's residents stood around giving the child a severe ticking off for increasing traffic congestion and lowering house prices. .........[read more]

Nickies Cafe demolition

Nickies Cafe demolition

This is A Sepia Saturday post


From:
See Jack's Photos here
Jack Uttley (1918 - 2003)
was born in Heptonstall. He grew up living at Mytholm and later moved to Mythomroyd where he lived for the rest of his life.
At the age of 14, he started work at Maudes Clog Soles, Hebden Bridge where he was employed until his retirement in 1975.
Throughout his life he had a keen interest in photography and, over the years, was fortunate to be given many old photographs in the form of glass plates, postcards, prints and 35mm negatives.
These, together with his own photographs of the local area taken over the period 1950 to 2000 have resulted in a significant collection.
After retirement, he was free to concentrate on his main interests of Photography and Local History. He combined both interests in slide show presentations and illustrated books about the history of the local area.
He was a member of the Hebden Bridge Literary and Scientific Society, The Calder Camera Club and was heavily involved in establishing the Mytholmroyd Historical Society.

To put a selection of the photographs on the internet, it was necessary to give the collection an indentity. We have therefore named it:
"The Jack Uttley Photo Library".

John Uttley
(son)
December 2007

Gravity Is A Wonderful Thing

Jeeze.These Images Are Blurry.They Look Like They Have Been Faxed From Outer Space.
The Photo Below Is Of Me & My Big Brother Ziggy.
This Week's Sepia Saturday  theme is in & around the subject of Space Travel.
I have no family photos of such things.West Yorkshire in the 1960's was a tad short of Rockets & such like (except in our heads!)But I remember following all those spacecrafts and stuff......it seemed to me, Russians;Dogs;Americans;Everybody was going up there.I pondered, maybe everyone was going there & pretty soon , I would be left alone here on Earth! Happily , they all seemed to return (in one fashion or another) Gravity Is Such  A Wonderful Thing!

Robb Johnson:wiki

Finally for today, Here are some book buying ideas for the Sepian in Your Life......................

halt!

During the Black Hawk War, Abe Lincoln was leading 20 men through a field when he saw they’d need to pass through a narrow gate.


“I could not, for the life of me, remember the proper word of command for getting my company endwise, so that it could pass through the gate,” he later recalled.


“So, as we came near, I shouted, ‘Halt! this company is dismissed for two minutes, when it will fall in again on the other side of the gate.’”

from:Futility Closet

Me,Phil The Ex-Fireman ,Bryn & Mick The Italian went into Halifax tonight for Drinks.here are some photos taken.

Hacked With Permission & Thanks From ou1

For North American Readers , Here Is Some Of The Backstory.

A Video Chris Made.Nothing To Do with Rupert Murdoch!

Ed Milliband ate my hamster

The Northern Echo
Here Is Rebekah Brooks announcing that the News of the World and the Sun were being integrated: last week.

 A first class article  from (of all places!) The Daily Telegraph this (Thursday) morning here.
One of the many thoughts raised was that the reason Cameroon refused to condem (sic) Rebekah Brooks was that she holds too many secrets about the workings of the government machine.Better she is inside the tent pissing out.............?
Can I be the first person to coin,use & copyright the term "Murdochgate"? The comments under the piece are even better (i must have too much time on my hands if I'm reading the Telegraph website !) For example................."The closed world of the Liberal elite now firmly in control of this country has more than a whiff of pre-revolution France about it. They bask in their largesse while we the people are expected to absorb even more pain and misery........."
Orff with their heads...........!but,while we gather our knitting, here is how to Contact advertisers to get them to pull ads from The News Of The World  this Sunday

here

Jeremy Hunt has just said he'll allow Murdoch to own all of BSkyB. We have just three days to flood the government's public consultation with requests to stop the deal.

We've done it before -- in the last consultation Hunt said our avalanche of 40,000 messages delayed the deal as his officials had to read each email carefully, fearing a legal challenge. But the government is pushing the deal through despite the hacking scandal of murdered Milly Dowler -- the latest grim episode that shows how Murdoch's media tramples standards and ignores ethics.

Murdoch already controls more of our media than is legal in many countries – and is notorious for using his power to skew our politics. The official consultation ends this Friday -- let's tell the government we don't want his media empire to control our largest commercial broadcaster. Send a message now -- using your own words to make it stand out -- calling on Jeremy Hunt and David Cameron to refuse Murdoch's BSkyB deal until there's a full Competition Commission review and a full public inquiry into phone hacking.
If you have a UK postal code, click this Link to an extremely easy way of sending a quick & effective message of protest to The Powers That Be.

beam me up in sepia

This is a Sepia Saturday post.

Only a quicky this week.We are off to Castleton for the weekend to celebrate Kathy & Steve's recent wedding.We Stay   in this posh hotel,The Norton Grange  ! Im looking forward to trying it's Spa.It has an "Ice Room"!While I'm gone ,please ponder (people don't "ponder" near enough these days)

Victorian Star Trek

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Boy Texting in 1911 [via:]
“Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.” — Samuel Butler
“Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.” — William Hazlitt
“Homo sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions.” — Joyce Carol Oates

[via:]

Martin,I had a really vivid dream last night.I dream t you owned the (only) Bar in Pennadomo .Me, Haydn ;Phil The Ex-Fireman: et al had arrived in The Village & you had put on a grand spread to welcome us.[I forgot to ask if you served Lemon Tea.!]

Dearest Not Fade Away

When I Was 9 my big brother Zyg bought me my first L.P. It was "Buddy Holly's Greatest Hits".This was the early 60's ,after Buddy died + just before The Beatles & puberty kicked in )
These days, Holly  reminds me of Short Trousers:Chilblains (whatever happened to them? when I Lived In A Cardboard Box In The Middle Of The Road, some nights,they were all I had to keep me warm......):Being in love with Anne Haw (what A name!)who sat in the desk in front of me at Saint Mary's Primary School (i had the "hots" for her in a very pre-puberty/Catholic way):Rugby League:National Health Service glasses (those wee ones like John Lennon wore): etc etc.
ah Nostalgia!
As I lost my religion, sat in Confession , I didn't hear Latin no more ,the voice from that old rugged cross  was   Buddy Holly & His Chirping Crickets !
Anyway, out at the end June is this album of Holly covers.Featuring Lou Reed;Nick Lowe;Paul McCartney:My Morning Jacket:The Black Keys (above);Pattie Smith;Fiona Apple ;Julia Casablanca: & many more.Here are Florence & The Machine singing "Not Fade Away".

My Best Wishes To The Teachers who are having the first of their one day strikes next Thursday I was an NUT rep in Bradford in the mid-1980s when that Evil old whore Maggie Thatcher   (spit)was La Maîtresse Principale. Ah Nostalgie!

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hebweb hebden bridge

Why did the Hebden Bridge chicken cross the road?

This Is A Sepia Saturday Post

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Hey Folks! It's my Aunty Brenda again! [2nd right] .This photo she labeled "Weekend Camp".I'm guessing wildly but I think it's in Essex (where she was at college) Maybe late 20's \Early 30's? A time when England still had an Empire & people rehearsed by putting on uniforms & prepare for another invasion.
I am currently reading "The Resurrectionist" by James Bradley. Interesting reading.I quote this about when the Brits first arrived in Australia and how they appeared to The Locals....
"'They thought us spirits once' he says,not turning in his saddle 'they took the colour of our skin for the pallor of the dead and imagined us their ancestors,lost and wandering in the living world once more."

My mind turned to Iraq+Afganistan
And So It Goes........................

I have created a new blog this week.With Inevitable  originality , I am calling it HEBDEN BRIDGE. You are welcome to visit it.I don't know if anything will come of it.I would like,eventually ,it to be as good as Joanne Casey's I Have Seen The Whole Of The Internet .She searches the Internet for interesting,quirky,amusing items & reposts them in one nice place.I would wish to do the same albeit specific to my hometown.

I live in Hebden Bridge.But,despite mentioning Hebden hundreds of times this blog,it  doesn't seem  to have touched the local internet-radar.For example ,if you visit Chris Radcliffe's hebdenbridge.co.uk  local "Blogs & Columns" you wont find my blog.

As I move beyond Hebden Bridge (Im thinking of my semi-move to Italy) I would like my vanity & fascination with Hebden seen just a little bit more........
So the idea is to have a separate blog.One that Google will recognize.Showing the quirky side of a quite particular place.Ideally.Eventually.Hopefully .it would be nice if ,whenever someone includes  the term "Hebden Bridge" in their Google Search,one of my alternative Hebden Bridge stories will be in the top ten results. Maybe it will one day..although,in the great scheme of things W.T.F.!
Hebden Bridge was a dead on its feet Yorkshire mill town in the 1960's.Then the hippies moved in.The place is now the Islington of the North.We have a split community.We locals found ourselves  aboriginals .....our  culture dismissed by trendy articulate middle class Southerners.[ a.k.a Bourgeoisie]
If you think I'm exaggerating ,check out  the movie Shed Your Tears And Walk Away[2011] About a split community & how Hebden Bridge has one of the highest teenage suicide rates in Britain.
The local trendy Orange Book liberalz are so articulate that  their alien  culture just drowns out the indigenous  community.

And So It Goes...............

Ironically+ Hypocritically ! I was drinking posh coffee in Hebden this morning with Shelley (over from Ireland).
'Helping her & Mick Promote their business in Italy. Today,we set up new facebook & twitter pages.She told me that ,a week on Sunday, they are placing a 4 week national advert in The Observer .It all looks good & I am happy to help.Watch this space.

A poptastic music video shot in Hebden Bridge. in 1986 Interestingly enough,me&cath moved into Hebden from Halifax in April 1985.But (before you ask!)That aint me on the Space-Hopper!

it only rained a little bit!

Yesterday was The Hebden Bridge Handmade Parade:2011.

here are my photos.

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http://www.hebdenbridge.co.uk/blogosphere/index.html

HEBDEN BRIDGE WEB

Chris Ratcliffe,pennine pens

HEBWEB

Hebden Royd Town Council."Hebden Bridge".

raining on our parade?

 

Here is a still from a 1924 black&white silent movie of The Hebden Bridge Carnival.Click Here to Watch It.
Over the past 4 years it has morphed into The Hebden Bridge  Handmade Parade.
The weather forecast for this year's parade on Saturday isn't that clever. 11 15 degrees & rain!Keep your fingers crossed that it ain't so!

2009

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I will add my photos from this year's Parade here over the weekend.In the meantime here are My photos from 2010 & 2009
This Is A Sepia Saturday Post.

I heard from Leanne (left) this week.We worked together a few moons ago in Halifax.She now lives +works in the Deep South.
She & other   good people from Barnsley Social Services are taking part in
The Barnsley Kilimanjaro Charity Trek 2011 helping to raise money for a local Hospice.Good Luck To All Concerned.
For my music this week I was going sneak in Dylan singing  about being
"I’m ready to go anywhere, I’m ready for to fade
Into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it....................." Until I Saw This Rather Groovy Parody...........

2010

Finally,Some Sepia Poetry..............
 In the drinking-well

(Which the plumber built her)

Aunt Eliza fell–

We must buy a filter.

***

Little Willie, in the best of sashes,

Fell in the fire and was burned to ashes.

By and by the room grew chilly,

But no one liked to poke up Willie.

***

“There’s been an accident,” they said,

“Your servant’s cut in half; he’s dead!”

“Indeed!” said Mr. Jones, “and please

Send me the half that’s got my keys.”
***
Father heard his children scream
So he threw them in the stream
Saying, as he drowned the third,
"Children should be seen, not heard!"

Harry Graham[1874-1936]

update

the laughing victorians

[Don,I got an email this afternoon telling me PJ Harvey plays The ManchesterAcademy2 in September.we are thinking of going.You&Margaret interested/available? I will email details in due course.]

Do you fancy doing a little Market Research for me? This website appeared on the web about 24 hours ago.It's more-or-less finished, but it needs a bit of tweaking in terms of colour/font/layout etc.I would appreciate anyone taking a look & giving some critical feedback.(truly) how do you think it looks?Dont Worry! I didn't do it so you wont hurt my feelings! 
You might know I bought a small/cheap place in Italy.Well Mick & Shelley (see website) are starting a business there in the splendid Abruzzo Region..Painting:Photography:Creative Writing Residential Workshops.(They already have a Painter from Hebden Bridge on board to deliver some Courses).I said I will help a little .Both with the courses themselves (I will be paid a salary for this) Also, out of the kindness of my Heart, I am organizing advertising;promotion & suchlike.It's kinda nice because it ties in with my Abruzzo Caper and I am not investing/risking any of my own monies in the venture.Let Me Know Your Thoughts.
This Week's suggested theme at Sepia Saturday is 'Trains' but I don't really have any old photos with them featured.The nearest is this one of my son Chris in The Dominican Republic when he was wee.

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Instead.Consider this............ 
When Joseph-Nicephore Niepce took the first photograph in 1828, his photographic plate required an exposure of eight hours. That exposure time was drastically reduced across the course of the nineteenth century, so that by the 1890s the Collodion process had cut exposure times to two or three seconds.

Nevertheless, a three second exposure meant that subjects had to stand very still to avoid being blurred, and holding a smile for that period was tricky. As a result, we have a tendency to see our Victorian ancestors as even more formal and stern than they might have been.Retronaut

see more photos here & here

LA VITA-HOLIDAY WORKSHOP EXPERIENCES

*** **

On the other hand............ This is clever — in 1974 Cecil Slemp invented shoes with reversed soles, to leave footprints that point in the opposite direction.
So now your bloody tracks will lead to the murder scene.Of course,one year later, Bob Dylan released the album!
*** **

"

"Train" is mentioned (somewhere!) in the  lyrics of the video below.
"If the clouds don’t drop and the train don’t stop........."Bob Dylan:Basement Tapes

POSTSCRIPT in this old post I tell you how I am related to George Stevenson the very famous Victorian railway geezer! They even have a statue of him outside Euston Station in London.Although,as I recall, he's not even smiling ......

KAZ

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[above:outside a junk shop in Lanciano]
Can I point you in the direction of the Koast to Koast Kaz Fund.It's a sponsorship journey through Northern England in memory of Kaz. who died in March.Money raised  by blog following fan Rodger will go to the Ovarian Cancer Charity.Please give here if you can.
Kaz was a Lovely Liverpool Lass  (+ Everton supporter) who lived in Manchester & was a daily commentator here.,back in the day.Sail On Beautiful Lady.
I am now back in Hebden Bridge..I flew back into Leeds Bradford Airport at 3pm on Thursday.By 8pm Me & Cathy were sat in Bury Met watching The Fairports [[my photos:] A jet-setting Rock N Roll lifestyle non? Thanks To Don & Margaret.
I'm very tired.Apologies to Ex-Cappo Martin & those at the hammam.I was due to go to Tony Ts Birthday meal late last night..but far too knackered.
Work progresses on my place in Abruzzo
.But so much still to do.I seemed overwhelming at times . View Some Of My Photos Thunder in the Mountains over last weekend  forced me to stay inside and work.I stayed 4 nights  in the house .I want to get to a stage where it is fit for friends (eg Phil The Ex-Fireman) to be able to come over and help......but until the basics are in place I wouldn't want them to have to stay in a total tip.It's nearly ready to invite them over.Me & several people should be going over next month.
The village is very quiet.I found it quite spooky staying on my own there.I was alone for 90% of the time.Although can I thank Sora for feeding me one day (the best Dutch Risotto I have ever tasted!:).Sora is staying 3 weeks at Iona's house in the village.
I also met up with Mick Goggins& his his new squeeze Shelley.
I spent the best part of Wednesday in Lanciano sorting out paperwork .A special thanks to Massimo at the Bank for ,with great patience,walking me through the dark art of Italian Internet Banking.Also to Piero who explained & sorted  my Water,Electric & Council paperwork.Both are good teachers!
here are a few photos I took this time in Italy.

It's Bob Dylan's 70th Birthday next week.Out of respect for His Bobness, here is a video I took in Hebden Bridge at the recent anti-royalist street party.A band (i know not who) sing the opening riffs of 'All Along The Watchtower.''












P.S. Don.I bought a copy today of "Grateful Dead:Broadcasting Live" DVD if you don't have, I will runoff copies.We watched it tonight (2 discs) Rather suburb! A stunning "Knocking On Heaven's Door".
Finally.I just found this video on Youtube. It was posted 3 days ago. I minute of ".....the only known (existing) professionally filmed Sandy Denny footage with Fairport Convention...."Enjoy & Weep.

Finally............I found this rather strange carnival video from the village in which my house is ! Check the video here
It's an Isolated mountain region.Cut-off historically from the rest of Italy.Frankly, it shows that here...........!
Shot  in March this year.............looks like some outakes from  The Wickerman

Pennadomo :Wikipedia

P.S. watch the News over the next couple of weeks.Italy is about to come the next Southern European country to go belly-up financially. Remember.You heard it first here!

Shelley-Anne Crawford.Sora van Brummelen
Piero Nasuti

"MARJORYS BIRTHDAY PARTY AT BIRCHLEA 1932 LEVEN"

This is a Sepia Saturday post.

I've mentioned My Mum often enough here ( e.g.)
  Here is a photo I found (while clearing out the attic this week) of her Birthday Party ..
My Mum always spoke of her childhood as a lonely desert of a place,.My grandmother had died in childbirth.My grandad (pictured here, top/middle) was a sailor ,away from home & who had little to do with my Mum.She spent her childhood in the care of aunties in Fife & Edinburgh.She thought it a lonely existence I think.
All the more strange, then, to see this photo.It must have been her 6th birthday .Here she is , right in the middle with cake+doll.All those people around her!Even her dad!Although, I dont recognize anybody else in it.Maybe a school affair?Was "Birchlea" a school? I just dont know........... 
Maybe this is the opposite of  last week's post ?Just another way of "covering things up"? The camera never lies? Maybe this was just staged - managed? A cunning ploy to convince her she wasn't  really alone?Am I being cynical? I'm sure ,objectively , it was more complicated than that..................
One thing for sure........most of the photos I have of her childhood , she appears clutching a doll of some kind.

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photos in  Halifax tonight . Tracy's Leaving Do . A Special Thanks to Nick & Dave for arranging the evening for us all+ making it all possible......