Johnson044

There was an article in the G0G Gazette a while back about a GNR 2-4-0 that someone acquired from a swapmeet and repaired. He believed it was a Parley. They do get a mention from time to time in the Gazette - the thing that is usually said is that they are all to about 8mm to 1". Another article which described how someone built a coarse scale GNR Stirling single mentioned the Parley version of the same loco and said that the Revd Parley made the driving wheels using golden syrup tin lids as a basis. He seems to have been very inventive- all tinplate, I think, and everything built on the kitchen table with very basic hand tools. I'll try to dig the articles out soon and post some extracts. I'd love to own a Parley!

No- it's even worse than that - it was the London premises for Bassett-Lowke. Desecration!!!

I'm amazed there is no blue plaque here. I then thought I'd look at 112 High Holborn and... NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Yay! The censor has kicked in!!! an artificial covering of hair for the pub ic area

'merkins. I love the idea of The Merkin People. It's not a word often used. merkin /ˈməːkɪn/ noun an artificial covering of hair for the area.

...and this one is just hilarious! https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/115405024209?hash=item1adeacebd1:g:w8oAAOSwsDVildI8

I'd love to have a kitchen floor made from hardwood wagon timbers! Don't really want to cut 6" off the bottoms of the doors though...

You were quite right to take me to task on this Nearholmer- I was being very pompous and up myself. Anything I said afterwards was just digging myself further into a hole of my own making and I'll probably dig myself in further now. Well - yes- the eateries become more up-market depending on the prosperity of the area - of course they do. But proportionally it doesn't work that way. A "nice" High Street like Deal or Hythe has a very different ratio of cafes / takeaways to other shops to a depressed area, where the proportion is far higher. I’ve only to walk around the block to see this for myself. What I’m puzzled by is the bleedin’ obvious. That these places, which sell food that gives you a brief feeling of satisfaction without much benefit to health, are not cheap. They thrive in an area where money is obviously tight. There must be a ready market otherwise when a shop selling something other than junk food closes it wouldn’t be replaced by another fried chicken / pizza or kebab place (three of each face each other across the road within a quarter of a mile of where I live). There’s an Aldi, a Farm Foods, Poundland and a Morrisons nearby- and the money spent on a takeaway family meal would go so much further in any of these. Are they a feel good option that gets used because tonight I’m fed up, knackered, need a treat and tomorrow may never come? Many have “Just Eat” on the window, which as we know is pushed quite hard on the tv in the evenings. There’s either a lot of money out there or people are just living beyond their means? The cars that pull up generally are pretty new and expensive looking – certainly out of my reach for the most part. It's getting tighter and tighter – especially, as you’ve said, if you’re bringing up a family. And yet, as the current The Big Issue article says, we’re wasting 20 million slices of bread per day. It’s a mess. I rarely cook. I think I’m probably quite good at it when I try but I don’t very often, even though I know it’s better for the family budget and healthier. I’m lucky to be married to someone who loves to cook but when I’m on my own I could very readily go down the road and it would become more and more frequent- I know it would. I’m lazy when it comes to making a packed lunch and have to force myself to otherwise it would be another meal deal and the cost of these stacks up. I don’t sneer at the users of takeaways. I’ve no right to sneer at anyone for their lifestyle, be it necessity or choice. The pot would be calling the kettle black. My rant about parking on pavements and chucking rubbish out of cars stands. I do sneer when someone has contempt for their surroundings and for other people.

If we're on this forum then we have many blessings. Full stop.

You sure can. It doesn't take much to tip someone into poverty.

Thanks for all the wonderfully varied but always positive responses. What a broad church this is! A few further memories that might spark some more interest: Just little fragments really. Silly witterings. I went back in 1977 or 1978 on a cycling holiday and visited some old haunts, one of which was Bromsgrove, where I’d spent many happy hours on the platform watching trains assaulting the Lickey Bank. This time I got inside the former Midland Railway workshops, which were entirely derelict but largely intact, and I spent about an hour wandering about freely. What struck me was that the floor seemed to be made up entirely of old carriage and wagon underframe timbers – mainly headstocks. I do wonder what they might have all come from. I also re-visited the Halesowen Railway but even then I think, it was being obliterated by the expansion of Frankley. By the looks of things the line seems to be completely wiped from the face of the earth now from Halesowen Junction as far as the M5. Another memory that I have - another really pleasant one - is of the little model shop in Barnt Green - it was shared with a knitting wool shop and at the back was a room full of mainly Airfix kits, some of which, even at the time, were pretty elderly. Sitting on one of the "witch's hat" iron roundabouts that safety concerns have now eradicated in the park opposite and opening the newly bought box and looking through all of the parts of - say - a Fokker Friendship or similar - and I'm sure I was delving into a bag of Cadbury's Stroodles at the same time- or maybe they came along later? Anyone else remember Stroodles? In the early '70's, about 1973, the village of Barnt Green would club together and organize an annual mystery trip- usually to Matlock or, on one occasion to Barry - where most of the village went to the beach except for the one or two that had several hours amongst the rusting Bulleids.

When life's a crock of s**t and you don't know what tomorrow's going to bring a takeaway makes you feel better for a little while. A curious thing about some of the customers though is that they park their rather expensive cars on the pavement outside the takeaways so it's hard to get past without being run over. A curious thing about some of the customers is also that they chuck all the packaging out of the car window and chuck their fag ends at me and my dog.

It's very easy to generalise. It's easy to make sweeping statements- and, as you say, to sneer.

It's so easy to make sweeping statements and to generalise on perceived circumstances and behaviour patterns. A day walking in someone else's shoes!

The curious thing is that a recognized indicator of a poor area is the large number of fast food places on the High St. The more hard up people are the tendency is to live for today and let tomorrow take care of itself and It doesn't help with tv advertising promoting all the rubbish food.

Yup. The new Poundburies that are springing up with their GRP chimneys with brick slips glued to them are not readily adapted to burning whatever odd bits of timber that can be got hold of. It's all rather frightening. If you do have a hearth of some sort then now, folks, is the time to be filling your back garden with whatever you think you can burn next winter. However expensive timber might be at present there's still a helluva lot being thrown out.

...and rather good it is too.

Just for info - a local hero. https://www.pressreader.com/uk/kentish-gazette-canterbury-district/20130411/282110634080518

A very fine model and, by the looks of things, some rather lovely timber windows.

I could write pages, Edwardian - but I won't as I'm busy being an one of the species in question and must get on with my work! I have to say, though, that much of what you say is spot on. The brave new world that looked so wonderful in the post-Luftwaffe drawings, showing the broad plazas with shoppers and traffic segregated, so quickly became the frightening underpasses and excrement smeared lifts of reality. Fortunately Canterbury was largely spared - thanks mainly to an Architect called Anthony Swaine, who does not get the recognition he deserves- he kicked the incendiaries from the cathedral roof and campaigned so vigorously to List so many buildings. We do, indeed have a problem- and, locally, the issue seems to be that something will be pulled down (Dover's Leisure Centre for example, conveniently located in the town and replaced with one out of town that you've got to drive to) - and replaced with a magnificent "nothing".

This is really lovely - no relation to the real Nr 103, except for the wheel arrangement - the model has a very Caledonian air about it. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284825863464?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160908105057%26meid%3D728f92971b1d4527a4e5fdcb14cfe478%26pid%3D100675%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D15%26sd%3D403680102837%26itm%3D284825863464%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2380057%26brand%3D3rd+Rail&_trksid=p2380057.c100675.m4236&_trkparms=pageci%3Aa23b7ad9-dd97-11ec-bdf3-56c8d9a637a0|parentrq%3A04a5dab21810a744505ec8bdfffd4232|iid%3A14

Indeed!

These photos are terrific. When Snow Hill was built it really was a GWR flagship project.

I'm not surprised they gave it away! BCC seem to have set themselves up as arbiters of what visitors might find interesting. I think I can remember the Orchestrion - but it's dancing on the edge of my memory. I remember a bike wheel with sheet metal over the spokes that you could spin to demonstrate centrifugal force- and the three Stirling hot air engines of different sizes just as you entered the museum, that always seemed to be running. So much has gone - i was very surprised that The Pinto collection of wooden objects had also gone from the art gallery. I keep hoping for an opportunity to visit the reserve collection: https://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/collection/museum-collection-centre

Spar!!!! Sorry...