My good friend Francisco Goya emailed me to report that this blog - this actual blog you are reading - is now blocked to passengers using the wi-fi on First buses in the UK, since it contains inappropriate content.
Good heavens. Whatever next. Etc.
My first reaction is that, since I was brought up to trust that responsible business corporations cannot possibly be wrong, First are almost certainly correct to take such action. Further, it pleases me to see that protection of the feelings and moral values of their customers should figure in First's strategic gameplan. Good for them.
I am not well placed at present to research just why I am off the official reading list, but I am free to play games in my mind, and to imagine some story which happens to suit me. I may look further into this, but I sincerely hope that First still allow their passengers to visit the website of The S*n, plus various dating agencies and gossip fora, to keep their views clean and patriotic.
A couple of people have expressed interest
in the ceramic buildings which I used in my ECW siege testing a couple of
months ago. For the most part, these were made by the Tey Pottery company, now defunct, which operated from various
locations in Norfolk. The range of which I seem to have become an accidental collector
is the Britain in Miniature series,
which suits my purposes admirably.
Tey Pottery "Britain in Miniature" - Grannie would have been delighted. The white-backed buildings in the background make effective town blocks - the textured-all-round items nearer the camera are more suitable for standalone pieces
I didn’t really need another unofficial
collection, but I am pleased with what I’ve obtained, and have consciously cut
down on purchasing now, in the sense that I am very picky about what I go for.
I note that at the start of this year I wasn’t sure at all about the viability
for the wargames table of items primarily intended for your grannie’s sideboard
– these are ornaments, let’s make that quite clear – pottery knick-knacks, and
they are neither serious models nor exactly accurate.
Some points (for and against) and things to
watch for, if you have half a mind to acquire some of these miniatures:
(1) They suit me perfectly – they have a
cheerful, almost playful brio which I find very appropriate to accompany toy
soldiers – the Britain in Miniature
(BiM) series are (mostly) to an approximately constant(ish) scale which I would
describe as “smallish 15mm”. I deliberately use underscale buildings with my
20mm figures, because the smaller footprint is more acceptable (given the
constant paradox of incompatible ground and figure scales), and because I
believe a cluster of undersized houses looks more like a village than a single
representative structure which matches the figure scale.
(2) Tey’s BiM range – if you are selective
– will fit nicely in a 17th Century setting. The buildings are,
mostly, what in ship model terms would be called “waterline” representations,
without bases or landscaping, and can be combined into effective town blocks
which would be difficult and expensive to achieve otherwise. Be careful with
sizes – the churches are too small for my taste, and the Countryside Collection and a few others contain smaller-scale items
– anything which is obviously a generic cottage usually will not match.
(3) They are readily available and splendidly cheap – on eBay you
can pick up nice examples for just a few pounds (they are available on US eBay,
too though slightly dearer). Typically, I obtained lots for about 3 to 5 pounds
each, and was the only bidder. On occasions, an attractive off-catalogue or
commissioned item will attract heavier bids, so I normally duck out when the
going gets tough. It’s only a hobby, for goodness’ sake…
(4) They are ornaments – they are delicate
(though not too bad, if you store them sensibly) and they are glazed to a high
gloss. Being a very bad person, I give them two coats of acrylic matt medium –
if I need to do any touching up, or obliterate any anachronistic shop or pub signs,
I can do that with acrylics between the varnish coats. I expect serious Tey collectors
to be outraged by my destruction of their collectors’ value by this varnish
business, but these things are plentiful, the value is not great and they are
mine anyway (heh heh) – consider it equivalent to converting original Hinton
Hunt figures!
(5) Some serious bad news – many of these
pieces are untextured and plain white on the back, so have to be placed with
care to make a convincing street scene, but this doesn’t cause me any
difficulty. This can be a fairly confusing aspect of collecting Tey buildings –
some of them are textured and painted all round – these tend to be
detached-style buildings rather than sections of town blocks – and I mostly go
for these now if I can. Some of the buildings have changed during their
production history, so I have (reluctantly) been forced to learn more about the
catalogues than I might have wished – in particular, Anne Hathaway’s Cottage appeared in a number of versions, some of
which had plain white backs and some, like mine, are finished all round. Yes, I
know, this is getting nerdy.
So, overall, if they suit your purposes (or
porpoises – thank you, Jonathan), these guys are cheaper and handier and
quicker to deploy than wargames-specific resin buildings, lighter and more robust (and
less irritatingly cute) than Lilliput Lane or David Winter houses (though I
cherish a fair few of those, too), and I find they bring a pleasing, colourful
vibe to my siege activities, which really benefit from a bit of scenic
interest. I still need specialist Hovels houses and similar, but as a bulk buy
to make an easy, flexible town the Tey houses are great. Buy them selectively,
keeping a careful eye on sizes and they do a nice job. For matching churches, I
have found the most satisfactory source is the products of Sulley’s Ceramics, but these are rarer and more expensive.
At a whimsical level, I find it deeply
amusing to set up a town which features Shakespeare’s
birthplace, the Bronté family’s
parsonage, the Rows of Chester,
the Siege House (Colchester), John
Knox’s House (Edinburgh), and all manner of famous tourist sites – all in
the same spot. Fantastic – I should wheel out one of my miniature tour buses to
show off the rich heritage! I am cutting down on watching eBay now, but I keep
an eye open for Anne of Cleves’ House,
the Mermaid Inn and a few others. No
– of course I am not a collector.
This is rather a whimsical post - I wasn't sure
whether to publish it. Maybe I'll delete it later.
Recently I've been corresponding with a
friend about memories of childhood - especially about family get-togethers, in
an age when it seemed everyone lived locally, and almost the entire family could be
assembled from a small area. My friend and I had some laughs about social rituals,
things that our families always did (and said, and sang), and about how the
roles of various family members have changed. Since he and I come from
different parts of the UK, it has been interesting to note the similarities and
the regional differences.
Terraced street in Aigburth, some 10 years later than my tale
I got to thinking about the New Year
parties at my grandparents' house, when I was a kid (that's my dad's parents,
in Aigburth, South Liverpool). I think we only attended a few times, mostly
because my dad would normally have fallen out with one or other of his siblings
during the previous year!
The gatherings were large - a lot of people
crammed into a small terraced house. They were good-hearted folk, in a tough,
noisy sort of way. We must have been at that itchy post-war period when the
working class had a bit more money, and everyone was becoming keen on what they
saw as middle-class status symbols and values. It was all a bit competitive,
and all of it was loud and in-your-face. My posh Auntie May had definitely
"rose up", and she had married the boss/owner at her work,
developed a new Hyacinth Bucket accent (see clip, below), sent her kids to private
school and moved to the Wirral. In a strange, ambivalent way, the family were
proud of her, yet envied her, and really hated it when she drove over for New
Year in the new Vauxhall, even though they bragged about it when she wasn't
there, and stood in the freezing cold to watch it drive away when she left.
Vauxhall Wyvern
At this time, everyone still had their feet
and their roots in traditions that were, at the very least, Victorian. The
family would come on various buses (only May had a car), some would walk, bearing
biscuit tins filled with sandwiches, home baking, even bowls of trifle. When
people arrived, all the big winter coats would be piled on the bed in the
upstairs room at the front of the house (the smell of moth-balls was stifling),
and everyone was issued with the regulation cup of tea to warm them up.
And, I guess, a good time was had by all.
Occasional neighbours would appear (though the family was not noted for being
very open to strangers), and eventually there were boyfriends of my various
cousins (my cousins were legion, and they were all girls, now I think of it).
If there were enough newcomers to the family throng, the inevitable party games
in the kitchen after the tea-party would include a game called The Obstacle
Course. I think my participation in this game came when I was about seven,
after a number of years of non-attendance (politics). It was a game you could
only play once, but when you could no longer take part you could be involved in
the organisation and, of course, spectating.
Even by the prevailing standards, this was
an unusually noisy game - it must have been audible a good way up the street.
It was necessary to have a minimum number of first-time visitors to play -
maybe 3 or 4. There was an element of initiation in it, to be sure. The
family's taste in jokes and fun activities was always dominated by practical
jokes, some humiliation, just a whiff of sadism, and giving a newcomer the
opportunity to demonstrate that they were a "good sport", prepared to
laugh at themselves - certainly to be laughed at by others. Maybe this was a
test to see if they were going to fit in...
The Obstacle Course game required the
identification of suitable (first-time) participants, and then my Uncle Harold
and Cousin Joyce (who were the loudest of all) would take charge. The players
would be led into the hall by Joyce, where they would be prepared for what was
to follow, and while the course was set up. When everything was ready, they
would all be admitted to the kitchen (living room), and would be shown an
improvised obstacle course, which they had to memorise as best they could; then
they would be taken out into the hallway again, and would be given some
additional instruction on rules and so on. All the non-playing family members
would be seated around the walls of the room - they would be the spectators,
and later would vote for the best performer.
1950s clothes horse - we used to call ours a "maiden"
The course itself featured all sorts of
household items, arranged in time-honoured constructions that you had to crawl
under, step over, wriggle in-between - there was a horizontal broom handle,
supported on boxes, to be stepped over without touching it, there were all
sorts of cunning arrangements of sofa cushions, the wooden clothes horse,
covered in rugs, a step-ladder, stacks of food tins - a lot of ingenuity came
into play. And, of course, you would have to negotiate the course blindfolded,
with plenty of instruction from Harold - and the spectators, obviously.
The participants (or "explorers"
as they were termed) were solemnly blindfolded, and led into the room one at a
time. Others went in ahead of me, and the noise was indescribable - the main
object of the game was that everybody shouted at the same time - support,
conflicting instructions, occasional sympathy, lots of banter. My turn came - I
was completely blacked-out. I could hardly breathe, in fact.
The door closed behind me, and Harold said,
"righto, Tony - come forward two steps - that's good - a little further -
very good. Now, the first obstacle is you have to walk under the step-ladder
without touching it, so stoop down a bit - right a bit - no not so much - good.
Now edge forward slowly - good - a bit lower - right a bit more..."
And from the onlookers came a deafening uproar
of "lower - not so low, turn left a bit - keep your elbows in" and so
on.
After the step-ladder I was sweating profusely,
but was pleased to have got past it. There was loud applause. Harold shouted,
"OK - now you have to step over the bucket of water, so you need to turn
left, where you are - righto - stop when I tell you - now - stop - two little
steps forward - stop - now - you're going to have to turn sideways for this
one..."
And so it went on. In spite of all the
conflicting shouting from the sidelines, I did remarkably well, wriggling
through sofa-cushion tunnels, tiptoeing through little mazes of tins, stepping
over things, all without touching anything. At last, clear so far, I had to jump right across a little hearth-rug,
without touching it. In a blaze of glory, I managed to do this. The applause
was fantastic - I was as pleased as I could be. Then I was allowed to take off
the blindfold, and I realised that the room had been completely cleared,
apart from the spectator gallery around the walls. All my gyrations and extreme
high-stepping and wriggling had been in an empty room. Of course I was
embarrassed, but I got to join the audience and watch the last competitor in
action, and I have to say it still seems to be one of the funniest things I
have ever experienced. Cousin Pauline's new boyfriend, in his fashionable new shoes, keen to make a good
impression, earnestly stretching his legs to impossible angles to avoid a
broom-handle which was no longer there, all to the accompaniment of riotous approval.
Harold did a virtuoso performance as
ring-master, no doubt. Fantastic noise, tears of laughter - it is sobering to
realise that probably only about three or four of the people present are still
alive - where did all that noise and camaraderie go? Of course, there are
dozens of descendants, but they live in Australia, Singapore,
Canada - even London. I have no idea at all about my extended family now -
certainly it would be impossible to bus them all to my grannie's house - it
might not even be possible to trace who they all are. Changed times.
I also remember that everyone that took
part in the Obstacle Course that year got a prize. The bad news was that it was one of Auntie Laura's
home-made rock cakes, left over from the festive tea, and quite rightly so,
since anyone who had eaten one before would know to avoid them.
Posts have been a bit sparse of late on
this blog. No matter. One thing I had been meaning to say something about was a
recent visit I made with my wife to Liverpool, my birthplace, at the start of
December. We went only for a few days, and we weren't very lucky with the
weather, but it was good fun, and I did a few things - mostly rather silly,
personal things - that I've been meaning to do for years.
I have only one surviving relative in
Liverpool these days - cousin Mark, with whom we met up for dinner one evening
while we were there - so normally there are no pressing reasons to visit the
place, apart from self-indulgence, and my last visit was in 2012. We stayed at
the Campanile, which is very cheap
and cheerful, at the Queen's Dock. We visited the cathedrals (on the wettest
day I can remember) and trogged around the old city centre, with me trying to
recall what old buildings used to be on particular sites in my day. Yes, I know
- how pointless is that?
I have to say that the city is far cleaner
and more prosperous than I remember it, but it is disturbing how much it has
changed - I have a feeling that some of the change has lost a few things as
well. Babies and bath-water come to mind.
I went to have a look at the house where I
was born - well, all right, I wasn't born there at all, I was born at the
Maternity Hospital (in Oxford Street?) like most other people from the South
end, but I lived there from ages zero to 10.
6, Belvidere Road - that's Liverpool 8,
Toxteth, if you insist, but it is certainly among the posher bits of Toxteth,
and I suppose it's more accurate to refer to it as Princes Park. We got the bus
from the city centre to Princes Avenue, and walked down to Belvidere, which had
changed very little (though the houses look better-maintained, and some
charitable soul has replaced the railings and gates, which obviously were not
required to be thrown at Hitler after all).
We had a splendid walk through Princes Park
to Sefton Park, and then through Sefton Park to my grandmother's old house in
Mossley Hill. When I was a kid we used to do this walk (both ways, in fact)
most fine Sundays, and I was keen to see it again. It always seemed an enormous
distance to walk with small children, but in fact it's not nearly as far as I
remembered - probably only a couple of miles each way.It was a fairly dry day, and everything
seemed very fresh and familiar. I haven't walked through Princes Park since the
1960s, I guess, but it hasn't changed much.
From my grandmother's old house we
continued up Penny Lane to Smithdown, had a coffee and took the bus back into
town. That's another one for the bucket shop list - I'm really pleased I did
it, and I don't need to think about it any more!
We also took advantage of our only other
dry day to travel by ferry across the Mersey to Seacombe. Then we walked along
the riverside promenade past Wallasey as far as New Brighton, on the end of the
Wirral Peninsula, complete with the Perch Rock Fort, which Turner painted in
some of his wilder sessions, but the old Tower Ballroom, where as a youth I once saw
Little Richard, is long gone. New Brighton was definitely looking a bit
gone-to-seed - we took the Mersey Railway back under the river to James Street.
Great walk - I was impressed by the number of fishermen on the promenade - when
I lived in those parts there would have been nothing alive to catch in the
Mersey, that's for sure!
On our last evening we went to the
Philharmonic Hall in Hope Street, to see the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
Orchestra in action. Marvellous. High spot of the concert for me was
Stravinsky's Firebird, which is a
great favourite of mine. The previous occasion on which I was in the Phil
was probably Speech Day in my final year in the Sixth Form at Quarry Bank
School. Hmmm.
Some photos follow - nothing too onerous, I
hope.
Over the hills and faraway - travelling south on the M6 over Shap Fell. The Lake District is somewhere over to the right
It still surprises me that Liverpool has become a tourist centre...
Jesse Hartley's old port sometimes doesn't sit well with the new buildings - my father, his two brothers and their dad all worked at Liverpool Docks at various times - I wonder what they'd make of it now
6 Belvidere Road - my first home - we lived in the top flat (which I think is two apartments now). It looks better maintained now than it was back in my infancy. The street is quite elegant, and hasn't changed a lot, but the labyrinth of little terraces around the back - Miles St, Clevedon St, South St, Hawkstone St and so many others - real Toxteth - has been knocked down and replaced many years ago
Let us not speak of the purple dustbins...
Princes Park - scenes of childhood...
...and its lake, which once had rowing boats for hire
Linnet Lane - apart from the lack of my kid sister's pram and a few modern cars, looks about the same
Lark Lane - quite arty these days - leads to Aigburth and my old primary school at St Mick's
The cafe in the middle of Sefton Park - seems to have sprouted some modern wings, but recognisably the same place. I think it was painted cream, and I remember there was a Wall's Ice Cream man selling ices from a pedal-tricycle cart here on Sundays. Note the shadow of the Ghost of Christmas Past
The quiet end of Queen's Drive, Mossley Hill - this is the great ring
road which loops around the city to Seaforth and Bootle in the North.
My Nan's old house, on the corner of Briardale Road and Herondale. She was still resident here when she died in 1980 - not much has changed, though someone has roofed over her backyard - how very odd?
Sefton Park's celebrated Palm House, a fabulous old facility which has been rescued from vandalism and general wear and tear numerous times over the years
The Peter Pan statue in Sefton Park - one of my earliest memories from childhood; in fact it has been shifted - it is now located near to the Palm House; as far as I remember, it used to be in the flower garden near the big lake.
This is something - very quirky building - Dovedale Road Baptist Church, where my parents were married in 1945. They had met at the youth club here. The building was completed (I think) in 1903, and by the perversity of history it had closed as a church about 6 weeks before our visit! Right opposite was Dovedale Rd Primary School, which included John Lennon and my cousin Dave among its alumni. Yes, I believe the church may have been designed by a madman.
Absolutely - THAT Penny Lane. Lucky to have kept its name - the city council was planning to change the names of all streets in the city which referred to families who were associated with slavery or slave-supported businesses - the plan was shelved when they realised that Penny Lane was one such, and that there would be a great many disappointed tourists if it had been called Nelson Mandela Street instead.
The Lady Chapel in Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. Speak it in whispers, but I was a member of the choir here when I was about 12 - that was until they found out what was wrong with it.
The Royal Iris - the latest of a great many Royal Irises - the ferry for Seacombe (Wallasey) - back in the day, the Seacombe ferry had a white funnel, the Birkenhead ferries had brick-red ones.
Wallasey Town Hall, looming above the River Walk
Nothing else to do now but wish everyone
all the very best for the New Year. 2018 has definitely been a duff one for
me and my family - we are hoping for rather better in 2019. Once again I regret to
observe that I have been overlooked in the New Year Honours List, but I thought
I'd share with you my great pleasure that John Redwood has been knighted,
presumably for being a pain in the arse for so many years, and for services to
xenophobia. How lovely. Gives me a warm feeling in my stomach - possibly dyspepsia?
***** Late Edit *****
Penny Lane Supplement...
In response to Steve's comment, a couple of old pictures. Penny Lane is an old street in the Allerton area of Liverpool (Liverpool 18, in old money) which runs between Smithdown Place and Greenbank Park. Apart from the fact that it intersects with the road where my Nan used to live(!), it is not all that interesting. On the other hand, "Penny Lane" was the name of the old tram terminus which was at the intersection of Allerton Road, Smithdown Place, Church Road (Wavertree - where the Bluecoat School is), Elm Hall Drive and - well, Penny Lane. The area was known as "Penny Lane", mostly because that was what it said on the front of the trams and buses. As it says in the song, the shelter for the transport terminus is on a roundabout in the middle. That shelter has now been tarted up into a Beatles-themed place. The barber's shop still exists, though back in the 1960s it was owned by Roger Bioletti's granddad (Roger was a year below me at grammar school) - nowadays it, also, lives on the Beatles connection. The main point here is that both the shelter and the barber were, and still are, in Smithdown Place, which is the (sketchy) setting for the song, at the area which has been known for donkeys' years as "Penny Lane", though Penny Lane itself is only one of the streets which runs into that junction.
I may have explained that so brilliantly that even I can't understand it any more. Here are the pictures - all borrowed from elsewhere:
Bioletti's barber shop, Smithdown Place, 1960s
The shelter, in 1956 - looking in exactly the opposite direction to previous photo - this time looking along Allerton Road - the barber's shop must be just off the left edge of the picture
Somewhat later view of the shelter - circa 1970? - here we are looking towards Church Road, with Allerton Rd off to the right and Smithdown to the left, and Penny Lane itself directly behind us.
The actual song is a bit of a montage of boyhood memories - some poetic licence in there - the Fire Station is in Mather Avenue - a couple of miles away past Allerton Road, on the way to Garston - on the way, in fact, to McCartney's home at Forthlin Road, which is off Mather Avenue. All the Beatle-theming and tourist exploitation is probably OK, but ironic to those of us old enough to recall that Liverpool youth in the 1960s was regarded by the local authorities as just as much of a pestilence as you would expect. Visitors today may be directed to the New Cavern in Mathew Street, but they will not see much information about the fact that the council closed the original place down the first real chance they got. Mind you, it was unhygienic and failed every possible H&S test you could think of, but it's nonetheless true that they had regarded it, and places like it, as blots on the official presentation of Liverpool the Commercial City (and former Second City of the Empire, if anyone could remember that). That particular rubber stamp must have been banged down with a lot of satisfaction. How times change. How attitudes are re-engineered to suit. Slavery and Beat Clubs - choose your viewpoint to fit the times in which you live! ***********************
This is really just a note to myself – I
have seen some of the reaction to the recent Hillsborough verdict – I do not
wish to make any me-too comment, nor falsely claim any personal involvement,
but Liverpool was my home town, and I am well aware of the depth of feeling
that has prevailed there for the 27 years since the tragedy.
Cold shadows that come down the years from
1989 are the extent of the government paranoia about civil unrest, urban
terrorism and potential class war, and the growth in crowd trouble and
neo-fascist hooliganism which marred soccer in those days. The cages behind the goals at
Hillsborough where the fatal crush took place were designed as animal pens,
quite simply because football crowds were viewed as exactly that – animals.
Especially, I need hardly add, northern football crowds, where the proportion
of Tory voters might safely be assumed to be very low indeed.
Maximum-wage heroes - Liverpool FC, season 1961-62 - Big Tam Leishman, in the middle of the front row, still looks like something from Frankenstein's lab
I am even less qualified to comment on this
than I usually am – which may be saying something. The last time I went to watch
an away league game of my beloved Liverpool FC predates Hillsborough by many
years – it was on Saturday, 18th November 1961 (I checked), when I
was a schoolboy – my mate Ken Bartlett got us tickets for the Huddersfield Town
vs Liverpool match, in the old English League Division Two (in which Liverpool
were staging, I think, a remarkable five-year run of 3rd place
finishes, in the days when only the top two clubs were promoted at the season’s
end!). Football crowds were not the high-profile violent menace which they had
become by Thatcher’s time, but my 1961 memories of our day out involve very
little of the match we went to see – all I can remember is the misery of the
journey, the squalor and the sense of worthlessness which the police and the
logistical arrangements instilled in the travelling fan.
Leeds Road, Huddersfield - pre-war photo
Ken and I were experienced visitors to
Anfield, Liverpool’s home ground, though my parents insisted that I never went
in the Kop end, which was famous for its passion and the surges on the
terracing – as a small chap, I used to go to the Anfield Road end, which at
times was scary enough.
Our trip to Huddersfield started quite early,
queuing to board one of the old Football Special trains from Lime Street
station. We were late getting on the train – we waited for our friend Tony
Potter, but he didn’t show up, though we had a ticket for him, and we
eventually gave up on him and squeezed on board. I was shaken by the police
presence – I don’t know what the size of the travelling support was in those
days; records show that the crowd at that game was 23,000-odd, which is not bad
considering Huddersfield were having a poor season, and I guess the visitors
might have brought 5,000 or so with them. In 1961 a good proportion of these
would have been on the trains. There was a hefty contingent of Liverpool Police
and Transport Police at Lime Street – including a good number of senior
officers – the police were aggressive and profane throughout, even though there
was no trouble at that time of the morning. I was upset that the police were so
abusive, when it did not seem to be necessary.
It was a tradition that British Rail would
use old or obsolete rolling stock for these trains – the fans, after all, were barely
human, so it was probably deemed adequate. There was no heating, the toilets
did not work, in some carriages there was no lighting, and only some of the
carriage doors were unlocked – for security. We were also crammed in – 4-a-side
in a filthy compartment designed to hold six. People standing or squatting in the
corridors. Much shoving and swearing to get us all in.
The journey was cold and it took ages – the
Football Specials, of course, had to work around the normal timetables of
sensible trains for decent people, so the routing may have been odd, and we
spent lots of time waiting at signals. We arrived in Huddersfield on a cold,
soaking wet afternoon – it was already very dark at 2pm, when we got off the
train. That was the first shock. We were not in a station – we were unloaded –
had to jump down – in a siding somewhere, and were herded along what appeared
to be a disused railway line, past derelict factories and rubbish dumps,
accompanied by a lot of policemen – some of these had come on the train, some
were local and met us there.
Industrial heartland - Huddersfield in the Old Days
The idea was to keep this horde off the
streets of the town as completely as possible – it was a long, wet, muddy walk
to the old Leeds Road ground, and only the later part of the walk was along
paved streets. We got into the ground without incident, always with the
watching constables, and the game itself was almost an unreal interlude (we won
2-1, Melia and Hunt scored the goals, though I don’t remember a great deal
about it), and then it was time to get us all out of the town again.
The return march seems to have been more
direct – we actually walked through central Huddersfield – I recall being
surprised that they had trolley-buses – but you could not stop – certainly
no chance of going into a pub or buying food. Prodded and abused, we were at
least taken to a station this time. The train, however, was the same as before,
and we reached Liverpool many hours late, frozen stiff, and I was seriously
traumatised by the experience. I was never allowed to go to an away game again
– in fact the home games were off limits for a few weeks as well.
The point of this insignificant tale, if
there is one, is that there was no trouble – maybe that is a vindication of the
methods, I really don’t know. It was a competely routine transport exercise, to
move PAYING CUSTOMERS (I capitalise that to remind myself that we were not, in
fact, convicts or prisoners of war) to a public sporting event in a town that
really was not so far away. It must have happened, just like that, many, many
times, every weekend, all over the country. The police, famously, did not
relish football duty on the weekend, and it was very obvious that the fans were
uniformly regarded as vermin. Again, maybe we were – I certainly felt degraded
and distressed by the experience – Ken and I were just naïve young boys from a
decent school, and being shouted and sworn at on a routine basis was upsetting.
Of course, it was all right really – just a
growing experience, something to toughen us up, but if you wanted to radicalize
the working classes that was one way of going about it. My grandmother use to
say that if you expect the worst of people, that’s just what you will get. It
doesn’t seem particularly sensible that league football matches should become a
long-running war between the police and the public, especially if they didn’t
have to, but that was certainly the tradition.
It isn’t Regensburg, but my ECW trip to
Chester is on. I’ll be going there with a friend from 1st to 3rd
December – the hotel is booked, so we’re going. We have both read John
Barratt’s excellent book on the Great Siege, so the idea is to have a look at what remains of the
Civil War sites, and the odd pub would be all right too.
Chester is not unfamiliar to me; as a
child, I used to visit the place – and especially its zoo – but in those days
the journey from Liverpool was a bit of an epic – long and tiring. We didn’t
have a car (I had a rich Auntie in the Wirral who had a pre-war Vauxhall, but she didn’t
really speak to us), so sometimes the journey involved a train from Birkenhead
Woodside station (which I think you would struggle to find now), sometimes not,
but it always involved a few of those green Crosville buses. It is an
attractive city, and it looks the part for an ECW trip, but I am aware that
very little of it dates back to the Civil War. For a start, much of the city
was destroyed in the siege, and there have been frequent improvements over the
years since then. The walls are marvellous, but a substantial part were widened and turned
into a promenade for the townspeople in the 18th Century.
I originally had a picture of a wartime Crosville Guy Arab bus here - it was pointed out that not only was it too early, but it was probably red. Here's a proper Bristol Lodekka from the 1950s, with the correct livery of Tilling Green
We’ve made bookings with Ed Abram’s fine Chester Civil War Tours operation – we will
definitely be going on the standard tour, and, though the Rowton Moor tour is
not officially open so late in the year, we have the offer of going there too
if the weather is passable and if the farmer is happy to let us on his fields. Serious walking boots will be taken. There is also an interesting tour of ECW public houses, but we may do that
ourselves in the evenings. I was recently walked around the field of Eggmühl by a uniformed fusilier of the 5th Bavarian infantry
regiment from 1809, so being taken around Chester by a Royalist gentleman in
full period costume for 1645 will be quite normal.
It would be nice to wander a little further
afield – Brereton’s trip up to Mostyn is a possibility, as is a quick look at
Nantwich, or Beeston Castle – but the main thing we have to decide is what to do about
our 4th day. Originally, my colleague found he had to be back in
Scotland on the 4th day, but he has subsequently got out of his
prior engagement, so an extra day is again available. We could stay on in
Chester, of course, but I fancied a trip to Ormskirk – they had a nippy battle
there – quick but influential, it effectively finished off the Royalists in
Lancashire in the First Civil War apart from the garrisons at Lathom,
Greenhalgh and Liverpool. Also, we could have a look for the site of the
original Lathom House, pay our respects to poor old Lord Derby, who is interred
in the local parish church (in however many separate bits), and – failed trump
card! – I have family in Ormskirk who kindly offered hospitality, but, alas,
the dates don’t line up and they have other plans! Like many local people must
have done in the 1640s when they learned that Rupert or Brereton were coming,
they have obviously made quick evacuation arrangements when they heard about
our trip. Not a huge problem – we can still go to Ormskirk, or we could go over to Yorkshire and have a
look at Marston Moor, or Adwalton (less easy to find), and someone has
suggested Pontefract Castle.
Homework
Now that we are definitely going, we can
approach the details with a bit more focus.
The other week, one of the less supportive comments I received accused me of "ridiculous intemperance" (isn't that wonderful? - I'm really very proud of that) and, naturally, I value this feedback, as they used to say in the upwardly-mobile 1980s. Unfortunately, it was a good way wide of the mark - the truth is that behind my flatulent presentation and verbosity beats the sad, dry little heart of an actuary.
As a kid I designed all sorts of solitary games for my own amusement – cricket matches played with dice, a jousting game using Timpo knights and playing cards – all sorts. When my cousin and I were both about 11 we built up a model bus fleet to serve a large mythical island in the Irish Sea (alarmingly similar in concept to the Thomas the Tank Engine idea), but, instead of sensibly crawling round the place with toy buses, uttering gear-changing noises, we got hopelessly sidetracked into drawing maps and producing detailed timetables. Later, my education and professional training were heavily mathematical, and included a lot of statistics and probability, stochastic modelling and so on, so I guess I have always had an interest in playing around with mathematical simulation.
Which gently leads me into a topic which I have been intending to cover for a few months. Computers. If you feel a cold twinge at the mention of the word, do not be alarmed. I have no drums to beat here, but I do have a lot of experience of the subject, both in a wargaming context and from the wider viewpoint of process automation in general. I promise not to tell you what is right, or what you should all be doing, and I hope that some of this may be of interest. A blog, after all, is useful not least because of the opportunity it gives to take a peek through someone else’s windows.
Digression: mention of what is useful about blogs reminds me that one of the big benefits I have gained from writing this stuff over the past five months is the sorting out of ideas. To write something down in an intelligible manner, it is necessary for me to tease out the knotted string which normally fills my head into a more linear, structured form, and a great many light bulbs turn on while I am about it. So, even if you find my blog tedious and/or pointless, you will now have the comfort of knowing that I, at least, am getting something out of it!
End of digression.
The subject of computers is a big one, almost certainly far too big to cover in a single post. This is a bit of a shame, in a way, since dividing the topic up into a series of threads will inevitably risk someone coming back to me and pointing out that I have overlooked such-and-such, when I have not forgotten it, but haven’t got to it yet. That’s all OK – I’m quite happy with that. I’ll try to keep the subject matter focused and relevant – if you are prepared to give it a go then maybe we can help each other out if need be.
Areas I intend to discuss will include some general points on the practicalities and pitfalls of automation, what computers are good at, their use in miniatures wargames (and some of the things which really don’t work very well), some examples of commercial or shareware software of which I have some experience, how I have developed my own game-management systems, and my theories on why the majority of wargames programs are handicapped by some fundamental conceptual and design flaws. I am very much aware that some of this sounds a bit dry – I hope I’ll be able to enhance it with occasional touches of intemperance to brighten things up a bit.
One subject area I wish to swerve is that of self-contained computer games of a wargaming nature. This is – I admit it – a little like my former avoidance of the subject of board wargames, in that there is an element of fear of the unknown in there. I have seen Total War and Cossacks, though not for a couple of years, and some aspects of them look wonderful. I am nervously aware that if one day someone does this right, and we can switch on the PC and find ourselves in a customisable game which looks like a Sergei Bondarchuk movie, we may wonder what on earth we were doing all those years messing about with painted toy soldiers. Having said which, I think we are some years short of that, and I recall that Cossacks II once corrupted the operating system on one of my computers (it rendered the CD writer useless), so there is still some room for scepticism.
If, at any point during the next few postings, anyone spots that we are entering a non-trivial debate about run-time environments, or if someone mentions Unix, please blow a whistle and we’ll stop immediately.
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