This striking granite War Memorial is by the Scottish artist Doug Cocker, sited on the eastern side of Loch Lomond at Rowardennan. The sculpture frames the waters and mountains that would normally take centre stage but in this instance sit firmly in the background:
(click on the image to enlarge)
This gallery contains 5 photos.
I have just finished reading Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts Edgelands – Journeys into England’s True Wilderness. As it states on the cover, the wilderness is much closer than you think. Passed through, negotiated, unnamed, unacknowledged: the edgelands – … Continue reading
This has been prompted by the Unusual arrivals post at Applecrosslife on 10th May; among some exotic machinery which had successfully negotiated the Pass of the Cattle was a Baby Austin Seven. Not only had it managed to climb the pass but it had travelled from Carlisle, a distance of some 350 miles – probably further, as I doubt it would be permitted to take the direct motorway route.
This is the same type of car that my paternal grandparents are standing next to in this photograph taken by my Dad outside their home in Andover. It is from a small photograph album made up of 3 x 2 inch contact prints which he put together as a young boy – they are individually captioned in a manner consistent with a 10-12 year old; this one – Mummy Daddy and Baby:
Another photo features a Ford Model A and by coincidence there was something similar among the visitors to Applecross. This one is captioned - Certainly ‘ot but the year’s wrong:
The Baby Austin Seven was produced from 1922 until 1939 and in its time was the most popular mass produced car manufactured in Britain The brand was held in such affection that when the Mini was first produced, Austin were keen to establish a link with their heritage. Like so many others, my first car was a second hand Mini – registered in 1963 with the registration 6428 VR, my sky blue version had a badge on the rear boot – Austin Seven. I should have kept it, if only for the registration.
I struggled to come up with a set of photographs for this Travel theme; I could find four separate pictures with no connection between them but that didn’t seem very satisfactory. Consequently I have opted to represent all the elements in one photograph; you might have to cut me some slack here but if you look closely they are all present, more or less:
The picture was taken below the lock at Great Haywood on the Trent & Mersey canal – click on the image to enlarge. Here is the same photo with a hint of colour – I could not decide between the two:
There could be many interpretations of Escape, perhaps this is too literal. Maybe these guys were just running for a bus but the backward glances of the one on the far left suggests otherwise; their feet barely touching the ground, they have inspired some pigeons to join in their flight:
The picture was taken at Plaça Catalunya, Barcelona in October 2005 – click on the image to enlarge.
I do not claim to have a photographic memory in the normal sense, quite the reverse, I suspect I have a memory which is in large part based on photographs. We recently took a trip along the Llangollen Canal, a place I last visited in 1977; the odd thing is I could remember virtually nothing from the previous visit other than the well-known highlights such as Chirk and Pontcysyllte Aqueducts. This prompted me to go searching for some pictures I was convinced I had taken with a Mamiyaflex C330 on 120 roll film – I could find no black and white contacts but eventually came across some colour positives. For some long forgotten reason I had temporarily abandoned Kodak’s black and white Tri-X Pan in favour of colour; the results looked good held up to the light but with no suitable projector they were filed and forgotten. There were no prints, no album, no hooks for associated memories, so the detail of the trip was lodged in the brain’s discard folder and drip fed to the recycle bin; so this is the conundrum – how much of my long term memory of events is based on the actual experience and how much is based on a collection of pictures. The evidence would suggest it is mostly the latter; regardless, it was an interesting exercise akin to time travel with a few surprises along the way. I will eventually do a ‘then and now’ post but I was quite taken by this pair of hotel boats ascending locks somewhere between Hurleston and Ellesmere. The first is my favourite because it shows something maybe I had never noticed before; just beneath the tiller can be seen a brown dog nosing its way, uninvited, into the boatman’s cabin. This will be Kerry, our delightful red setter who went through life convinced that the entire world loved her and would welcome her muddy paws regardless of circumstance; she was mostly right:
Click on the images to enlarge – the original 120 positives were scanned using a fairly ancient Epson Perfection 1650. The associated TWAIN drivers are not supported beyond Windows Vista and whilst 120 film is supported it fails to auto-detect the format – the solution is to switch everything to manual and scan the transparencies individually – tiresome but worth it.
Travel theme: Beaches – between the Mersehead RSPB Reserve and the links at Southerness on the Solway Firth, the wide sands stretch to the far horizon and at low tide the sea all but disappears; this is a never-ending landscape under a never-ending sky. It is only from the beaches that the sheer scale of it all becomes apparent – how small, how fragile we are:
(click on images to enlarge)
