So, I was looking through the photos, and I found something interesting. We’ll come to that in a moment; and I’ll go over in that corner and look all shy and embarressed. But anyway, first up, I though you all might like to see something funny. I was always a something of a tom-boy, probably in reaction to my sister’s highly femme status (although, I look back and am incredibly jealous of [at least one of] her dresses). Anyway, whilst hunting for the one teenage photo of me I actually like (yes, there is one; it just seems to have totally disappeared) I found these two:
Incidentally, that’s a Radio 1 tee-shirt; though I can’t find any pictures of the radio 1 event where I got it. My sister had one too… so I wasn’t jealous of that ;-)
What else? Well, avoidance:
Look – just for howelsthunder – a golfball in the river; and the river’s gone… but the golf-ball is still there. I’d get it and send it to you, but it smells somewhat as the drains from the stables on the opposite side of the road empty into the river. Summer can be a right horse-pee filled riot in my parents house.
Anyway – here they are:
Yes, so um, there :-)
No, no, not sarky.. me? (That’s what you get for saying I’ve (a) got and American accent, and (b) that I sound better with it. :-P )
Yes, so at least heading towards the right general topic – here’s a shot of Britain pretending to be America:
Which kinda leads on to the main topic of tonight’s symposium. Um, I used to hate America. I admit it; okay? Everyone? Yes? You all knew that anyway. Now I’ve chilled out a lot over the years, and now grasp that America has things to recommend it, just as it has things I dislike; much like everywhere else on the planet. Well, with the possible exception of various very hot-arid places, which I tend not to like on the basis of not liking being hot. But anyway; while I was prodding through the photos today, I found, well, this first:
It was in the collection of my dad’s photos from when he started trying to trace the family tree a while back. At first glance, at least to me, I thought “ah, someone’s done a photo of some party they had”. My brain didn’t notice anything in particular about it, indeed, it wasn’t until I saw the next picture
on which, in my dad’s untidy hand is noted:
Xmas Greetings, 1935
Aunt Gertie
Illinois
Chicago?
Elmhurst?
At which point, my brain registered that in the background of the first picture is the stars and stripes. And a little bell rang in the back of my head; I’ve got (albeit distant) family in America. I guess I better relent a little further on the old Anti-America stance then ;-)
More seriously, I’ve no idea what these pictures are of. Or what they relate to. Which is quite distressing. There’s a couple I can identify – Great Grandfather, Great-Great Grandfather, but then there’s seemingly random ones – state / army funerals, arial shots of bi-planes flying; central news service shots of a war ship and an air-craft carrier (neither of which have any obvious identifying remarks).
I knew my Great-Great grandfather did something in India, but that’s about all. Oh, and my Great Grandfather worked for the post office (W.G.Hayman receiving the Imperial Service Medal after 47 years postal service – one of the photos).
It’s terribly frustrating to find these things and know that I won’t ever know what they are, or what bearing they have on my family’s history. I know that somewhere else in the house is a family tree; but I’m not entirely sure where. I think, perhaps, that it is because that the Elliott line ends with me – unless there’s some substantial advances in genetics and medicine – that I have some interest in the past of my family. I guess seeing this stuff has piqued my interest. Mrr.
Unfortunately, I’ve not brought my ‘grovelling around in the attic’ clothes with me this time, so I’ve not going to go climbing around in our garage and find the family history, not just now.
Although, perhaps I should.
One of the things I wandered off to do was to take some photos of Eastbury’s station platform – from the railway that closed here many years ago – and what I found really shocked me. I walked the whole length of the Lambourn Way around Eastbury and found… well… it’s gone. I stood on it, about 7 years ago, when my parents moved here. The remnants of the bridge – only the two brick supports remain – is still there, and I recall climbing the steps and standing on the platform.
I thought I’d remembered it wrong as I walked, and walked, and walked. And then I walked back – and looked through the chain-link fence and hedge and realised that the change in level in the garden of the house now there was roughly the right height for a station platform. And peering in a little more; the gravel and rubbish piled at the end, nearest [where] the railway bridge [would be] was just shy of what clearly had been a station platform.
What, I wondered, is the point of buying a bit of railwayana if you’re just going to completely hide it? But I suppose someone had their reasons.
It’s very odd, it’s so completely destroyed – the Lambourn Valley Railway – the cuttings have been partially filled in, presumably to make access for the farmer easier – and to give him useful extra land. As I wandered along, I found that the bridge over the farmer’s access road is crumbling – the bricks collapsing into a pile at the bottom – but it was too dark to take a decent photo.
But here’s the only photos I got in the end – one of the bridge supports on station road, and the bridge over the farmer’s access road.
Finally, here’s some teaser photos for more abandoned things
