Lockdown bandit

Until now, despite the pandemic lockdown, it hasn't been mandatory in the UK to wear a face mask. Some people have been donning them, but I'd never bothered. I'm not entirely convinced by the science, at least as far as low grade and home-made masks are concerned, and I worried that it would make me touch my face more and thus put me at more risk. Since the recent slight easing of restrictions, the guidance recommends face coverings 'in enclosed spaces where social distancing is not always possible and [you] come into contact with others that [you] do not normally meet, for example on public transport or in some shops'. So I decided I needed to make myself some. 

I don't want to order online as there is still a shortage of PPE and I don't want to cheat those more needy out of supplies. I rooted around in my sewing box for a few scraps of suitable material and some elastic, got my sewing machine out and set to work, using a pattern I saw online. I was reasonably pleased with the result. At least they fit quite snugly and are more comfortable than I imagined. I used quite thin elastic, since with my hair, hearing aids, glasses and earrings, there's not a lot of spare room around my ears! I found my glasses fog up so I unearthed some pipe-cleaner to mould around my nose, which helps a bit. I couldn't find anything else suitable; I have no plastic-covered wire and paperclips weren't bendy enough. The only trouble is the pipe-cleaner was bright green so it will probably bleed and rust when I wash the masks. I might have to take it out again. 

Made a couple for my daughter too. It brought back a memory of sewing tiny long-sleeved blouses for her to wear, when she was just nine months old and we had our first family holiday in Greece. You couldn't buy light summer baby clothes with long sleeves, and I was desperate that she wouldn't get sun-burnt. (Sunscreen for kids wasn't as effective then as now.) Here I am, still sewing things for her out of love and concern for her safety! It was a satisfying afternoon's work. 

VE Day 75th anniversary

The 75th anniversary of VE Day was celebrated locally in quite a muted fashion. I don't think people's hearts were in it really, given the social distancing measures in place. I had a wander around the village but there didn't seem to be any street parties, unlike in some places where people have held 'parties' with everyone sitting in their own front gardens. There were a few folk sitting in the back street next to mine, but it hardly seemed to qualify as a party. I did, apparently, miss the piper playing in the grounds of the church. You can see a video of that HERE.

There was some bunting around and a few decorated windows.

My daughter apparently spent the morning baking scones and cakes, using recipes she found in my late mum's old cookery file, which I thought was quite sweet of her. They had 'afternoon tea' in the garden later. She asked me if I had any mementoes of VE day and I've searched my old photos but I couldn't find anything. My parents were just a little too young to be conscripted during the war. They both left school in the later years of the war and took jobs in the General Post Office, dad as an apprenticed telephone engineer and mum as a telephonist. I seem to remember her telling me she was seconded to London for a few months and I think she may have been there on VE Day but that's all I know. Dad later did National Service in REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) but that was after the war ended. In all my rummaging, I did unearth this rather nice photo (below) of the two of them taken in 1947.

Someone else in Saltaire had obviously unearthed some old photos too, as there were a few displayed in a window with the details of who they were. They were nice to see.

'We'll meet again...' seems quite an appropriate anthem now, as then. For all the horrors and individual sufferings of this viral pandemic, I still don't think it comes near the struggle, sacrifice and privations suffered by the generations that had to endure the two World Wars.

Nostalgia

I had a bit of a nostalgia trip in Leeds one day, finding myself up in the university area. I didn't actually attend Leeds University (I studied at Bradford) but I had friends at Leeds and often came to gigs at the Students' Union. I haven't been up to the university quarter for ages and I was surprised to see how much has changed and how much new building there has been, although the wonderful art deco Parkinson Building (below) with its prominent tower has been there since the 1950s.

Friends, it was here on these steps that I queued overnight in the snow to get tickets to see The Rolling Stones in 1971. Yes, I have lived! Happy days.

The curious chimney on the pavement outside the Laidlaw Library, above, is actually a sculpture: 'A Spire' by Simon Fujiwara. There's a touch of nostalgia in that too, since it references Leeds' industrial heritage. The base contains pulverised coal, upon which Leeds' prosperity was built. The Spire also relates to the two adjacent church spires, as the very modern, glass-fronted Laidlaw Library is shoehorned into a space between two churches.

The Cotswolds: Model Village

Although I knew it would be packed with visitors, my main objective in going to Bourton on the Water was, as I said, yesterday, a nostalgia trip to reconnect with childhood memories. My parents took me several times to visit the Model Village, a one-ninth scale replica of the centre of the village. Commissioned by the landlord of the Old New Inn, it was built in 1937 in the back garden of the pub and it is still there. As a child in the 1950s I was utterly charmed by it, carefully picking my way along the streets and across the bridges, peering into gardens and windows. It is still much the same, though some buildings, made of the same local stone as the actual village, are crumbling and some areas have been refurbished or rebuilt. It cost me £3.20 to get in - a small price to pay for an hour or so of revisiting happy memories and taking new delight in the craftsmanship of the model. 

I showed the war memorial in the centre of the village, beside the river, in my photos yesterday, and the church too. They are both there in the model. The gardens have been carefully trained to have miniature trees and the detail is still exquisite.

Many of the shops are signed as they currently are, including the ironmongers. Below left is a photo of the actual shop in the village and below right is the model.

Memories

It is always a surprise and a delight when readers of my blog contact me. After I posted the photos I took at the recent celebrations of the bicentenary of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, I received a lovely message from Peter, in Germany. He has kindly allowed me to reproduce (below) the recollections he shared, which I think paint a wonderful picture of a childhood in the 1950s and the history of the Canal.

My photo above shows the bridge over the Leeds-Liverpool Canal in Shipley, at the point where the Bradford Branch canal (to which Peter refers) used to fork off. The branch canal has since been closed and filled in. The bridge allowed boat horses to walk from one towpath to the other. 

Peter says:  

'Thank you for your blog with so many beautiful photos! They bring back such lovely memories for me. I remember the tramway behind Salt’s Mill and helping the last L+L [Leeds and Liverpool] boatmen. For me, a boy on his bicycle, the canal between Leeds and Skipton was my secret, perfect world. I am speaking of 1958 when I was 13 yrs of age. I attended Prince Henry’s Grammar School in Otley. After feeding my rabbits every spare second was spent assisting and talking with the Shipley boatmen. Glovers barges then carried 40 tons of coal from Allerton Bywater near Castleford up through Leeds to the mills of Shipley, Bingley and Skipton. Tate and Lyle’s sugar and the wool traffic from Liverpool had ceased. I witnessed the canal’s swan song.

The boatmen were so good to me. My special friend told me his first trip on the barges was up to Bradford with carbouys of sulphuric acid. Pumping water up the Bradford Branch using steam engines was always expensive and it finally closed in 1922. Billy told me of his horse, Peggy. One bitterly cold morning he brought her out of the stable in Shipley and attached the swingle-tree. She towed the barge as far as Hirst Wood lock. Seizing her opportunity, she broke free and galloped back  to Shipley with Billy chasing after. He found Peggy standing in front of the stable door. Said Billy smiling, „that Peggy, she were nobody’s fool!“

If in Shipley you walk in the (Leeds) direction toward Dockfield Mill and the wonderfully iconic stone bridge [photo above] diagonally opposite, where new flats now stand, stood Ramseys boatyard where so many wooden barges were built. The famous Shipley barges were lighter and swam well.They were easier for the horses. Much later, sixties film star Lawrence Harvey filmed "Room at the Top" under that bridge. The cameras and lights were set up on Glovers coal boats. A boatman once said to me, "ah've allus 'ad a puir wage". Thus they really admired Harvey's style and gorgeous sheepskin coat!  

I went to sea as an engineer with Texaco Overseas Tankship. Our regular routes were Saudi Arabia to Australia, America, Trinidad and Europe. Later I was responsible for the harbour repair work for a Bremerhaven shipyard. That was fascinating. Each day a new new type of ship: a Hull trawler, a Swedish 4000 car transporter from Japan, an Egyptian container ship, a British Cunard banana ship from the West Indies.

Now retired, I still live in Germany in the pretty Pied-Piper town of Hameln.

I thank you so much for your delightful photos of an area very special to me. So much pleasure!'

Isn't that lovely? Thanks so much, Peter.