My Surrey sojourn’s been an enjoyable couple of days. On Saturday the pair of us enjoyed a trip into Guildford for a spot of shopping, both window and real. The sheer number of independent retailers is far greater in the South than some northern cities, especially when it comes to clothing. That said, the bargains I picked up (some shirts) were from a national outlet. In the evening we adjorned to a pub in Frensham, near to where we’re based in Tilford. The Holly Bush is a roomy place with a large covered seating area outside, plus a big beer garden. The food menu isn’t extensive, but what they do supply is very good. On a recommendation we shared the fish platter. Huge King prawns, excellent squid rings and a delicious Mackerel pate came with bowls of Olives and sun-dried tomatoes plus crisp pitta bread and a sweet chilli dip. Feeling ambitious we also ordered one of our favourites (soft shell crab) which was on the small plate menu and served with mango. So, here’s today’s bonus picture – the Fish platter (which was more than enough for two people)…
Today we went to somewhere Dawn’s never been to before and that I’ve not visited for years, Box Hill in the Surrey Hills AONB. Needless to say (being a bank holiday) it was very busy with families making a day of it and enjoying the views and walks, or just getting together in groups to have picnics or barbecues. The atmosphere was lovely. As we’d taken Tilly, my brother-in-Law’s Cairn Terrier with us, we made lots of friends! Now, back at home we’re having a relaxed evening as tomorrow it will be time for me to return North again – which should be fun as it’s Bank Holiday Monday. No doubt a rolling blog will appear…
In the meantime, here the real picture of the day which is taken from the last batch of old slides I’ve been scanning. I took this shot at the flea market in Anjuna, Goa, India in December 1993. It’s a shot of one of the Tribal Women from Karnataka state who sell the most amazing embroidered, bejewelled and mirrored clothing. Their personal jewellery can be quite something too. In this case it was the woman’s colourful sari which really added to the scene.
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What a difference a year makes! The summer of 2020 was full of stories of the rag-bag of Anarchists, professional-protesters, Extinction Rebellion supporters and a few local Nimbys who’d rallied to the “HS2Rebellion” banner. So-called ‘protection’ camps were set up in or by woodland and battles ensued with HS2 Ltd staff and security as the protesters boasted of how they were going to stop HS2 ‘in its tracks’. They made grandiose claims about the levels of support they had, none of which ever materialised as most were ‘keyboard warriors’ who’d send ‘love and rage’ (one of their favourite slogans) over the internet as they watched yet another interminable livestream from the protests.
Move on a year and the picture’s very different. Having suffered failure after failure, a series of camp evictions and arrests of most of the hard-core of the protesters, their campaign’s collapsed. Now the surviving ‘protection camps’ are little more than squats, where people are holed-up but doing nothing of any consequence to affect work on HS2, much less stop it. Right now, many of the handful of folk from the remaining camps are pratting around with Extinction Rebellion in Central London, which means they’re nowhere near HS2! Here’s a look at the supposed camp network, taken from HS2Rebellion’s website today. I’ve marked the true situation with the camps on each one.
As you can see, the ‘high profile’ camps like Euston, Harvil Rd and Crackley were cleared some time ago. The only one remaining in London’s the squat at Wormwood Scrubs. This scruffy encampment partly burned down a couple of days ago, prompting the local Council to finally lose patience with the few squatters remaining (who’ve never stopped any HS2 work at the site) and serve them with a 24-hour eviction notice yesterday! The irony? No-one was at the camp at the time as the handful of occupants weren’t trying to stop HS2, they were too busy pratting around with their chums from XR in Central London.
The mess in Euston Gardens back in October 2020 before the protesters started erecting bigger structures to cover their abortive tunneling efforts.
The Wendover camp on the A413 hangs on for now. It too has been served with eviction papers and will be cleared anytime soon. Whether the occupants try and ‘put up a fight’ or go meekly is open to question but the final result isn’t. They’ve been a small thorn in the side of the project (and annoyance to the local population, who got fed up of the thefts and begging) so no-one will be sad to see them go.
Jones’ Hill woods was the last ‘hurrah’ of their campaign. Activists like the serially failed Mark Keir bluffed, blustered and lied about how they were stopping HS2 through strength of numbers and court cases, but Keir’s always written metaphorical cheques he couldn’t cash. The court cases failed and the few protesters on the ground never stood any serious hope of stopping work. Now the woods are deserted as the work HS2 needed to do felling some trees is almost complete. Like most of the original Harvil Rd protesters Keir himself has disappeared, despite having a court case against him from earlier protests dismissed.
The ‘New Poors Piece’ camp is also deserted. It was always an odd one as it’s not on the route of HS2 but on the edge of the E-W Rail line, it’s just that HS2 Ltd are carrying out the work their on behalf of the EW project. So, in fact, the protesters were protesting about the very thing they claimed to support – new E-W railways! Hypocritical, much? The camp was only set up because the land was owned by a sympathetic farmer! Like many of their other locations, the protesters have left the woods in a mess. Abandoned towers choke the trees and the place looks more like a dump than a woods. The hypocrisy of these faux ‘environmentalists was always weapons-grade.
Looking more like a ‘scrapheap challenge’ than an eco-camp, these are the structures the protesters have abandoned in Poors Piece woods – which wasn’t even on the route of HS2!
Lazily, HS2Rebellion show ‘Camp Isla’ as active. Situated on private land, the owners had the camp evicted in May! They went without a struggle and most have now disappeared.
The last on the list is Bluebell Woods, which is located in HS2 phase 2a to Crewe. As usual, the protesters have spent all their time building structures out of pallets and other tat. Not that they’ve got much else to do other than get splinters in their backsides – the main HS2 Civils work isn’t due to start in this area until 2024!
Threats of other camps on Phase 2a remain just that, threats. Mainly because there’s so few of the original activists left. Most have drifted off to other causes or gone back into mainstream education or society. Of course, there’s still many court cases pending which will cramp the ‘style’ of the remaining ‘hard core’ of protesters (most of whom are linked to Extinction Rebellion) but they’re powerless to do anything. Plus, the money tap’s been turned off. People who used to donate to keep the camps alive have finally got fed up of seeing their money wasted. Now, you mostly see ‘activists’ begging for personal funding via Crowdfunders or other means (so that you can’t see how much is actually donated). Here’s good illustration of what I’m talking about. Here’s ‘peaceful’ protester Ross Monaghan throwing in the towel and begging for money at the same time.
Ironically, Ross, who was convicted of two charges of assault and four charges of criminal damage last month was hilariously boasting about putting the ‘final nail’ in HS2’s coffin earlier in the month (whilst begging for money). Now it seems the nail that was driven was into his protest career! Some ‘building’ campaign…
Here’s an example of how the money’s started to dry up. This is a funding page for the soon to be evicted (and laughably named) ‘active’ resistance camp at Wendover. It never got near its target and there’s been one donation of just £5 in a month. Social media is littered with pages like this.
Now the bird-nesting season’s coming to an end and the few remaining trees that HS2 need to remove on Phase 1 will be felled. With no-one around to stop the work it won’t take long. A few locals might still film the work to ‘bare-witness’ as the protesters like to call it, but all their bluster about all the ‘wildlife crimes’ HS2 has allegedly committed hasn’t resulted in a single prosecution – never mind a conviction. It’s funny, despite the amount of camera-phone footage filmed by the protesters they never ever managed to catch any evidence for any of their claims that would actually stand up in court. I suspect all these grandiose but baseless claims are one of the reasons support has dropped away.
I’m sure the posturing around the protests will drag on for a while yet, but already Hs2rebellion seem to be losing interest. With nothing to report, their ‘news’ letter has gone fortnightly. Even then, it’s pretty thin gruel. Like Hs2aa and Stophs2 before them they’re reduced to being a recycling service, punting any critical article about HS2 they can to try and keep flagging interest going.
Stop Hs2 is dead.
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I’m on the move once more, this time heading for a break in Surrey, where Dawn’s been for the past few days, house-sitting for her brother whilst he takes a much-needed holiday in Greece. Right now I’m on a Northern service from Leeds that should have been going to Chester, but for reasons unexplained it’s terminating in Manchester – which is fine for me. Like many services I’ve been on recently, the train’s busy with people of all ages having a day out. We’ve had walkers heading for the Pennines, families heading for the sights and young people off shopping. The days of empty trains are well behind us. Most passengers are still wearing masks, which is reassuring, especially as Covid cases are very much on the rise at the moment. It’s almost as if some people have forgotten that and think it’s gone away. I’ll be blogging throughout the day as my journey unfolds, feel free to pop back later to see how I get on…
12:00
Walking across Manchester from Victoria to Piccadilly was an eye-opener in more ways than one. The city centre was packed! I’ve not seen such crowds since before lockdown. Two things struck me, one was that there’s an awful lot of young people with backpacks about, presumably because the August bank holiday weekend’s well known as the festival season and these events have reopened again. The other thing that stuck me was young women’s fashions, which have changed a lot during the pandemic. The word ‘skimpy’ springs to mind. Maybe it’s a reaction to being locked down and cooped up for so long? On arrival at Piccadilly I didn’t hang around at the numbers of passengers milling around gave me the impression the London train would be busy. True enough, platform 8 already contained dozens of people waiting for the incoming Pendolino that would form the 11:55 service, which I’m sat on now.
Manchester Piccadilly this morning.
13:25.
We passed through one of my old haunts (Rugby) a few minutes ago. I once spent Xmas and Boxing day working trackside here for Network Rail during the ill-fated Rugby upgrade, part of the West Coast Route Modernisation. It didn’t go well. In those days the ‘Sentinel’ scheme which monitored people’s PTS (Personal Track Safety) competencies wasn’t too sophisticated. A lot of the Overhead Line Engineers were subcontractors and many simply never turned up as they’d been offered better money to work elsewhere. Ironically, one of the pictures I took that Christmas is still being used by the media on a regular basis. Those in the know can tell the pictures age as full PPE (including high-vis trousers) wasn’t mandatory.
13:55.
We’re now South of Watford on the way in to Euston so I’m going to shut-down the laptop and blog from the phone…
15:45.
That was an interesting interlude in London. Whilst I was there I checked out progress on building High Speed 2 around Euston. Every time I visit the area’s changed due to more old buildings having vanished or streets moved. Today was no exception. Now the West side of Euston station’s disappeared, including the old signalbox. I took time to get some shots of the work pinning the Western retaining wall which is having rows of ground anchors added to it. You can see it as your train arrives (look to the right). Wandering on through Somers Town to St Pancras I caught a busy Thameslink service to London Bridge, then an equally busy Southeastern service to Waterloo.
Passengers throng the platforms at St Pancras Thameslink station this afternoon.
I’m now on a packed 10 car Southwestern train to Woking. Even I’m surprised at how quickly passenger numbers are bouncing back.
I caught this Poole train as far as Woking where I changed for an Alton service which was less busy but had far more passengers than when I was here in July. The stations have recovered from their slumbers too as shops and cafes have reopened. Here’s how Waterloo station looked this afternoon.
I’ll be very interested to see how the railways look over the holiday as I’ll be heading back North on Bank holiday Monday, which could prove interesting.
22:15
Time to bring this blog to a close. I’m now safely ensconced in Surrey after a busy but enjoyable day. Dawn picked me up from Farnham station and the pair of us have had a lovely evening catching up whilst taking my Brother-in-Law’s dog for a walk along some of the footpaths surrounding Tilford before having night chilling at home in front of the TV – which is why this blog went dormant. I had a night off!
It’s another short blog from me tonight as I’ve been busy sorting out work and the fact that tomorrow I head back down South for the Bank Holiday. This means that you’ll be treated to a rolling blog as I make my way from Halifax to Farnham via who knows where as I have some work shots in mind…
Today’s not been a bad one, although I could’ve done without the news that Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts has passed away – even if 80’s a bloody good age for someone in his profession! I saw the Stones live at Wembley Stadium in 1990 and they were superb. It’s a sobering thought that all my teenage idols are now pensioners, but then – so am I. Where the hell did the years go? It’s a question I’ll explore in another blog when I have the time and inclination…
Meanwhile, here’s the picture of the day. I’ve scanned a few more old travel slides today and this was one of them. I took this picture of the main beach in Arambol, Goa, India on the 31st January 2000,
I first found this place in 1985 and for many years it became my ‘happy place’. But time and events move on. I’ve not been back since 2003 and although I’m tempted as I still have friends there I’m not sure I want to spoil those fabulous and special memories. Besides, there’s so many places that I haven’t been to yet that I’d love to explore…
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There was me thinking I’d been so clever this morning! I’d a whole blog prepared which was a rewrite of an article I’d written for RAIL magazine back in 2017. I was all ready to publish it then realised I couldn’t find the damned pictures to go with it! All my pictures (so I thought) are backed-up. Either on my Zenfolio website or on several hard-drives. Only one particular hard-drive failed earlier this year. And guess where the pictures are? Hopefully I’ll be able to get all of them recovered as it sounds like a mechanical failure rather then anything more serious. Even so, it’s made me think about how I look at backing up pictures in the future.
This means today’s blog is going to be very short and the picture of the day not what I was going to display at all. But, it does fit my mood as this is somewhere I’d much rather be right now. I took this picture of a sunset in Mandrem, North Goa, India on the 31st January 2002.
I can still hear the sound of the sea and feel the heat on my skin as I look at the picture. I am soooo looking forward to getting back to international travelling just as soon as this shitty time is over. OK, it’s not *all* bad, I’ll be on the rails in the UK again very soon, so expect a few rolling blogs and pictures from around the UK. In the meantime – enjoy this picture and relax….
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You’ll be relieved to know there’s no long, rambling blog from me today before I cut to the chase and post a picture.. Well, there might be a little one. There’s so much to write about but so few hours to fit it in to. This morning was spent in a ‘Zoom’ call judging three categories in this year’s Community Rail Awards. Myself and my other august judges, plus Sarah from Community Rail Network (who very capably did the behind the scenes stuff with spreadsheets, despite being drafted in at the last moment) agreed the winners for three of the categories in this year’s awards. Obviously, I’m not going to spill any beans but what I will say is that the winners were never really in dispute between the four of us – and we individually marked them without reference to each other. That said, the standard of entries was amazing and and choosing the shortlisted entries was really tough. Despite the pandemic, the world of community rail has been doing some brilliant stuff. The results will be announced in December when the awards themselves will be held in Southampton – having been postponed from the same location in 2020. There’s some fantastic projects that’ll be recognised, but for now my lips are sealed…
Judging done I’ve cracked on with other projects and picture editing in the hope I can escape for the day with the camera tomorrow – weather permitting, although this will entail an early start – hence the shortness of this blog. Which brings me on to the picture of the day…
I took this shot one morning in January, 1998. It’s the view from outside the hostel we were staying in at the hill station of Kodikanal in Tamil Nadu in Southern India.
Kodaikanal is 2133 metres above sea level. It’s quite a journey to get there by bus from the plains of Tamil Nadu below. There’s a heck of a temperature change in either direction. But, imagine waking up in the morning and stepping outside your room to a view like this, because this is exactly what we saw when we did…
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Welcome to a new week. I had it scheduled in my diary as one I’d been spending entirely at home as I had to finish judging entries in three different categories for the 2021 Community Rail Awards. As Dawn wasn’t at work today because she was driving down to Surrey I decided to get up at Sparrowfart, let her sleep and get on with the marking. So, coffee made – I was in the office at 06:30 this morning, reading and annotating the final entries out of the three groups I’m judging for, which meant I was finished before lunchtime. There’s some excellent entries but there’s nothing I can say at this stage – for obvious reasons. Tomorrow my fellow Judges and I come together on ‘Zoom’ to see what we’ve each shortlisted and agree the final shortlist and placings. I’ll be fascinated to see if we near enough have the same people placed!
Having completed my effort and seen Dawn off on her travels I decided to make the most of the sunny weather and escape with the camera for a few hours. There’s a huge amount of subjects on my shot-list, but today I decided to stay local. Well, within Yorkshire anyway! Having walked into Halifax I caught a train to Bradford then walked between the city’s stations to take the long way around to Leeds. On the way I stopped to grab a few pictures at Kirkstall Forge station as the light was ideal. What was less than ideal is the frequency of the stations automated announcements. The station has a half-hourly service, which means there’s several trains per hour that pass non-stop. Not a problem in itself, apart from the fact ‘Digital Doris’ seems to have no idea when they’re due so fills the air with ‘Stand well back from the platform edge, the next train is not scheduled to stop here” every minute. Great, but no train’s due to pass for 7 minutes! I timed them! It’s like the boy who cried wolf. You get so sick of hearing the announcement that you turn off. Then suddenly, a train does whizz past. The old expression ‘less is more’ springs to mind.
Anyway, gripe aside, I continued my trip into Leeds in time to catch one of the trains I was after. LNER used to have a daily service from Harrogate to London Kings Cross. Essentially it was one out in the morning that would return in the evening. I never managed to get pictures of them, but now the service runs roughly every two hours, so I thought it was time to get this one in the can. Besides, the chance to juxtapose new intercity trains with traditional (albeit a renewed version) semaphore signalling isn’t that common. Here’s one of the shots.
Having worked 1D16, the 1333 London Kings Cross to Harrogate, set 800205 slinks off to the refurbished and renewed turnback siding before returning to London as 1A46, the 1736 Harrogate to London Kings Cross. To the left is a replicated bracket semaphore signal which was installed as it was easier than replacing it with modern signalling as the station’s still controlled from the old BR built signalbox behind the train to the right. The signal has all the aesthetics of a car-crash compared to a (once elegant) LNER lattice structure beyond. The semaphore arms look like they’ve been mounted on standard-length scaffold pole that no-one could be bothered to cut to size or cap-off.
Signalling aside, seeing these units at Harrogate makes a change from the standard diet of ‘Northern’ multiple units , even if they have gone more upmarket since the demise of the ‘Pacers’. Here’s a case in point. this is a shot of 800205’s return working passing an ex-Scotrail Class 170 which has been cascaded to Northern. The pair are seen at Horsforth, the only other station between Harrogate and Leeds that LNER call at.
Right, enough from me tonight. I’ve another early start tomorrow in order to clear the decks for Judging. Depending on how it goes I *may* venture out again tomorrow. If not, there’s still plenty of old pictures to keep you entertained with. So, for now – goodnight…
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Ah, lazy Sunday! Well, sort of – ish! After having a thoroughly enjoyable day and evening at a friends wedding yesterday we’d deliberately left today’s calendar blank. We may not have been up with the Larks but we still made the most of the day. Yesterday’s wedding threatened to be a washout due to the weather. Fortunately the showers held off for all the most important parts of the day. Having rendezvoused at the Ukrainian Club in Huddersfield where the post wedding celebrations were to take place we all boarded a vintage double-deck bus (a 1962 Daimler ex-Leeds for those who like to know such things) which took us to and from the Methodist church in nearby Denby Dale where the wedding ceremony took place. I have to admit to having a soft spot for old buses, but that’s us public transport geeks for you! Trains, trams or buses – I’m a fan of them all…
The evening do was great fun as Dawn and I caught up with so many people whom we’ve not seen for ages due to Covid. We also had chance to socialise with some of Dee’s colleagues whom we see more often, but not outside of work, so that was another bonus. All in all, it was great day and we’re really happy for Paul and Hazel that it all came together in such style.
That lousy weather I mentioned has hung around all day today, but neither of us minded. Dawn’s kept herself occupied packing for a trip to her brothers in Surrey in order to ‘mind the shop’ whilst he’s on holiday in Greece. Meanwhile, I’ve been busy with old pictures and paperwork for various jobs and clients. Admittedly, I couldn’t resist getting out for a walk and spending a some time watching the weather. I love the way the skies over the Calder Valley are constantly changing. I can see why the artist Ashley Jackson fell in love with Yorkshire.
One of my favorite perches is just down the road from where we live. The walk there is lovely, as it takes you through local woodland. It’s also a bit of a climb, so you feel you’ve done something positive to get there rather than just sitting on your arse back at home. So, today’s picture is one I took earlier from the promenade, gazing out across Sowerby Bridge and the Calder Valley as I waited for the next rain-storm to arrive…
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It’s an early picture of the day today as we’re off to a wedding this afternoon which makes blogging this evening look very unlikely – for obvious reasons! It’s been an interesting and varied week that’s highlighted the fact the world is slowly returning to normal after the chaos caused by Covid. Sadly for our friends who’re getting married today, the one thing they’ve absolutely no control over (the weather) hasn’t played ball. Here in the Calder Valley the hilltops are submerged underneath thunderous looking low cloud and misted by rain. The wedding’s in Denby Dale/Huddersfield but I doubt the conditions will be any different. Even so, we hope Hazel and Paul have a fabulous day and their spirits aren’t dampened. We’ll certainly be doing our best to make it enjoyable for them.
The wedding will be the climax of a very sociable week – another indicator we’re recovering from the pandemic. We’ve felt a bit like hermits over the past 18 months. Now the vaccination programme’s reached such a level and Covid cases appear to be manageable the idea of socialising with friends (and strangers) seems a lot less intimidating. That doesn’t mean Dawn and I have thrown caution to the wind – far from it. We both still wear masks when out shopping, on public transport or when we feel the situation merits them but we’re allowing ourselves some optimism and certainly more freedom. Judging by the number of people I’ve experienced returning to the railways we’re not alone in those feelings. What we both want now is to be able to have a holiday, preferably somewhere sunny, but right now, we’re still being cautious on international travel.
Sadly, that means I’m not likely to be seeing sights like today’s picture until 2022. This is one of the latest batch of old slides that I’ve been scanning and it comes from the 18 month long round the world trip Lynn and I took in 1997-99. I took this picture in Hampi, Karnataka, India in December 1997…
Ever seen an elephant stables before? No, neither had I until we visited the ruins of Hampi, which is a UNESCO world heritage site and former capital of the Vijayanagara Empire. It’s a remarkable and rather surreal place which has laid abandoned since it was destroyed by sultanate armies in 1565. Don’t expect to explore it all in a day, the ruins cover over 16 sq miles!
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Today’s been a day for slaving away at home editing the pictures that I took yesterday, catching up on some paperwork and researching stuff for future blogs. Not exactly what you’d call exciting but just the job after yesterday’s little stroll. At least my shoulders get a break from the weight of the camera bag!
As it’s Friday Dawn and I did something unusual (well, for us anyway) by going out for a drink with friends in Halifax. We rarely visit the town centre as we tend to gravitate to Sowerby Bridge or more local hostelries. Today we’re trying somewhere different. Over the past few years there’s been an explosion of micropubs and new bars which have taken over some of the empty shops in town. Today we visited one of the older ones – The Victorian craft beer cafe in Powell St, behind the Victoria Theatre. It’s a cracking, multi-roomed place that has all the right elements you’d hope for. Spread over several levels and with a real variety of nooks and crannies and a bar that has an excellent variety of beers (no, it’s not all ‘craft’, nor expensive due to the name) the place is well worth a visit. The five of us had a great night and I’m sure we’ll be back. Much as we’d liked to have stayed Dawn and I had to leave early as Dee has a wedding cake to finish making. Yep, we’re off to a wedding tomorrow, so a blog may (or may) not appear.
In the meantime I’ll leave you with the picture of the day which is from the latest batch of old slides I’ve been scanning. Right now I’m on an album that contains a real mish-mash of slides that either were never properly filed and just ended up crammed in albums – or ones that got mis-filed. This one’s a case in point. I took this picture in Arambol, Goa, India in December 1997. Friends of Lynn and I had a bakery/cafe there called ‘Double Dutch (Axel and Lucie are both Dutch – and there’s a looongg story about them cycling from the Netherlands to India for another time). This is a chap who was known as ‘Forest’ performing a fire dance routine in their garden whilst I played around with the camera…
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Paul Bigland 