Category Archives: Musings

Menaced by Dennis…

15 Saturday Feb 2020

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Today’s been a weird day for several different reasons. It started badly when I logged on to Twitter this morning and found a message from a mutal FBPE (Follow Back Pro Europe) follower where they announced their intention to commit suicide on Valentine’s day. Alarm bells ringing I did a bit of checking and found that it’s almost certain that they went through with it. I’m still trying to process the awful news, especially in light of the information that they left behind. I’m not going to blog about it now as I need time to think about it – because I think their utterly tragic story is worth telling, but I don’t want to cause more harm than good by relating it. My only hope is that this poor tortured soul is finally at peace.

Meanwhile, we seem to have found ourselves menaced by the latest storm. This one, named ‘Dennis’ – arrives just a week after the floods in the Calder Valley that affected Hebden Bridge, Mytholmroyd and Sowerby Bridge. We seem to be back here again in a chain of events that used to be described as ‘once in a lifetime’.

The latest warning is that the River Calder will reach its height at 4am Sunday morning. People have been advised to get their flood defenses ready today, and hope…

The weather’s been pretty crap all day with a combination of high winds and torrential rain that’s running straight off already sodden ground. The pair of us had planned to get out for an hour despite the conditions but in the end circumstances and the climate beat us. I finally ventured as far as the local supermarket a couple of hours ago and got battered by the winds and near horizontal rain. At least on the way back the shopping provided a bit of ballast! Mind you, I also popped in to our ‘local’ for a swift pint and a change of scenery, which also helped. Now I’m back at home, determined to salvage something positive from a pretty negative day.

I’m currently keeping myself occupied by scanning an album of old rail pictures from the summer of 1990. Looking back through them it seems like a different age in so many ways. Not just because how much has changed on the railways, but also because of what I was doing that that stage in my life. In those days I was young, free and single – and in the process of saving up to travel the world. Just over a year later I would pack in my job, pay the rent on my shared flat in London for 12 months and book a single ticket to India. The railways, the UK and my life would look very different when I got back…

Here’s a couple of samples of the pictures I’ve been scanning today, just to show you how much things have changed in 30 years.

Where do I start on this picture? This was taken on the 20th July 1990, from the rear of a train heading South from Stirling in Scotland. You wouldn’t recognise this scene now. For a start, the days of being able to stick your head out of a train window to take a picture like this are gone. So are the old semaphore signals. The goods yard to the right of the picture’s been a car part for years and the view of the station is now dominated by a massive footbridge which crosses the picture from left to right. Oh, and the place has now disappeared under electrified wires as the Scottish Government has rolled out railway electrification North as far as Dunblane.

Here’s another Scottish shot that you wouldn’t recognise now…

On the same day in 1990 a ‘push-pull’ fitted Class 47 backs on to its train at Glasgow Queen Street before working a service to the North of Scotland. Nowadays the skyline beyond is dominated by a massive shopping centre, the Buchanan galleries, and the car-park which was built across the top of the railway to close in a lot of the approaches to the station. This engine (47706) soldiered on for several more years. In November 1990 it was transferred South of the border to Crewe where it became a parcels train locomotive. It lasted in that role until May 1995 when it was stored. A few months later, in August, it was cut up for scrap at Crewe works.

Whilst I’ve been scribbling this the rain has stopped and the wind’s abated. A sign of a positive change – or literally just a lull in the storm? Tomorrow could be interesting…

After the floods…

10 Monday Feb 2020

Posted by in Calder Valley, Musings, Sowerby Bridge, Weather

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Despite some awful weather last night where the wind howled and the rain beat down, the waters of the River Calder subsided and the flooding abated. We’re not out of the woods yet as the forecast isn’t exactly brilliant, but Ciara, the storm that’s caused so much damage has blown over. Now there’s time for the poor sods who’ve been flooded to start picking up the pieces. Again.

I’d originally thought I might head over to Mytholmroyd to document the damage but I’ve been too busy to tear myself away from the computer long enough. I had a big batch of pictures to get finalised for one client, then deal with enquiries and picture requests from another, so I’ve spent most of the day huddled in the office cross-referencing picture databases. It’s not the most glamourous side of the job, but it has to be done.

Finally, after getting the pictures away to the client I went out for a stroll to stretch my legs and also clear my head. The wind may not have dropped, but the temperature certainly has. An arctic blast followed me most of the way, especially up on the promenade above our local woods. I’d have liked to have stayed out longer but as I gazed out across the valley I could see the next storm approaching, blocking out the view of the Calder Valley towards Mytholmroyd as it made its way Eastwards.

Uh, oh – it’s coming my way…

Thinking it was a snowstorm I decided to get home before it caught me. I almost made it before the hailstorm (for that’s what it was) nailed me a few hundred metres from home! Drying out at home I thought I’d venture out again once it had passed, but the bugger keeps coming back. Every time I poke my head outside I find fresh hailstones on the door mat!The weather across the North-West and Yorkshire’s looking pretty mixed tomorrow so I may end up having another day in the office. If the Government does finally pull it’s finger out and the speculation is correct, tomorrow will see some big announcements on investment in infrastructure, which *should* include the new HS2 rai line. That said, we’ve been here before, but I’ll be glad to have the time to sit, analyse and blog about the contents of any announcements and see how the predictions I made when the Oakervee review was announced last August have stood the test of time. You can read that blog here.

I suspect we’ll see a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth from those opposed to HS2. Most of it will be pure social media froth from the reprogrammed pro-Brexit trolls, plus the dwindling bunch of real people who live on the route but who’ve spent the past 10 years pretending to themselves that they were some sort of coherent campaign that actually had any political clout. I think for some of them the decision will take some time to sink in as they’ve listened to little else than the voices in their own little echo-chamber for so long. I’ll be interested to see what the announcement does to the tiny protest groups that are on several sites on the route. Will the announcement make more of them realise the futility of what they’re doing? After all, it’s all very well thinking that the decision whether to go ahead with HS2 hasn’t been made so you might actually achieve something. But when it becomes obvious that’s not the case…

Either way, we’ll be moving on to a very different chapter as construction of HS2 ramps up. No doubt there’ll still be some hiccups. On a project this size it would be a miracle if there wasn’t. I’ll look forward to what’s said with interest.

Once the nights get a bit longer I expect to be busy documenting the construction of Phase 1 and some other UK rail projects too…

Waiting for the wind to blow.

08 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Musings, Photography, Uncategorized, West Yorkshire

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After the past few days gallivanting I’ve enjoyed a restful domestic Saturday at home with Dawn today. Because there’s been a severe weather warning and people have been warned not to travel discretion seemed the better part of valour. Besides, I had an awful lot of pictures to edit and get onto my Zenfolio website, which kept me out of trouble for most of the morning.

I’m writing this at 20:00 and whilst the wind is certainly starting to rise it’s hardly hurricane conditions out there. Even so, we’ve battened down the hatches which in this part of Yorkshire means that we’ve moved all the plastic recycling bins into the porch. There’s not a lot else to do where we live as we’re high up on the valley side. If we needed to sandbag the front door against flooding it wouldn’t just be us who’re in trouble, it’d be the whole damned planet!

Meanwhile, as we wait for everything to blow over, here’s a couple of examples of the pictures I’ve been taking and adding to my Zenfolio website.

Northern’s new CAF built Class 195s continue to spread their wings. Here’s one of the two-car versions arriving at Chesterfield whilst working a Leeds to Nottingham service.

Don’t tell the Woodland Trust! The overgrown lineside at Chesterfield is being cleared of trees and scrub that’s being encroaching on the lineside for the past 30 years. This area used to be the operational railway but as freight patterns changed many goods yards were abandoned and became overgrown. The problem is these trees can cause a danger to rail safety and need to be removed.
The end is near for the BR built Pacer trains as their derogation for disablity legislation runs out in the next few months. This is now a rare sight at Manchester Piccadilly. To make the services compliant each Class 142 is operating with a Class 150 which is fitted with a disabled toilet.
Gorgeous winter light at Manchester Piccadilly station yesterday.

Technology woes…

03 Monday Feb 2020

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Sorry for the lack of blogging but I’ve been busy with a variety of other things. Today I’ve been occupied at home as I’ve had a chap in replacing part of the bathroom floor that had been damaged by a slow leak on the water pipes to the bath. With the action taking place behind the seclusion of a bath panel you don’t realise there’s a problem until the damage is done.

Whilst the bathroom was being knocked about I was in the office next door knocking out another batch of old rail slides from 1990. By this evening I’d managed to get 40 scanned and was working on the next 20 when my laptop threw a wobbler. Despite several attempts to revive it I’ve had no success. In the morning I’ll speak to the manufacturers helpline but I’m fearing the worst.

At least everything’s backed up and there’s no danger of me losing any pictures. It’s just a massive pain in the arse. I was looking at buying a new machine as my Dell XPS 13’s almost four and a half years old and it’s taken a battering. It’s been around the world with me and seen constant use in all sorts of conditions. Apart from the cost the biggest inconvenience is the amount of time it takes to fettle a new machine by installing all the specialist programmes, software, apps, drivers and data. That is if you can find all your contracts and passwords for the stuff. Sometimes that takes longer than getting them up and running! I suspect I’ll be getting little that’s productive done for much of this week.

If I can’t get the damned thing working in the morning It’ll be a case of ordering a new machine, then heading off out to get new pictures whilst I’m waiting for it to be delivered later in the week. At least I’ll have chance to rolling blog as well – watch this space…

Sunday’s mishmash of thoughts…

26 Sunday Jan 2020

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Considering that January is the month I’m normally trotting the globe I seem to have spent an awful lot of this year’s opening month sat at home staring at computer screens. I shouldn’t complain. The British weather has been pretty typical. It’s reminded me why I normally flee the UK now. It’s been predictably dull, but it has allowed me to make big inroads into scanning my old rail and travel pictures as I’ve scanned over 600 so for this month, which has freed up a not inconsiderable amount of space in my office! I’ll add a few samples later In this blog.

Whilst the weekend’s seen me busy at home I have been keeping an eye on the media and the continuing saga of HS2 as it’s played out in the press. The Fourth Estate have done themselves no favours in the way they’ve reported events. What’s sad (but predictable nowadays) is the way most of them (print or TV) can’t be arsed to do the slightest bit of independent research, so we’re into “send three and fourpence” territory (aka ‘Chinese whispers’) where the message gets distorted down the line. The FT originally reported an anonymous Government briefer who claimed the cost of HS2 was now £106bn. This was picked up and amplified by a cohort of lazy journalists who turned it into an official figure in a ‘secret’ report, when in fact it was total bollocks. The fact the National Audit Office then published an official report into HS2 and £106bn was never even mentioned (as it’s bollocks) matters not. Joe Public’s seen the figure mentioned and swallowed it, hook, line and sinker. Are these journalists apologetic? Are they hell as like. This is the ‘post truth’ world after all.

On the bright side, this whole furore does seem to have registered in Downing St where some people do seem to have realised they just might need to do something about this rubbish as it looks bad on them. The logical thing to do would be to release the Oakervee review which would show up that fact £106bn is bollocks, we’ll have to wait and see it that’s not just to sensible. In the meantime, it’s looking increasingly likely that the Government will be announcing HS2 will go ahead within the next couple of weeks – hence a lot of the froth we’re seeing in the general and social media as this really is the last chance saloon for the stophs2 campaign. Once phase 1 is given the go-ahead, they’re toast.

OK, enough of this. This theatre will play out over the next few weeks until the fat lady sings.

In the meantime, next week will be interesting for other reasons. I’ll be out and about at a couple of events next week – including volunteering for the Railway Children charity at this event, their sleepout on the 30th. Whilst this will be a fully supported fundraiser and I’m volunteering to help out, it’s a cause close to my heart. Plus, when I was a lot younger back in the 1970s-80s I’ve known just what it’s like to sleep rough on railway stations when you’ve nowhere else to go.

Now, it’s time for a change of tempo. I mentioned earlier about the pictures I’ve been scanning. I’ve been swapping between two albums. One’s old railway pictures from the 1980s whilst the other is travel shots from Brazil back in 2002. Here’s a couple of examples.

It’s a long time since Manchester Victoria looked like this! This particular picture was taken in May 1990. The area you’re seeing now has all disappeared under the arena. The platform I was stood on to take the picture still exists (it’s now platform 3) but everything else is long gone. The two locomotives were stabled in the roads that were used by engines that would push heavy freight trains up Miles Platting bank.

Now for a travel shot. Here’s the stunning island of Fernando de Noronha and the ‘Bay of Pigs’.

Strange days…

22 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by in History, Hs2, Musings, Photography, Politics, Railways, Travel

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Today’s been another one where I’ve been tied to the office as I’ve continued to make inroads into scanning my old slide library in order to get them onto my Zenfolio website. Mind you, it does free up an awful lot of physical space too – and now they can be seen by anyone and I can access them anywhere!

Yesterday I added another batch of old rail pictures from 1990. This morning I was up at Sparrowfart to start scanning more travel pictures from Brazil, this time from the Island of Fernando de Noronha which I was lucky enough to visit in 2002. I have to say it’s been one of my favourite Islands. It’s pretty unique and (at least in those day) unspoilt. It’s now a world Heritage and conservation site and the main reasons to go there are to enjoy the wild coastlines, beautiful beaches and the flora and fauna. I must admit, scanning these pictures is really giving me itchy feet! Anyway, here’s a link to the gallery. I’ve still plenty more pictures to add and I’ll alternate them with the railway shots.

Here’s a selection of both as a sample.

In 1990 this scene was nothing out of the ordinary. Now… On the 12th May 1990 one of the two shunting engines that acted as Euston station pilots trundles around the entrance to platforms 15-18. These were used to shunt mail trains – one of which can be seen through the arch, stabled in the Downside Carriage shed. These engines would also be used to swap coaches in/out of rakes used on the main-line expresses in the days before we had fixed formation trains like the Pendolinos, although most of the day they sat idle. Now, this whole area is being swept aside to build the new HS2 station. The pilots are long-gone as mail trains disappeared from Euston back in the late 1990s. The carriage shed was demolished last year and the site is where the new HS2 lines will emerge from the tunnel from Old Oak Common to enter the new HS2 station which will be built here and to the left of the picture.

This is the stunning island of Fernando de Noronha off the North-East Coast of Brazil. It’s a fascinating plce with a rich history, beautiful beaches and abundant wildlife. This is a view of Moro do Pico, at 323 metres tall it’s the highest point of the island.

Whilst scanning archive pictures I’ve also been keeping abreast of various news. Originally I thought I might need to take a trip down to London today to visit the latest national StopHs2 protest, but as I predicted the other day – it’s turned into a damp squib that wasn’t worth bothering with. If it had happened it would have been the first national StopHs2 demonstration since 2004. As it is, the Stop Hs2 website lowered expectations yesterday when they published this excuse.

“On Wednesday, Elizabeth Cairns and Matt Bishop invite you to join them in Parliament. This event will NOT be happening in Portcullis House, no matter what Facebook says, and there is no rally in outside Parliament either. Stop HS2 will also be launching our latest briefing for MPs that day, but that is a separate thing, so sorry for any confusion as the two things got a bit mixed up!”

Really? So what WILL be happening? Not a lot it seems. This is a classic example of someone writing cheques they can’t cash. I don’t think Ms Cairns actually understood what this entailed. Hence this…

“I’m asking people to come as individuals, to use your democratic right to visit parliament, lobby your MP and make your voice heard. I will be there with my family from 11am and plan to stay in the public spaces (st Stephens hall) peacefully as long as I am able to be there and welcome anyone who wishes to join me.“

OK, so no-one’s actually made an appointment to see their MP then? By the way, here’s today’s Order paper. Somehow, I think many MPs may have better tings to do…

Later, this video appeared on Facebook. Apparently, all of 6 MPs were lobbied and that was a ‘success’. Excuse me if I’m underwhelmed! Meanwhile, back in the wider world, Grant Shapps, the Transport Minister has yet again confirmed that an announcement on Hs2 will be made next month.

Daft anti HS2 stuff aside I was saddened to hear that today, yet another of the Monty Python team has passed away. We lost Neil Innes at the end of last year. Today, Terry Jones joined the choir invisible after battling a rare form of dementia since 2017. There’s so much that I could write about this subject, but this isn’t the blog to do it in. Suffice to say I feel so much for Terry’s family. It’s an awful thing to happen. Dementia and mental illness rob you of the person you loved. It takes their essence and leaves a husk. Personally (having experienced lost a for few loved ones in my time) I think it’s one of the worst things to have to cope with. My heart goes out to them, but I’m also grateful that Terry (and Neil) have left us all with so many happy memories – and a huge amount of laughs!

Monday miscellany…

20 Monday Jan 2020

Posted by in Hs2, Journalism, Musings, Photography, Politics, Travel

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Today’s been yet another mixed bag where I’ve been keeping a wary eye on the world whilst keeping occupied scanning a selection of old slides – both rail and travel. I was up early in order to get another selection of travel shots from Brazil under my belt. That particular album’s coming along quite nicely now as I’m 2/3 of the way through the first folio and I’ll soon be starting on the selection from the island of Fernando do Noronha. Meanwhile, here’s a sample of one of today’s images from Olinda in Pernambuco state. It’s an incredibly colourful old town with some fine old buildings. You can find the rest of the Brazilian pictures here.

In order to add variety I’m simultaneously scanning some old rail shots from 1990. The idea will be to swap between rail and travel so there’s always something of interest to someone. of course, the railways looked very different in 1990 as privatisation wasn’t even on the agenda at that time.

In those days Euston was still dominated by electric locomotives – as this picture shows.

From front to back are 86205, 86406, 86414, 86228 and 87014. 6th May 1990.

I was passing through Euston to head on up to an open day at Bescot locomotive depot just outside Birmingham. The depot put on a good show with a large variety of locomotives on display, including some withdrawn examples like 47901 here in the foreground. The weather was ideal for such an event and I certainly chewed through some film that day!

I’m still scanning the Bescot shots which you’ll be able to find in this gallery when they’re all done.

Whilst I was busy scanning the media was full of the latest leak about HS2 and a supposed ‘draft’ of the Oakervee report. Initially reported in the Financial Times the story was soon picked up by other outlets including the BBC. The leak was an odd one as it seems to have come from within government. It was soon clear that it was more spin than fact, as Andrew Sentance (one of the Oakervee Committee members made clear to the BBC. here’s how it was covered on Twitter by the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones..

Sentence also had this to say (via the BBC).

Yet again HS2 gets caught up in political games in Downing St. Mind you, HS2 isn’t the only mixed message coming out of No 10. There’s also the whole farce around Brexit the economy and promises made by Johnson to car makers before the election that have already fallen by the wayside. Let’s face it, when you have a Prime Minister who’s been sacked twice for lying you can hardly trust them, can you? Johnson may have an 80 seat majority but it’s becoming clear that his government isn’t coherent or clear in purpose. Improving the UKs infrastructure post Brexit is meant to be one of their big ideas, but the message is already riven by briefings and counter briefings, such as on HS2, which suggests a Government that’s less than united. It would be very interesting to know who in Government is briefing against HS2. Cummings?

Northern and Midlands leaders and several MPs have reacted with fury to these games by Downing St, demanding the the Oakervee review’s published so that there can’t be any more spin about its contents. We will have to see if they get their wish anytime soon…

Away from the shenanigans in Downing St it’s clear that the Harvil Rd protest has fizzled out again. Despite a few dozen Extinction Rebellion supporters and StopHs2’s Joe Rukin pitching up to make a few self-congratulatory videos claiming they’d ‘retaken’ Harvil Rd (they hadn’t) most of them had already drifted off by Sunday. It’s now business as usual as a visit to the ‘Protect the Colne Valley’ Facebook page will show. The flow of Facebook videos has dried up and work to clear the site continues pretty much unhindered.

Sunday service…

19 Sunday Jan 2020

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The traditional day of rest has been anything but for me as I was up at 07:30 this morning in order to scan yet another batch of old travel slides which I’d set up in readiness the night before. This selection were from a trip to Brazil and I’m making good progress getting through the two albums which have been sitting in the archives since 2002. Many of them have never seen the light of day since but now they’re appearing on my Zenfolio website in this gallery. So far I’ve managed to scan all the pictures from Rio de Janeiro. Now I’ve moved on to the historical town of Olinda in Pernambuco state before the next batch which will be of the fantastic island nature park of Fernando de Noronha. Here’s a couple of samples from today’s batch.

The quiet streets of the old town which has a rich history and some fascinating old buildings.
Looking at the style of the building there’s several countries in the world that you could be in, this just happens to be Brazil. .

Hopefully I’ll have this albums fully scanned in a couple of weeks, then it’s time to move on to another set of old railway slides. On Saturday we visited Dawn’s parents who’ve been keeping many of the albums in safe storage for me. I’ve now dug out four albums of rail images from 1990 to 1992 so this next batch really are stepping back in time, nearly 30 years in fact!

Besides rooting through the archives we’ve both been busy with more mundane chores around the house which was rather frustrating as the day had started as one of those perfect frosty winter mornings with wall to wall sunshine, but there was no time to drop everything and head out for a ramble as we’ve both got too many things to do. The law of Sod often guarantees that there’ll be perfect walking weather on the weekends you’re busy, then it’ll be raining cats and dogs when you’re at a loose end…

Never mind, I’m hoping to get out a couple of times this next week although the weather looks like a mixed bag.

Talking of the weather I noticed that it put a bit of a damper on the latest instalment of the saga that’s the StopHs2 protest at Harvil Rd. There was meant to be three days of protests at the site starting last Friday, but it’s not exactly caught the media’s eye. That’s because only a few dozen people turned up on Saturday and many of them were day-trippers. Quite how these weekend warriors are meant to stop Hs2 is a mystery as the vast majority of them will have faded away by Monday after making their video’s and pretending they’ve actually achieved something. Then it’s back to business as usual with contractors continuing work on the site. It’s all pretty pointless, all the protesters are doing is wasting time and money, but that’s life.

Apoarently, despite the fact the tiny area still available to the protesters resembled the Somme, the group that dress up in red to pose in order to attract media attention were there. Quite what the point is has always been unclear.

“I say Prime Minister, I’ve just seen a tiny group of protesters dressed in red sheets pretending to be Marcel Marceau whilst stood in a muddy wood. It’s made me realise we don’t need HS2 after all and we should scrap it” – said no MP, ever…

Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking towards an announcement from Government about Hs2 getting the final go-ahead. Expect that next month.

Apparently, there’s meant to be a StopHs2 rally at Parliament on Wednesday, but it doesn’t seem to be gaining much interest. Somehow I can’t see the Metropolitan Police cancelling any leave over it, or coach firms suddenly being inundated with bookings to ferry the demonstrators to London. We shall see…

Stormy weather…

14 Tuesday Jan 2020

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We’ve had a fun 24 hours here in the Calder Valley due to storm Brendan which has brought with it lashes of rain and high winds as well as dismal skies that have reduced us to half-light. The camera has stayed firmly in its bag and apart from forays on foot to go shopping and get some exercise I’ve been pretty much glued to the office.

This morning I was up at 6am as Dawn had an early start. This gave me the opportunity to try and integrate back into the library some of the old slides I had back from picture agencies a couple of years back. They’ve gone back into the albums they were taken from in an effort to give me some continuity. In order to save space (and time) I’m weeding out duplicate images. The problem with slides was that I used to back up pictures by taking 2-3 shots that were exactly the same. This served a dual purpose. If the original got damaged or lost I had a back-up. I could also send one to a picture library whilst keeping another version for myself. Of course, in the digital age such redundancy is, well, redundant! Now I can duplicate an image with a click of a mouse!

The stuff I’ve had returned covers many different subjects. Apart from all the travel shots and rail images one of the libraries I contributed to was a social issues picture agency based in Brixton called Photofusion. The stuff I placed with them covered a rainbow of subjects, from Housing (which I still worked in at the time) to UK travel, politics, demonstrations like the miners strikes or Iraq War and festivals like Gay Pride. Looking back at the pictures makes me realise that – if nothing else – I’ve certainly had an interesting life and covered an awful lot of things in my time! I’m looking forward to getting most of them scanned, although a few are destined for the bin as the things they covered have little relevance today. It’s a sad waste and another advantage of digital. When I consider how much each of those mounted slides cost me to take and the mountain of plastic waste they’re reduced to I wish I’d switched to digital long before I did.

Here’s a few of today’s scans spanning the years from the early 1990s to the 2000s, just to give you an idea of what I have in the archive. First up is a May day protest in central London back in 2001. These events could get out of control quite quickly so the police always turned up dressed up in full riot gear to make a point. As a photographer it could get quite hairy as you were in the thick of it, with police on one side and demonstrators on the other. This photo shows a stand-off between protestors and riot police outside the John Lewis store in Oxford St. As you can see, the copper to the left wasn’t too pleased to see me!

Here’s an earlier shot taken in 1992 – although it looks like it could have been the early 1980s. This is a miners demonstration in London, protesting about the mass closure of some of the remaining UK pits – strange as that might seem now when climate-change is the most important issue that faces us and the days of ‘King Coal’ are long gone. In the photo is Tony Benn MP, NUM President Arthur Scargill and Dennis Skinner MP. Like the May day demonstration I’ve a large archive of pictures of this event to scan (one day). The miners were very well organised and also media savvy. A group of them worked with photographers to ensure you got the shots you both needed. They’d escort you out in front of the procession leaders and guide you so that you could face backwards getting the shots you wanted before moving you on so the next photographer could get their shots.

Of course I should mention that in the days when these photographs were taken I’d no idea that I was eventually going to change career and become a professional photographer. Then I was a rep for my trade union (NALGO, the local Government Officers Union, or ‘Not A Lot Going On’ as it was sometimes referred to!) and involved in producing the newsletter. I took these pictures because I was interested in photography and social issues, not for a moment thinking that one day this would become my career.

– and now for something completely different, and a lot more camp! Lynn and I would often attend the annual Gay Pride parade in London with friends. When I first met Lynn she worked for the AIDs charity the Terrence Higgins Trust. Needless to say, we made a lot of friends through her work and ‘Pride’ was always a good day out and chance to catch up with people. In 1995 the parade used Victoria Park in East London not far from where we were living, so naturally, we dropped in! This particular couple were spectacular, and this was before Elton John got married in similar style 9 years later…

Time to go back to trains for my final picture which shows how much the railways have changed. Here’s an old Class 508 electric train used by Connex arriving at Maidstone West on the 7th March 2002. Built by British Railways for suburban services out of Waterloo they were transferred to Merseyside. Some surplus units made the trek South once more and ended up working South-Eastern services, first for Connex and later South-Eastern Trains. The SET units remained in service until 2008.

I hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane and through elements of social history. If you want to see the full selection of pictures you can find them on my Zenfolio website. Hopefully it won’t be too long before I get around to scanning the rest but as I’ve 1000s to get through we may all need to be patient. I’ve spent a few hours tonight weeding out duplicates from another travel album which includes shots from New Zealand, the UK, India and Denmark. They might not get scanned for a while, but at least they’re taking up a lot less room…

Another trip down (travel) memory lane…

12 Sunday Jan 2020

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Despite it being a Sunday I’ve had a busy time in the office scanning old slides as I continue my efforts to wade through the archive and get everything on to my Zenfolio picture website.

Eschewing the recent series of rail pictures I picked out some old travel slides that I’d placed with the old ‘Lonely Planet’ picture library back in the 2000s before they were sold to the BBC and then on to Getty. The world of travel pictures was very different then and it was rather a nice income stream. Those days are long gone. I had the original images returned by Getty a few years ago when they joined the rest of the archive awaiting scanning. This morning I scanned a selection from Indonesia taken on my travels in 1992 and 1998. Here’s a look at a few of them.

This is an image taken at Lake Maninjau in West Sumatra back in June 1992. I spent several weeks on the island which was a fantastic place to travel. In those days you could enter the island by ferry from Georgetown on Penang Island Malaysia. A hydrofoil would carry you across the Straits of Malacca to Belawan in Northern Sumatra which was the port for the main city of Medan. In those days backpackers like myself would travel overland and the next stop for most (including me) was the volcanic Lake Toba. But, I’d been tipped off by other travellers I’d met heading in the opposite direction to me that there was an even more amazing and magnificent volcanic lake – Maninjau – in West Sumatra. They were right. As much as I enjoyed Toba and the Batak culture, Maninjau and the local Minangkabau people were even more interesting. Ever visited a matrilineal Muslim community before? No, neither had I! The lake itself is 16 km long, 7km wide and averages a depth of 105m. It sits at the bottom of a volcanic caldera and it’s an amazing place to arrive at when you reach the lip of the crater then drop down a road with 44 hairpin bends before you reach the main village on the edge of the lake. The picture as taken from the back deck of the little homestay I was residing in. You could bask in the sun, have a swim and then watch the weather change like this, as a rainstorm crept in from the West and boiled in over the crater edge. You knew you still had 20-30 minutes before it reached you. It was a beautiful place to stay, kick back and relax and enjoy activities like walking or cycling around the lake – or just sit and read a book before heading out for some delicious Padang food. I’d love to go back as I was last there in 1998.

This picture was taken on the same trip. I left West Sumatra by ferry from Padang and headed to Java, making my way slowly Eastwards across the island by rail and bus until I arrived here at Mt Bromo.

It’s the most incredible landscape as it really doesn’t look like it belongs on this planet. This is the view from the edge of the original volcanic crater which was taken one sunrise in June 1992. Three smaller volcanos sit in the ‘sea of sands’ inside the original crater. It’ll take you 45 minutes to walk across to them. The volcanoes are still active and have erupted several time in the past 20 years the last time being 2015. Indonesia is famous for its volcanoes, many of which remain active. I visited several but Mt Bromo has to be the most spectacular.

Here’s something a bit different from another trip Lynn and I did across Indonesia back in 1998. This shot was taken at a big cremation ceremony in Ubud, Bali back in October 1998. I’ve long admired the way the Balinese have managed to hang on to their distinctive culture despite mass tourism and being part of an overwhelmingly Muslim country. You might not see much of it if you stay in the tourist traps of Kuta and Sanur on the islands most Southern tip, but get into the hills and it’s very different. The reason I took this shot is because of the juxtaposition of the traditional and modern. Here’s an important and wealthy man in traditional Balinese dress who’s helping run the whole ceremony and he’s on his mobile phone. This is 1998 remember. In those days only 1 in 5 people in the UK had one. Lynn and I were still communicating with most people via ‘snail mail’ and poste restante letter drops as the few places you could find internet access in Indonesia were Post Offices where you used slow, expensive and unreliable dial-up internet. How things have changed in 20 odd years!

If you want to view the rest of the pictures from Indonesia, click on this link.