Twist and Stick it

There were far more important issues afoot in the United Kingdom in the summer of 1891 but the attention of the nation was firmly focused on a legal case which was being heard in London. 

It had everything to enthral the wider public as well as divide the loyalties and allegiances of the Ruling and Upper Class around whom the litigation revolved. 

It was known as The Baccarat Scandal. 

The main influential character was not actually the accused person but in the personage of HRH The Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. 

The event behind the case was a house-party at Tranby Croft, the mansion of the Wilsons, shipping magnates just outside the City of Hull. Those assembled represented the elite of nobility and the nouveau riche who used Tranby Croft as a convenient base to attend the horse racing at Doncaster with, amongst the runners, a mount belonging to the Prince of Wales in action. 

After sumptious dining until 11pm on 8th September 1890 the keen gambler HRH suggested that the guests play the card game of Baccarat. It was a spontaneous decision causing, no doubt, the Wilson's domestic staff to panic and a few small tables were hastily put together and draped with cloths. 

Baccarat, a points based game similar to 21 or Pontoon had been regarded dubiously by the authorities for its gambling connotations but with HRH as Banker and a General taking on the role of the croupier no questions would dare be asked on the grey area of legality. 

One of the players was, by contemporary accounts, the handsome, womanising, witty and yet arrogant and rude Sir William Gordon-Cumming. Aged 42 he was a lieutenant colonel in the Scots Guards and a long time acquaintance and close friend of the Prince of Wales. They had travelled up to Yorkshire together. 

The Baccarat game was taken up by the hosts, another couple and yet more aristocrats and pillars of society. There was a modest bank of £100 and although the women took a few shillings worth of counters the menfolk were more ambitious in terms of stakes and potential winnings. 

Sir William won, over a couple of after dinner sessions on 8th and 9th of September the sum of £225 (£20000 today) but those present around the table were far from happy about his playing practice. 

As the house party was coming to an end Sir William was made aware that five of the players had made statements to others that he had cheated at cards and had defrauded the Bank. 

The basis of the claims were that Sir William had regularly placed a larger stake on the table after his cards had been declared using subversive and underhand means in order to accumulate a higher amount of winnings. Furthermore, if the hand of cards was against him he was withdrawing, in the same clandestine way, a portion of his stake. 

The magnitude of the scandal might be difficult to appreciate in a modern context but at the time it was huge and with massive ramifications by association for the future king and the honour of the ruling classes. 

In order to prevent the allegations from being known beyond the walls of Tranby Croft Sir William was approached and confronted with an ultimatum. His accusers, for their guaranteed silence wanted a virtual admission of guilt and also an undertaking that he would give up playing cards for the rest of his life. 

Under pressure from his own allies he reluctantly signed the document but later retracted and took out an Action for Slander which involved hosts Mr and Mrs Wilson, the Lycett Greens and Mr B Levett. 

Sir William referred to his slanderers as no more than a parcel of boys and claimed in his action the sum of £5000 from each named party. 

On the day of the court hearing there was a clamour for ticketed seats in a room otherwise crammed to capacity with Counsel and around 60 to 70 junior barristers. In cross examination Sir William vehemently denied the accusation of cheating although he did comment that he had been a bit distracted in his normal Baccarat gaming by the impromptu tables and covering cloth which had made putting forward his counters awkward. The surface was uneven and he had used a sheet of paper over the cloth to help his playing. 

There was quite a robust exchange in the legal questioning. 

Sir William accepted that he could see the cards held by those closest to him but this did not in any way influence the level of his stake. In answer to Counsel he also said that he did not keep counters in his pocket. 

His notoriety but also popularity was seen as a positive factor in the proceedings and the case was very much in the balance. 

That was until HRH Prince of Wales was called to the witness stand. 

His presence was the first of a member of a royal family since 1411 and all in the court listened intently to his evidence. Although he had not seen any signs of cheating he did state that he thought Sr William was guilty. Further doubt on the character of Sir William came from HRH's comment that he had asked for a white line to be drawn on the card table to separate the players from his role as Banker. 

In his summing up of the main issues in what was seen as shamelessly supporting the opinion expressed by HRH the presiding Judge swayed the Jury to find for the five defendants in the action. 

Punishment for Sir William was swift with his dismissal, the very next day, from the army and he was a social outcast for the rest of his life. 

The role of the future king should not go unnoticed. 

He himself was exposed to many scandals with his mother Queen Victoria frequently chastising him for being part of a "fast racing set" of gambling and philandering. The legal case should really have been heard in a military court and an unblemished record in service may have resulted in a lower level of sanction but Sir William may have been swayed by advice from his friend HRH to bring a Civil Action.

They were known to be thick as thieves and Sir William's house in Belgravia was regularly used by the future King for his assignations. It was a rumour that HRH had on one occasion returned unexpectedly early to London to find one of his mistresses entangled with his friend. They may even have had at one time or another the intimate attentions of Lillie Langtry, Sarah Bernhardt and Lady Randolph Churchill. 

You can come to your own conclusions about whether there was an element of royal revenge and vindictiveness contributing to the downfall of Sir William. 

Knobs and thingummyjigs

I have not spoken this particular word for some time. 

I suppose that in certain social situations and amongst those who would consider themselves either experts, enthusiasts or just collectors it would be mentioned frequently. It is a word synonymous with the spirit of scientific and commercial co-operation. 

It is Bakelite. 

To those of a certain generation, and from which in my 6th decade I would actually exclude myself, anything made or fashioned in Bakelite still holds a certain style, mystique and appeal. I do come across it on a periodic basis in residential properties of the halcyon period of its production and availability in such things as electrical socket and light switch facings, drawer and cupboard knobs, casings of older audio and visual appliances and as part of objets' d'Art and other miscellanea. 

Bakelite has claimed its place in human history as the first synthetic plastic and amazingly this was in the first decade of the 20th Century. 

There had been earlier experimentation and production of substitutes for increasingly scarce natural resources. A shortage of ivory caused enough concern amongst the manufacturers of billiard balls to announce a competition to find a replacement. 

Two brothers in 1863, the Wesley-Hyatts found a way to combine natural compounds of cellulose nitrate and camphor into what became celluloid. 

Bakelite, in being synthetic represented a major innovation due to the hard work and not without disappointment and set-backs of Leo Baekeland (1863 -1944). The entry in his laboratory notebook at the time of his discovery reads  

"I found tube broken perhaps in irregular expansion but the reactions seems to have been satisfactory because the resulting stick was very hard and below where there was some unmixed liquid A there was an end (?) of solidified matter yellowish and hard and entirely similar to the product obtained by simply heating A alone in sealed tube. This looks promising and it will be worth while to determine in how far this mass which I will call D is able to make moulded materials either alone or in conjunctions with other solid materials as for instance asbestos, casein, zinc oxid (sic), starch, different inorganic powders and lamp black and thus make a substitute for celluloid and for hard rubber"

Bakelite

The properties and uses of Bakelite illustrated its versatility.

Bakelite could be moulded and very quickly, which was an enormous advantage in mass production processes where many identical units were produced one after the other. 

Bakelite was a thermosetting resin—that is, once moulded, it retains its shape even if heated or subjected to various solvents.

 Bakelite was also particularly suitable for the emerging electrical and automobile industries because of its extraordinarily high resistance (not only to electricity, but to heat and chemical action as well). It was soon used for all non-conducting parts of radios and other electrical devices, such as bases and sockets for light bulbs and electron tubes, supports for any type of electrical components, automobile distributor caps and other insulators.

Along with its electrical uses, moulded Bakelite found a place in almost every area of modern life. From novelty jewellery and iron handles to telephones and washing-machines impellers, Bakelite was seen everywhere and was a constant presence in the technological infrastructure. The Bakelite Corporation adopted as its logo the mathematical symbol for infinity and the slogan, "The Material of a Thousand Uses," but they recognised no boundaries for their material.

The Achilles heel was however colour. The pure Bakelite resin was an iconic amber, and it could take other colours as well but unfortunately, it was quite brittle and had to be strengthened by "filling" with other substances, usually cellulose in the form of sawdust. 

After filling, all colours came out opaque at best and often dull and muddy. 

In my own experience I have only ever seen the mass produced black or dark brown incarnations . 

It would be inevitable that consumers who demanded greater choice and range of colours and finishes would ensure that Bakelite was replaced by other plastics that shared its desirable qualities, but could also capture the imagination of the new market trends amongst an aspirational and increasingly wealthy. 

Many examples of Bakelite products have however survived and to become sought after for their pioneering desirability, functional beauty and sheer collectability. 

Abandon Chip twice cooked

Another favourite and brought to mind when passing the location of the former football ground now a supermarket just yesterday in the pouring rain...... 

Statistically it must be a sporting record.

I would be interested to hear to the contrary.

Scarborough Football Club, one of the oldest club sides in English Football founded in 1879 played for 120 years before suffering their first ever relegation.

It had been a modest start with a group from a cricket club in the North Yorkshire seaside town upping stumps in pursuit of another out of season sporting activity to keep limbs and minds active. The next 8 years were as part timers in local leagues and in 1927 the club turned Professional and was accepted into the Midlands League.

The inter war period represented the halcyon days for football at all levels in the country with good levels of support, both in feet on the terraces and monies in the club bank account. The 1937 to 1938 season saw a record attendance at the Seamer Road sports ground of 11,162 against Luton Town in the FA Cup.

In the 1970's Scarborough FC had some adventures in the same competition and also found themselves playing in the Anglo-Italian Cup where there were victories against Udinese and Parma.

Progress in the lower leagues had been slow but methodical and as Champions of the Conference Division in 1987 under Neil Warnock's managership Scarborough became the first team to reach the mainstream English Football League by such a tortuous route.

The Fourth Division then, or League 2 as it is now known, represented the big time for the club and town. In a pioneering sponsorship a major employer, McCain, famous for its oven chips, purchased the naming rights for the football ground and team shirts and Seamer Road became the McCain Stadium.

The small ground of capacity 6,408 was located on the south side of Scarborough on the western edge of a main approach and nestled below steep valley sides including the local landmark and occasional motor bike racing circuit of Olivers Mount.

A famous 3-2 win over Chelsea in the League Cup in 1989 gave the club a giant-killing reputation and there was another good run in the FA Cup in the 1992 to 1993 season before being knocked out 1-0 by Arsenal who were eventual winners over another proud Yorkshire Team in Sheffield Wednesday. The forays into the inter-league competitions were a bonus although the club's time in the lowest division was not without it's high points including just losing out in a promotion to Division Three after losing to Torquay in a Play-off.

The circumstances of Scarborough's first ever relegation in 1999 have gone down in football folklore although for the wrong reasons and in favour of another team. The final day of the season saw Scarborough at home to Peterborough United with rivals for the drop, Carlisle playing Plymouth Argyle. At the end of the match at the McCain Stadium and as it stood in  both games at 1-1 there was a pitch invasion by the Seasiders in celebration of surviving a twelfth season in the Football League. This was shortly to turn to despair as in Cumbria, in the last kick of the game the Carlisle goalkeeper, Jimmy Glass, in a legendary exploit came up the full length of the pitch and as a corner kick swung in he scored the matchwinner, saving his own team but pushing Scarborough out of the top flight.

It proved to be a very slippery slope and within a few years Scarborough FC were in dire financial crisis. It was hoped that the Stadium site could be sold for a housing development with the proceeds expected to clear the accumulated debts of £2.5 million as well as providing a surplus to fund a new ground farther out of the town. A old Covenant in the Deeds for the football ground dedicating its use for sporting activities only was an obstacle too big to surmount, any prospects of a last minute salvation foundered and in June 2007 the club ceased to exist.

The title of this blog is taken from a Fanzine for the club showing a sense of topical but black humour.

I drive into Scarborough on a regular basis and the sight of the abandoned and derelict former Stadium site is a poignant reminder of the fortunes of a football team and serves as a salutory warning to those clubs just about keeping their heads above the mire of financial meltdown.

Down to Earth

This is another favourite from 5 years ago...................................

In a farmers field in the East Yorkshire Wolds of the UK there is a small monument to mark the spot where a meteorite fell in 1795. It just missed an agricultural worker whilst toiling amongst the root crop but the rare fragment was seized by the landowner and shamelessly hawked around the country for material gain for many years thereafter.

There have been , it is thought, only 24 official meteorite falls in the British Isles and so finding a meteorite quickly means it can be preserved before it gets weathered by the Earth. Who knows how many fragments just go unnoticed after surviving the fiery extreme temperatures of the upper atmosphere.

The biggest meteorite to hit the UK landed in a small village in Leicestershire one Christmas Eve. Fifty years on, the search for its highly valuable fragments is far from over.

The last thing Percy England expected on Christmas Eve was for a 4,000,000,000-year-old meteorite to put a hole through his brand new Vauxhall Viva.

There had been no warnings of the shower of rocks. The meteor plummeted through the Earth's atmosphere on a cold December afternoon in 1965. It could have hit Leicester but instead broke up over the nearby village of Barwell just after sunset.

The pieces found scattered across houses and streets on Christmas Day sparked a frenzied meteorite hunt. The fragments are still being studied by the Natural History Museum. They are also highly sought after by collectors. In 2009, a 2lb (0.9kg) piece made £8,000 at auction.

People are being encouraged to bring any meteorite pieces that they might have squirreled away to the anniversary event this year. "It would be brilliant if they could," says Dan Kendall, curator of the National Space Centre. But their stories of what happened are just as valuable, he adds.

Most recollections of the meteorite strike start - appropriately enough for Christmas Eve - with a bright light in the sky. It was followed by a sonic boom.

When a meteor travels faster than the speed of sound it creates a shock wave, explains planetary scientist Leigh Fletcher from the University of Leicester. In 2013, the shock wave from the Chelyabinsk meteor in Russia was picked up by scientists more than 9,320 miles (15,000 km) away in Antarctica.

In Barwell, the booming sound was heard by Fletcher's mother-in-law. She was taking a dog for a walk in a cow field when she heard a tremendous crash. A group of carol singers set out across the village soon after and felt something crunching under their feet as they went.

At one point, 26-year-old Rosemary Leader picked up a piece of the rubble to examine it under the light of the street lamp before throwing it away. "I was out carol singing, I didn't want to carry a lump of rock around," she says.

A few people didn't notice anything amiss until Christmas Day. The first thing Percy spotted was the hole through the bonnet of his new car. Other people had woken up to find similar holes in the tarmac, windows and roof slates.

Within a few hours the news had filtered out that a meteorite had crashed over the village.

"My dad immediately got on to the insurance," says his son Trevor. "They came back saying it was an act of God. So the next thing he did was to write a letter to the insurance company which began 'Dear Mr God'."

Percy was never paid. But others managed to cash in during the next month. The news took a few days to break properly. As soon as it did the town was flooded by meteorite hunters.

Museums offered money for fragments of the space rock. "There was a bit of a gold rush, really, in Barwell," says Kendall. Even the astronomer Patrick Moore joined the hunt.

About 97lbs (44kg) of meteorite was recovered. "When they put it back together, it was about the size of a Christmas turkey," says Kendall. It's rare to recover so much of a meteorite in a place like the UK.

The mud and vegetation makes them hard to spot, explains Natasha Almeida, assistant meteorite curator at the Natural History Museum.

It's even rarer to see a meteor fall and then actually find it afterwards.

"You've basically almost got a time capsule," adds Kendall. The Barwell meteorite, he explains, is older than the Earth itself.

But the Barwell meteorite is special for another reason. A pebble was found inside one of its fragments. "It has characteristics of different types of meteorites," says Almeida, who is studying some of the Barwell pieces.

"There could have been another body that formed, another asteroid, that smashed into pieces and after a bit of that was incorporated into the asteroid that the Barwell came from."

The pieces that were recovered might slowly be revealing their secrets. But there are thought to be plenty more still missing.

"There are an awful lot of people with their little bits of meteorite tucked away somewhere," says Margaret Pickering. Her husband was lucky in the hunt all those years ago. "We do have a little bit of meteorite," she adds.

Margaret says she will bring it to a celebration of the crash landing . The village has changed a lot since the 1960s. Many of the fields littered with meteorite no longer exist. But "there are probably lots of pieces still there waiting," she adds.

The largest Barwell piece will be returning to where it fell half a century ago this December. It's value has not been disclosed but then again some things are just, by their very story, priceless. People are being encouraged to bring any meteorite pieces that they might have kept to the anniversary event.

Dr Fletcher suggests that every story and piece of the meteorite connects Barwell to something much bigger.

He said: "It's the debris from the birth of our solar system. It's no wonder people keep a piece of it tucked away in a box."

 

Source document in BBC News Magazine

Red Hot in Hull

This in an interesting story from The Hull Packet Newspaper in March 1858. 

It has a lot of social comment as it involves the status and influence of one of the main industrial families of that era and the plight of the ordinary working man. 

The main protagonist is Mr George Reckitt, one of the three sons of the founder of the Reckitt Empire, Isaac Reckitt and who would, upon the death of his father only four years on become promoted to the Board to take the fledgling company into its halcyon days of production and early profitability. 

The Reckitt name has strong philanthropic associations in Hull due to charitable work and in particular the establishing of early twentieth century social housing by George's brother, James in the leafy district of Garden Village in the East of the city. 

On a March afternoon the aspiring George was walking along the western side of one of the dock basins, Princes Dock. 

It was a very mixed area just on the southern fringes of central Hull characterised by poorer calibre artisan dwellings, commercial premises, timber yards and, following its acquisition in 1845 by C and W Earle, a thriving and very bustling Junction Foundry and Engineering Works. 

His reasons for being in a rather dodgy part of town may have been worthy of question. 

He was just passing alongside the walls which bounded the Foundry, quite imposing brick markers of some nine, ten or eleven feet high when he felt something on his person. An object had fallen from somewhere above him and the shock of it had caused him to involuntarily take evasive action and make a sprightly avoiding manouvre. 

It appears that Earles, a very well known and respected company of Shipbuilders and Repairers were working on a vessel close to their outer wall and quayside of the Dock. 

Gathering his composure George Reckitt then saw a piece of glowing, red hot iron of a hefty 10 to 12 pounds in weight take the same trajectory as the earlier object and hit the ground on the very spot that he had just vacated. 

Within seconds the head and shoulders of a boy popped up over the top of the wall.

George recounted to the lad what had evidently been a narrow escape from injury or worse by the molten fragment to which the youth rather meekly replied " The man below should have told me". 

Perhaps lesser figures in society will have felt that a verbal complaint was entirely sufficient to bring about a conclusion there and then to the chain of events but George wanted his day in Court and the matter was brought before the Hull Magistrates within a matter of days. 

The clout of the Reckitt dynasty will no doubt have hastened the legal process compared to mere mortals who will have had a prolonged wait for any chance of justice. 

The residing official said that given the good character of Mr Earle, the business owner and originator of the red hot fragment he had no doubts that he would be keen to have an example made of those responsible for the near-accident. 

Giving evidence the now community minded George expressed his desire to prevent anyone else from risking injury and that although he knew not the name of the boy he would certainly recognise him in any subsequent identity line-up. 

The Police were directed to give all necessary assistance to try to find out the name of the boy so that he should be brought to the Court and, on the case being proved, duly punished. 

I am still trying to find out what happened subsequently and will get back to you soon, if possible.

In the footsteps of a troubled mind

I had the privilege this week of standing on the same small piece of ground as T E Lawrence. 

Well, it was probably not the very exact spot but for me and with authentication from a grainy tinted photograph it was close enough. 

The best thing about it was that it had been totally unexpected. 

In the course of my normal daily routine of property inspections I was at a bungalow on the lumpy road out of the coastal village of Flamborough towards North Landing Beach. It was a busy time with day trippers making their way in their vehicles to the cliff top car park and holiday makers from the nearby caravan parks on foot carrying a picnic and folding chairs. 

I parked on the grassy verge, put on my PPE as required where working in someones home and already a bit hot and bothered announced my arrival at the property. 

In the porch was a photograph of a soldier in fatigues. 

He had a faint smile as though he felt a bit awkward about having his picture taken even if by those he knew well. 

In the background was the gateway to the bungalow and beyond that the hedgerow on the far side of the road. 

I didn't recognise the soldier but in talking to the homeowner a great back-story developed. 

The Title Deeds for the property go back to 1928 when the land was purchased from the Thornwick Bay Estate as a building plot by John Deheer, a local man who ran a Marine Company doing boat repairs, salvage and also a bit of fishing from premises on Bridlington Quay. 

His son, Ian, was in the family business as a deep sea diver and it was he who befriended Lawrence and through the family connection the bungalow was a regular venue for meeting and socialising. 

The photo was taken around 1934 and is amongst one of the last known of Lawrence before his untimely death in a motorbike accident in May 1935. 

It is hard to deduce the workings of the mind of a man of whom Churchill called a tormented genius. 

His posting to RAF Bridlington in the 1930's was a stage in his life when Lawrence was becoming more and more troubled. Emerging from the First World War as the widely proclaimed King of Arabia for the heroism he had shown in the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks he could have had honours and any choice of prestigious and lucrative roles in Government or Industry.

His own talents were in archaeology, diplomacy and writing amongst many others but yet he lobbied to join the RAF as though to shun and escape from the public eye. 

In 1927 he changed his name by Deed Poll to T E Shaw and in a protracted way he came to be on duty on the East Yorkshire Coast. 

Lawrence did not however avoid danger and one of his roles whilst stationed in Bridlington was to tow bombing targets behind a fast launch for RAF practice. It sounds as though it was a hair-raising experience with only the speed of the boat and armour plating separating Lawrence and the crew from flying shrapnel. 

Ian Deheer was at that time honorary skipper of a yacht, the Lily Maude which was owned by Rowland Winn, a motor engineer who appears to have been a work colleague of Lawrence. Sailing trips are likely to have broadened the friendship between the two. 

Ian Deheer had some local celebrity status in newspaper reports of his pursuit of giant lobsters off Bridlington in his boat, Kermoozer. The mixture of unexploded bombs and sea bed lobster hunting brought about another common link. 

A few Paparazzi of the time could be found hanging around the Quay hoping to catch sight and a photo of the elusive war hero. Lawrence was held in very high regard by his Bridlington friends who described him as a virtual teetotaller with only ginger beer as his regular indulgence. 

He did not however dwell on or dine out on his war stories and always declined to answer questions about that time. When he did avail others of his life and times he did it on his own terms and those in attendance at that time knew they were very privileged to do so. 

Lawrence had expressed his disillusionment about how the Arabs had been treated after 1918. Their part in defeating the Ottomans had been crucial and yet the deal that Lawrence had expected them to be rewarded with had not materialised. He felt he had misled and betrayed his Arab comrades. His own experiences in the war had included capture, inevitable torture or worse at the hands of the Turks and also the death of his girlfriend who had shot herself to protect him. 

These experiences would all point towards Lawrence suffering from what we know now as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. 

I like to think that his time on the beautiful East Yorkshire Coast gave him some respite and relief from his troubled thoughts and memories. 

It was an honour for me to have briefly shared the same airspace albeit after nearly nine decades have passed.

Disco Down- a retrospective

We were the generation that lied, schemed and connived and for what? 

Well, I am sorry to say that it was all just to get into, under-aged, a discotheque night club. 

In the late 1970's that class of venue tended to be aimed exclusively at the over 25 age group and represented at that time a sophisticated experience of dancing, drinking and a chance to entertain and meet the opposite sex. 

Names of establishments attempted to evoke a sense of mystique and style, such as Romeo and Juliets, Silks, Lexington Avenue, Hollywood Nights and Beverley Hills and encouraged an upmarket dress code and behaviour. 

My peer group, still at school albeit in the two final years went to great lengths to try to get into the Discotheques in the city centre. The girls in our year group found it easy what with the maturity gap over us lads and a good application of lippy, mascara and a suitable attire. 

The doormen or bouncers had the power to grant access to the inner sanctum of the nightclub and made the most of that role and the spin off benefits that came with it. As for us immature male teenagers that golden ticket was much more difficult to obtain. We had to spend a lot of time rehearsing a qualifying date of birth if asked for that information by the staff. 

A few of my contemporaries did have a driving licence, genuine or not and would be fearful that the letters and numbers in their licence itself were a giveaway to their youthful under-age. I just opted for a dinner suit to give myself that older-man impression and I did, I must admit, look pretty good. Given that it was my Father's and that it was held up on my skinny frame by braces and belts made the illusion even more of a gamble. 

There were sanctions for being exposed for the age related fraud, most serious being a telephone call to your parents to come and fetch you from the nightclub reception. 

Dutch courage, or a skinful of alcohol was often necessary in order perpetrate the con. We would meet at a back street pub in our home town where we knew that the Landlord or bar staff turned a blind eye to our juvenile status. After only a couple of pints it was amazing that we found our way to the bus or railway station for the 8 mile journey to the big city and our intended evening entertainment. 

Once safely into the discotheque, the ride up in the lift accompanied by a bouncer being a bit intimidating in case we gave away our true age in a lapse of manner or speech, we could link up with our female friends and begin the serious business of disco dancing. 

In those days, well before Sony Walkman personal stereos and with i-tunes and headphones but a distant dream, the disco was the only real access to loud music and to catch up with the charts and trends. 

Drinking and courting tended to be secondary to the activity of dancing and having a good time. 

It was a very social event even though a conversation in the ambient noise was invariably reduced to hand signals or lip reading. I do not readily recall any aggravation, fighting or mindless violence in that scene although the passenger lift did always appear to have been swilled out with a faint odour of antiseptic which we took to be an indication of an over zealous ejection of a reveller by the door staff. 

The disco night club did have a special place in our lives at that time. 

It is with some sadness that I have to report a significant decline in the numbers of such establishments according to recent figures in a media report.

It appears that a number of factors have brought this about. 

There has been a distinct demographic change with the current target age generation favouring small, niche type venues, themed clubs, live music stages, board game playing coffee shops, cocktail bars and enjoying real ales, tapas and gourmet burgers. 

They are an age group brought up with piped music at their fingertips or rather mobile phone keyboard, perhaps a bit more frugal on spending if saving for a house deposit or paying back a student loan and keen to avoid trouble spots and potential conflict with other less discerning night time revellers. 

The traditional disco nightclub just cannot compete which is a shame but perhaps a necessary sacrifice in order for a new order to emerge. 

As for me, I haven't been to a real nightclub for about three decades, preferring to stay in with a glass of wine and to play my old, rather warped and crackly vinyl disco albums and reminiscing with a mixture of fondness and embarrassment at what lengths we would go to just to get down and do our stuff on that dance floor.

English Lesson 18

Followers of this English Lesson series will know that I have sourced these from the compilation by Super-Fan Kevin Hales of the Uxbridge English Dictionary definitions which were a feature of the long running BBC radio show "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue". Some are Kevin's own inventions.

I am up to the letter R which has actually proven to be a rich seam of comedy gold.

Repository- a warehouse which takes deliveries around the back

Receptacle- the lady on the front desk becomes aggressive when you try to get past

Rumination- Australia

Ramsgate- farming scandal

Routine- an adolescent kangaroo

Randomise- a squint

Reincarnation- born again as a tin of condensed milk

Rambling- jewellery for sheep

Romantic- ancient Italian flea

Roulette- a very young queen

Replica- being sycophantic with a Thomas Cook holiday guide

Rapscallion- a funky spring onion

Rancour- chinese term of abuse

Rectitude- the correct angle for insertion of a thermometer

Rebut- cosmetic bottom lift

Rampart- essential element in breeding sheep

Recordable- sash windows that are easy to mend

Ransom- a half hearted jog

Raffia- a crime syndicate who organise craft fairs

Remember- what John Bobbitt was hoping could be done

Repercussions- ill effects of playing the drums

Rubicon- a very overpriced Cockney curry

Ramshackle- a male chastity belt

Relish- a bit like a rel

Rugged- wearing a wig

Retread- very red in Yorkshire dialect

Relief- what trees do in spring time

Ransack- making someone redundant in a hurry

Rectum- a pot bellied priest

Renovate- doing up a french car

Revolt- charging a battery

Return of the three legged dog

This is a favourite piece of writing from a couple of years ago.

It may be a bit of an Angler's tall tale but there used to be a three legged dog that hung around the shoreline of a local freshwater lake.

It was friendly enough but to those sat quietly, fishing those well stocked waters, it seemed a bit anxious as though looking for something. It was from this that the narrative arose that the dog had been swimming in the weedy shallows when a large Pike, a notorious predator fish, had bitten off one of its hind legs, decisively and clinically.

That sort of story, whether in fact true or a yarn, fable, rumour or outright fabrication has given to the Pike an enthralling reputation. It is fearsome and to be feared.

It's latin name, Esox Lucius, roughly translates to devil fish, which alludes to the myth,legend and also the factual and real life of this species.

I have had some personal experience of the creature.

In my early teenage years I was a keen but rather chaotic angler. It was actually a genetic thing inherited in a much diluted form from my maternal Grandfather, Dick. After he died I took on some of his beloved fishing rods and tackle and found out for myself about the joy and peacefulness of sitting on a riverbank for hour upon hour.

It was not really that important to catch anything, rather just to gather your thoughts, drink pop, eat sandwiches, play with warm, bran covered maggots and watch the world flow by on a slow current.

I started to buy the Angling Times to give some credibility to my bungling, amateur status as a freshwater fisher and in those pages I built up a startling image of the Pike. Grainy photos of successful catches loomed out of the pages of that publication. The Pike weighing down the two arms of beefy angler types were all huge.

I became obsessed with finding out more about this natural predator in typical schoolboy fervour following on from a similar all encompassing thirst for facts on the Bermuda Triangle, UFO's, the assassination of JFK and how to become an Astronaut.

You would not expect narrow, fairly shallow and typically slow flowing English rivers to be able to sustain, yet contain, a fish of the voracity of appetite of the Pike.

It has the appearance of a prehistoric origin, a crocodilian head, pits in the flesh of the skull acting as a sounding board to detect its prey, large pear- shaped amber and black centred eyes to scour the depths, an intriguing dappled olive skin with golden dots and dashes to provide clever camouflage in the weeds and yet mimicking the effect of sunlight on the water, a multiple array of teeth with an inward slant to ensure that snagged prey, once impaled, had little chance of wriggling free, fins mounted towards its hind quarters to give powerful rear engined thrust for a short burst from hiding place to target and all of these attributes in a long, efficient and sleek, shiny body.

Amongst the rather, by comparison, feeble and comical fish such as Ruff, Gudgeon, Roach, Rudd, Bream, Carp and even the Eel it is a totally unexpected resident in Northern European waters. It has undoubtedly thrived with a life expectancy of up to 25 years and with recorded sizes up to a whopping seventy pounds.

It's technique for hunting is aggressive but clever and patient. It secretes itself in the weeds and just sits and waits until an unwitting prey swims past. In a powering up of the fins and a lighting fast strike it ensures a regular diet of smaller fish but is also known to take ducks and of course 25% of a dog's appendages.

Some individual Pike have been more ambitious and fearless.

Anglers have recounted tales of being bitten as a consequence of a Pike attempting to steal away the catch at the end of the line. Divers working on bridge piers report being head-butted by large Pike in a sort of territorial stance. There have also been tales of mules and cattle taking water in a river and being attacked.

In history the species were prized by Monarchs and the Landed Classes as food and many Castles and Manor Houses had Pike or Stew Ponds as they were called as a source of what was regarded as a delicacy. The rather earthy, small bone latticed meat was quite an acquired taste.

In my youth, a friend caught a Pike and decided to take it home for his Mum to cook. He had struggled to land it as Pike are strong game fish but then knocked it on the head before placing it length-ways, head down in his backpack. On the cycle ride back to his house the fish regained consciousness and a panicked lad had to go through the process again on the busy roadside. He didn't say anything about eating it after that.

A Pike could be caught at any time in the freshwater season but pursuit of the species in the cold, damp winter months was the best of activities.

Armed with brightly coloured spoon or small fish shaped spinning lures we would cover many miles along the river bank in search of the creatures.

Alternatively we would buy a pound weight of Sprats from the fishmongers and carefully attach them as dead bait to the biggest hooks we could manage.

Unfortunately, if enthusiastically cast the slim, silvery fish would often detach themselves and on a river bank bordering onto private house gardens the residents will often have found, mystifyingly, several Sprattus sprattus on their lawns and patios.

My enduring recollection and image of the Pike is having to sit astride a nine-pounder whilst my fellow teenage angler used the hinged gag and long discorger to remove the lure to allow the monster fish to be returned, unharmed but mightily disgruntled to its natural domain.

In that moment of restraining the pent up power of that fish I had felt as though I was astride a dolphin, a bit like the picture below but in my case, wearing a thick Parka coat, balaclava and walking boots.

Them Vikings and their little ways

No, I have not ever taken a DNA Test but the ancestry known to me strongly points to a Viking heritage. 

That must be why I have really taken to and enjoyed the Netflix Series "Norsemen" which is now into its third series. 

It is a warts and all depiction of the life and times of Vikings in the 8th Century through a small warrior and farming community, a curious mixture of farcical humour through clever writing and a mix of historic and contemporary references blended with abject horror and frankly, quite disgusting behaviour which is grounded in actual fact from Chronicles of that era. 

The stories lurch along from quite Parochial activities in the fictional hamlet of Norheim to very violent and merciless action in the raiding parties of the main characters on the quiet, innocent and naive East Coast of England. 

It is both entertaining and interesting on the educational front , the latter because my Infant schooling back in the 1960's and early 1970's was, where the Vikings were concerned, quite boring even though it should not have been with their civilisation being at the forefront of the cultural activities of rape, pillage and plunder. 

Three particular customs have been blended into the episodes which emphasise the brutality but also very practical attitudes of these Scandinavians. 

These are Holmgang, Attestupa and The Blood Eagle. 

The first, Holmgang is a formal challenge between parties, in effect a duel, as a means to quickly and decisively settle a dispute. The derivation of the word is holm meaning a small island which in the land of lakes may have been the location for the combatants to meet and do business. 

It was quite a socially neutral activity in that anyone offended could make the challenge regardless of status in the hierarchy of the settlement. The grudge could be from an outstanding debt, on a matter of honour or as an act to avenge a relative or friend. The non-attendance of the person challenged was taken to mean that the challenge was a just one. Conversely if the offended party did not turn up then they ran the risk of being outlawed or banished. 

In Norsemen the dramatic presentation of a Holmgang is a bit of a stretch of the meaning. 

One of the fiercest warriors, albeit a bit chubby and socially awkward confides in the Chieftain that he wants to take a wife and land. He currently lives in a tent with only his one set of clothes and weaponry. The Chieftain encourages him to challenge a rather weak and stuttering but wealthy and married member of the village to Holmgang. In a most unbalanced bout the warrior cleaves the unwitting man in two with the first strike of his broadsword. To the victor goes the riches, house, land and enthusiastic spouse. 

In similar vein as an expression of the rough justice and very hand to mouth existence of the Vikings at the mercy of natural and other forces is the term Attestupa. 

It is actually a reference to a precipice in a mountainous and fjord environment common to Sweden and Norway. In Nordic times it was the place where elderly people threw themselves or were thrown by others to their death. 

Life expectancy was understandably limited in such harsh times what with primitive, if any, medical knowledge, diet, climate influences and the constant threat of violence in battle or from your neighbours (see Holmgang). 

The Norsemen dramatisation is of a group of barely middle aged men on top of a high cliff face being invited to do the honourable thing and make a leap to certain death. Valhalla, the place of the Viking Deities awaits but the villagers are understandably reluctant to participate. 

It ends with a promise to the slave who has been trusted with the task that the selected few will just go off and make a life somewhere else. In a later episode they are found having a fine existence in a camp in the forest and are actually recruited to help to rescue the village from a particularly despotic and highly unbalanced Warlord. 

The third custom is extremely gruesome and yet unsurprising for a culture where fighting was a key element of existence. 

The Blood Eagle may just have been a part of the Viking Myth in order to intimidate and arouse fear amongst enemies and their own subjects alike. It was an alleged form of ritual execution. 

The victim was placed in a prone position over a bench or log pile. 

Their ribs were then severed from the spine with the sharpest of implements and the lungs pulled through the opening to resemble a pair of wings. It does seem a bit far fetched and the practice in actual Viking tradition is the subject of much academic debate. 

I can recommend Norsemen as a bit of good fun but not for those of a squeamish sensitivity. 

Oh, and there is also quite a lot of sexual and politically incorrectness highly likely to upset a good proportion of the viewing public. 

When is Series 4 being shown?

All About Bees

 The advances in technology of sensor apparatus has led to a whole new discipline in the study of the natural world. It is now possible to affix tracking devices to the tiniest of insects and the humble bumble bee is the latest candidate for this treatment. 

Why bees? 

Just take a look at these informed opinions on the significance of bees. One, attributed widely to Einstein but actually by a naturalist, Maurice Maeterlinck is perhaps the most well known, "if the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no  more Man"

Another goes along the lines of "You will probably more than once have seen her fluttering about the bushes, in a deserted corner of your garden, without realising that you were carelessly watching the venerable ancestor to whom we probably owe most of our flowers and fruits (for it is actually estimated that more than a hundred thousand varieties of plants would disappear if the bees did not visit them), and possibly even our civilisation, for in these mysteries all things intertwine"

On an official basis a 1907  report from the New York State Department of Agriculture discussed experiments that indicated many crops were dependent on bees for productive pollination, e.g., apple, cherry, pear, strawberry, raspberry, red clover, white clover, melon, squash, pumpkin, and cucumber. 

In a typical experiment researchers placed netting around some branches of an apple tree to exclude bees and then determined that the number of blossoms was dramatically reduced.

A more severe and sobering prediction is that so important are insects and other land-dwelling arthropods that if all were to disappear, humanity probably could not last more than a few months. 

Most of the amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals would crash to extinction about the same time. 

Next would go the bulk of the flowering plants and with them the physical structure of most forests and other terrestrial habitats of the world. The land surface would literally rot. As dead vegetation piled up and dried out, closing the channels of the nutrient cycles, other complex forms of vegetation would die off, and with them all but a few remnants of the land vertebrates.

So the bumble bee is a vital ecological lynch pin. 

We are aware of their social existence and work ethic but little is known about how bees find and exploit over their lifetime. 

This has been difficult until the availability of miniature trackers. 

In a small sample of only 4 bees over their adult life some interesting aspects were discovered. 

On emerging from the nest the bees in the study flew around scouting their surroundings with frequent stops to feed. One of the bees kept to and concentrated on familiar sites and in one day completed 20 trips to and from the nest to a single food source. 

Another adopted more of a vagabond lifestyle just ranging far and wide sampling plants. 

Although four bees is acknowledged as being very restricted the researchers felt it to be representative of a division of labour from exploiter to explorer.

The study continues to try to get a better understanding of where and when bees move in the environment and how this benefits the distribution of plant genes.

Shipbuilding

An all time favourite song and even more so now that I have found the Elvis Costello original lurking about in the backwaters of Spotify.

Here are the lyrics for Shipbuilding (1983) by Elvis Costello and Clive William Langer

Is it worth it?

A new winter coat and shoes for the wife

And a bicycle on the boy's birthday

It's just a rumour that was spread around town

By the women and children

Soon we'll be shipbuilding

Well, I ask you

The boy said "dad, they're going to take me to task

But I'll be back by Christmas"

It's just a rumour that was spread around town

Somebody said that someone got filled in

For saying that people get killed in

The result of this shipbuilding

With all the will in the world

Diving for dear life

When we could be diving for pearls

It's just a rumour that was spread around town

A telegram or a picture postcard

Within weeks they'll be re-opening the shipyards

And notifying the next of kin

Once again

It's all we're skilled in

We will be shipbuilding

With all the will in the world

Diving for dear life

When we could be diving for pearls

It's all we're skilled in

We will be shipbuilding

With all the will in the world

Diving for dear life

When we could be diving for pearls

When we could be diving for pearls

When we could be diving for pearls

The R Number in Hull 1921

 24th August 1921. The Official Communique of the UK Air Ministry read as follows;

"The Air Ministry regret to announce that an accident occurred to the R38 (Airship) while flying over Hull at about 5.45pm today which led to the ship crashing into the river. The cause of the accident is unknown and owing to the fact that there are no RAF personnel stationed in the vicinity of the scene of the disaster great difficulty is being expressed in obtaining immediate official information" 

Air Ministry representatives were instructed at once to proceed to Hull.

The R38 was, at the time, the largest rigid airship in the world at a length of 695 feet (212 metres). It had been built at Shorts but with the final specification and design features being the responsibility of the Air Ministry. The structure was in Duralumin, a hardened aluminium which had been championed for its qualities of lightness and strength and when matched up to a powertrain of six V-12 engines each producing 350 bhp the craft was at the cutting edge of airship technology. 

The impact of German Zeppelins on warfare had been very effective in spite of a very poor performance and safety record. The British airship programme in the aftermath of the First World War was seen as a major new direction for the RAF but yet, in 1921, the R38 was deemed surplus to requirements and had been sold to the American Governmnent to be re-named the ZR8. 

The ill fated flight in the August of 1921 was part of a familiarisation exercise with, amongst the crew of 48 a detachment of 17 Americans. The schedule was to fly from Howden Airfield in East Yorkshire to Pulham in Norfolk for final tests leading up to the impending actual long haul journey across the Atlantic. The weather was poor for August and the R38 had to remain out over the North Sea. Further test runs involved 20 minute intervals on the forward engines, a further 20 minutes on four engines and then completion of the hour on all six. These took place as the airship was making its way back following the line of the Humber Estuary at an altitude of 1000 feet and approaching the large regional City of Kingston Upon Hull. A wireless message sent to Howden expressed complete satisfaction that everything was running in fine condition, There was to be a Formal Dinner and Dance that evening in Hull and all on  board must have been anticipating celebrating a successful induction flight.

In spite of low clouds a large crowd of around 1000 had gathered to see the technological, lighter than air machine and many of these assembled around the Victoria Pier just on the fringe of the Old Town and City Centre. 

In a rapid manouevre the R38 attempted a turn in front of those watching but to their horror the huge cigar shape began to distort, crumple and break up as it fell in flames into the murky waters of the river. A series of explosions could be heard for miles around. A Hull woman was reported to have died from the shock of witnessing the accident. Others in the crowd were blown off their feet. Fragments and debris rained down. It was all over very quickly and mangled wreckage on a sandbank and in the water was all that was left for rescuers to approach in a frantic search for survivors. Witnesses claimed to have seen the deployment of parachutes but there were only 5 crew who were recovered alive. The Gondola which was the control, command and accommodation unit under the gas filled skin was later recovered but was devoid of any bodies. One item which washed ashore intact was the doll which was the mascot of the R38. 

The enquiry into the accident which involved a forensic study of the wreckage cast doubt on the structural integrity of the airframe. Girders were found to be fractured and it was later revealed that earlier concerns had called for bracing and strengthening to be carried out but obviously not of a sufficiency to prevent the tragic crash.

A further catastrophic crash of the R101 in 1930 and other disasters of similar craft in other nations effectively brought an end to large airship manufacture. 

There is a large Memorial to those lost in the Humber in a Hull Cemetery. If you search on You Tube there is also archive footage from contemporary News Reels. 

Style over substances

I have an all time favourite cycle racing jersey.

It is one of the iconic designs from the continental road race teams of the halcyon 1980's era.

I clearly recall buying it in 1984 out of my hard pressed funds as an impoverished student in that hotbed of cycling, Nottingham in the English Midlands. I may have had to give up eating for a couple of days to buy it, such was it's attraction to me as new participant in competitive bike racing.

There is always one of those essentials in life that loom up but rarely coinciding with the ability to hand over cash for it.

It is a gloriously bright and striking design with numerous panels in yellow with sponsor names picked out in black, white upper and lower panels and red sleeves with contrasting white logo's.

The thing with continental trade team jerseys is that they seemed very exotic and to the comparatively dour British equivalents of the era possessing a mystique and with a great resonance of cycling pedigree and heritage.

In this case the main sponsor Kwantum Hallen Decosol was, I think, the Dutch equivalent of the B and Q Home and DIY Store in the UK so after all, pretty mundane.

The team was formed after the European season of 1983 when the dominant TI-Raleigh team split up because of longstanding tension between former world champion Jan Raas and the fascinating and colourful team leader Peter Post.

Seven cyclists followed Post to the new Panasonic-team and six cyclists joined Raas to form the Kwantum team.

The ranks of the team were expanded into a group of all-rounders to cope with the long and arduous racing calendar which ran from the early Spring Classics to the Autumn World Championships. 

The mainly Dutch but also Belgian riders included Neven, Nijdam, Peeters, Prijm, Raas himself,Van der Poel, the veteran Zootemelk, Wijnands and a rarity for that era, an American, Doug Shapiro. 

In their first year, the team managed to win the red jersey for intermediate sprints and one stage in the 1984 Tour de France, the Amstel Gold Race and the Dutch national road championship.

After the 1984 season, Jan Raas retired from an illustrious career as an active cyclist and became team manager. I can say that I saw him ride in one of the Kelloggs City Centre Race Series just before he hung up his cleats.

In 1985 the Kwantum team had a successful year with two Tour de France stages, the Tour of Luxembourg, Paris–Tours, Paris–Brussels, the Tirreno–Adriatico, the Tour of Belgium, again the Dutch national road championship, and perhaps against all the odds the World cycling championship where Joop Zoetemelk triumphed aged 38 with Greg Lemond and Moreno Argentin in the other medal places.

By 1986 was the team was waning and the most important victory was the Tour of Belgium by Nico Emonds.

In all it was a brief flurry of success over just three main seasons but the prominence of the distinctive jersey at the head of a major race peleton and on the podium reinforced its status in cycle racing history.

The DNA of Kwantum Hallen has proven to be strong and there is a well defined family tree in professional cycling that shows lineage through successive teams of SuperConfex (1988) with Maasen and Van Hooydonk, the Buckler Team (1989) Vanderaerden and Rooks, the Word Perfect Squad (1993) with Bekker and Moncassin, the 1995 Novell Team with the erratic but prolific Abdujaparov, followed in 1996 by Rabobank under somewhat of a doping cloud, the short lived Blanco and Belkin in 2013 and the present day incarnation of Lotto Jumbo. .

As for my own jersey it is a bit battered after 30 plus years with a small hole in the right arm from a crash.The colours are however as bright as the day it was bought.

 I am no longer compatible to the jersey size (a tactful way of saying I am now chubby) but my bike-mad son has taken it out for a few rides recently and it is a much admired bit of bike history.

In fact it is priceless (or with similar available for up to £100 on E Bay)