Friday 14 September 2012

A Gongoozler and her dog ... ...


Bruce The Wonder Dog and I can often be found, early on a Saturday morning, strolling beside the Kennet and Avon canal.  He’s definitely a dry-land dog; the drier the better! But that doesn’t mean to say he doesn’t enjoy a good snuffle along the towpath with a brief pause now and then to gawp at the waterbirds.  He has an abiding fascination with ducks!  He will watch coots, moorhens, mallards and swans for as long as I’ll let him; sitting with his ears pricked forward and his tail gently wagging.





This all changes when confronted by a Muscovy duck (those large black and white ducks with red wattles and beak).  He will do all in his power to place me between himself and his nemesis.  He’s a gentle, placid old mutt but there’s something about those ducks that he really doesn’t like.



Another of his fascinations is with barges and narrowboats.  He looks at them wistfully as they glide past and, if we happen to encounter one moored at the bank he’s all for making a break for it and trying to get aboard.  Usually he’s seen off by a resident Jack Russell.

I sometimes daydream about the two of us floating through the English countryside on a narrowboat with ne’er a care in the world.  However, my common sense usually kicks in quite quickly as the daydream takes on nightmare qualities; with visions of a large Rhodesian Ridgeback and myself sharing a tiny cabin, or constantly fishing said weighty animal out of the canal because he absent-mindedly forgot he was on a boat and fell off it.

Bruce is always ready to make new friends and seems irresistibly drawn to people of a nautical nature.  I’ve gleaned quite a bit of information about the practicalities and history of narrowboats from chatting to friendly boat owners who have been ambushed by Bruce.  But they always seem happy to share their knowledge and enthusiasm with a passing Gongoozler like myself (someone who isn’t a narrowboater; i.e. most of the population).

I’m still fascinated by the whole subject.  Not just the history but the practicalities of the whole thing.  I’ve obtained a copy of NARROWBOATS EXPLAINED by Trevor Yorke (£7.99) and it’s packed with all the things I wanted to find out.  How they are actually constructed, why they are decorated as they are, and the traditions associated with them.

Not only that, Trevor has also included practical information about how to hire and buy them, how to operate them and the practicalities involved in living on one (although, sadly, he appears silent on the subject of accommodating a large dog on one). 

You know, it’s really not as impossible a dream as I once thought.  Trevor really does know his stuff and gives you a realistic idea of what is involved.  I may yet realise my dream!
For a full list of all our titles please visit our website www.countrysidebooks.co.uk and you will receive a 20% discount on any books you order from there.

Happy waterside walking to all you Gongoozlers

Deb

Friday 31 August 2012

Countryside Books: A Forgotten Corner ... ... ...

Countryside Books: A Forgotten Corner ... ... ...: There is an old, disused graveyard near my house.   Bruce the Wonder Dog and I often pass it on our evening walks.   It's a little on th...

A Forgotten Corner ... ... ...


There is an old, disused graveyard near my house.  Bruce the Wonder Dog and I often pass it on our evening walks.  It's a little on the neglected side but that just adds to its charm.  Yesterday evening it looked particularly attractive with the sun shining through the foliage of the old cedar tree and lighting up the windows in the little derelict chapel.

 

I have to admit I find it fascinating.  Unfortunately it isn’t open to the public, but I love to peer through the railings and see what I can spot; angels and scrolls, crosses and ornate headstones, cherubs and garlands.  There even appears to be quite a large chest tomb there.  I would love to be able to walk around and take a closer look at the inscriptions.

If they have an open day (which they occasionally do, I’m told) then I shall definitely pay a visit and, when I do, I shall go armed with a copy of GRAVESTONES, TOMBS & MEMORIALS (£5.99) by Trevor Yorke.

 

I’ve already read through it and have discovered an amazing number of things about the significance and symbolism of decoration and ornamentation that I never realised.  The inscriptions on gravestones can tell us the facts about the person buried beneath but the imagery used to decorate the grave gives everything a whole new dimension – how the family felt about the death; what it meant to them; even what profession or interest they held while alive. 

I can’t see it from the roadside but I know that my little local cemetery has a gravestone in the shape of a car wheel.  It commemorates James George Mann, who died in November 1922 aged 19.  It is believed that he may have been an early racing car driver.

 

So, if you too like to explore churchyards then I highly recommend taking a copy of Trevor Yorke’s  book along with you.  I think you’ll be surprised at how much you can discover, not only about the people who are buried there and their standing in the local community but also about the history of your area.

Trevor explains burial practices down the ages and details the development of the churchyard and the cemetery.  He looks at the period styles of gravestones and tombs, and the shapes and features that help to date them.  Using a wide range of photographs and his own illustrations, he examines the carvings and symbols that can be found and offers clues to their possible meanings. 
 
For a full list of our titles, please visit our website at www.countrysidebooks.co.uk.  If you order from our website there is a 20% discount.
 
Happy walking.
Deb
 

Friday 3 August 2012

The Ironing Zone


Whilst ironing the other evening I was musing on how quickly I was getting through the pile of washing with my super-steamy iron.  With all my gadgets, gizmos and state of the art domestic appliances things are nowhere near as time consuming and difficult as they were when I was first married.   I may still moan about doing the housework but it’s nothing compared to what it used to be like ... and not even close to the sheer physical labour my mother had to do!

While in the ‘ironing zone’ I did one of those time-warp, flashback thingies to back when I was a child (whirly special effect can be inserted here).  There was Mum ironing the laundry with a heavy, clunky old iron and having to use a damp cloth if she needed to steam the creases out of anything.  And all that laundry had been washed in a boiler, rinsed in the sink and then put through the mangle! 



Ah, the mangle!  I remember that well.  Mum used it for squeezing the water out of the washing and dad used it for crushing sticks of rhubarb when he was making wine (no, I’m not joking – he really did).


Yes, I know that all this sounds like the dark ages, but it wasn’t so long ago ... the early 1960s!

Times change.  And when they do it’s fast.   New inventions suddenly appear and are accepted so quickly it's as if we have never been without them.  It's hard enough to imagine life before the internet or mobile phones; but what was it like without electricity, running water or flushing toilets?  All these innovations must have revolutionised the lives of the average family. 

The Domestic Revolution Explained by Stan Yorke was certainly an eye-opener for me.  Just a hundred years ago barely half the country had gas and very few people had electricity.  Domestic life has changed so dramatically over the decades - it's fascinating to see just how we have progressed.


 Stan's book is priced at £8.99 (with a 20% discount when ordered direct from our website).

For a full list of our titles please visit our website www.countrysidebooks.co.uk

Wishing you all 'domestic bliss'
Deb

Friday 13 April 2012

On Your Bike … … …


We have a new book of cycle routes being published this spring - On Your Bike: Hampshire & The New Forest by Mike Edwards.

In preparation for sending out the review copies and publicity material, I asked Mike if he could let me have a few lines about himself that I could use.  He really is a very charming man and we had a lovely chat over the phone.  He recounted some wonderful anecdotes to me and I asked if he could write some of them down and send them to me. 

Well, he did, and I have enjoyed the piece he has written so much that I couldn’t resist sharing it.  He certainly gives a whole new dimension to the phrase ‘On yer bike!’



About Mike Edwards – in his own words


Born into bikes!  I was born in Coventry – the birthplace of the bicycle - and most of my family were engineers.  I went from pram to tricycle and onto the roads at an early age.  I was seven when war broke out in 1939 so there was no new bike at Christmas for me – tanks and guns were the order of the day.  You got an ‘austerity bike’ to go to school on – a single-speed, sit-up-and-beg, black-all-over monstrosity.  I wanted a brightly coloured bike with dropped handlebars, so that I could become a racer.  I used to spend every Saturday afternoon at The Butts racetrack where I could watch the races and drool over the exotic racing bikes.  

The only answer was to build my own.  The wreckage from all the homes demolished in the many air raids (not just the November 1940 Coventry Blitz) was piled in long heaps on the town rubbish tips and a little probing would soon bring forth a battered, mangled bike which still had quite a few useable parts.  The bits you didn’t want could soon be swopped at my Bablake School for what you needed – pedals for a saddle and so on.  So I soon had my bike – with dropped handlebars, a racing saddle and reasonably light in weight.  Then I set to work to paint it – silver for the wheels, light blue for the frame and bright matching tape for the handlebars.

My bike meant freedom – the door was open – where to go?  The local area was quickly explored.  Sunday rides were soon extended to Kenilworth, Warwick, and then Stratford-on-Avon.  My target was to do 100 miles in a day.  Oxford was a tempting 49 miles away so one Sunday I got up very early, filled my waterbottle, cut a pile of Marmite sandwiches and set off.  But this was no quiet Sunday!  There were Marshals in cycling gear on many traffic islands and corners, and shadowy figures on racing bikes shot past at regular intervals.  I discovered this was a time trial, a legal race against the clock, common in the UK on Sunday mornings.  So I got the competitive bug.  I arrived home, saddlesore and very hungry, but made myself ride a mile down the road and back to complete my first hundred – a ‘century ride’.

Competition looked tempting. Joining a club seemed to be the first step.  So I went to see Ernie Viner, secretary of the Coventry Cycling Club, and paid up for junior membership.  He gave me a badge for the bike and a lapel badge which I proudly wore to school on Monday morning.

Now I was no longer a spectator at The Butts.  I was scheduled after school to sell programmes and tickets, help in pushing a rider away at the start of a race (I once pushed the national champion Reg Harris away!) and so on.  Mine wasn’t a track bike, but it would cope with training runs which the club operated most evenings.  I trained every day on my own to be able to keep up with the Club run, and eventually I could manage 100 miles in 6 ½ hours which was the standard Sunday Training Run.

The Club was famous for its Lady Champions and I had always admired the National Sprint Champion, Eileen Sheridan.  She was less than five feet tall but could go like the wind – anything from a 440 yard dash to the Lands End to John O’Groats record which she held for decades!  I can remember blushing to the roots of my red hair when she rode alongside me on a weekend training ride, casting doubtful looks at my homemade contraption from her scintillating racing bike!

On the touring side I soon discovered the YHA.  In the 1940’s it was a superb chain of hostels on which you could plot a tour and go all over the country.  (9d a night, 9d for a meal).  On one tour I cycled from Coventry to Lands End then along the coast to the Isle of Wight, and back through Arundel (having squeezed £5 out of Mum).  No one asked you to phone or write, you were free, you had a bike, you just went!

In 1947 we went to Australia as £10 pommy immigrants, sponsored by Bruce Small, owner of Malvern Star Bikes.  I was recruited as office boy but as nobody thought of giving me a bike I had to work for it.  Sir Hubert Opperman, famous as a competitor in 6-day races in Europe and a member of the Australian Tour de France team, was a Director and my duties included taking him his morning coffee, pausing as long as I dared to admire the trophies displayed on his office walls.  I saved my pay, and bought myself a second-hand touring bike; heavy and crude but good enough to take me into the Bush.  My happiest memories include being befriended by old bushmen, eating damper by their campfires, watering the horses and listening to their stories far into the night.

At the age of 17 I was awarded a Commonwealth Cadetship to the RAF College at Cranwell, England to train as a pilot.  I planned to ride my bike from Bombay to Cranwell so I worked as a drink-waiter in Mario’s nightclub for a while to finance the trip.  I arrived in Bombay in April 1950 with adequate finance and the whole summer to get to England.   But there was trouble in Abadan (Dr. Mossadeq had nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.) and the Embassy told me that if I tried to get through Iran I would probably get shot. I did some training runs (getting badly sunburnt on a trip from Bombay to Poona) but with no way through, and a deadline to make, I caught the P&O Liner Strathnaver and arrived at Cranwell on 13 September 1950.

There was little chance for cycling during my 3 years at the RAF College.  As I had no home in the UK I was taken home to Yorkshire by Dick Calvert, one of my colleagues, to spend Christmas with his family. His sister, Anne-Marie, was planning a cycling trip round Scotland and the Hebrides using the YHA and we lost no time in planning to ‘share a tandem’ if we got the chance in later life!

Dick and I went on together to learn to fly the RAF’s first jet fighter, the Meteor.  We shared a room in the Mess but I still did not dare tell him I planned to steal his sister! 

Anne-Marie and I married in 1955 and took every chance to cycle tour around the UK and France, using the YHA or when abroad a tiny tent.  We even cycled to our new postings, which irritated RAF Accounts as there was no mileage rate for ‘an officer’s missus on a pushbike!’  On one tour on our racing bikes we passed through Camaret in Brittany.  Anne-Marie insisted on visiting a local artist’s gallery where she fell in love with an original oil painting of the little harbour. Cognac appeared when the artist saw a likely sale and only later did we lie in our tent discussing how to get an oil painting home on a bike.  With large quantities of brown paper and string it was secured on the rear of my bike. Fortunately the weather stayed dry.  When we eventually arrived at Customs in Plymouth the officer asked
 ‘What on earth have you got there Sir?’
 ‘It’s an original oil painting, officer.’
 ‘Get away with you Sir!’ – and with a broad grin he waved us through.

Anne-Marie had always promised me the super made-to-measure bike of my dreams one day and, sure enough, on my 75th birthday a Roberts Audax Bike was waiting for me.  It joined my stable with my Lemond training bike, a Gazelle off-road machine and even a Unicycle.  Anne-Marie has written many outdoor and literary books over the years so when her lady editor charmed me into writing On Your Bike in Hampshire and the New Forest I already had all the bikes I could possibly need to cover the glorious lanes, tracks and Secret Places I hope you will enjoy in this book.


I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I did.  Mike has certainly inspired me to get out and about on two wheels and take to the open road.  Not sure I could manage 100 miles in one day … well, not this week, anyway!




There is a 20% discount for all books ordered direct from our website.  For a full list of all our books please visit www.countrysidebooks.co.uk

Happy Cycling!
Deb




Friday 30 March 2012

FARES, PLEASE!


My car has been running on petrol fumes for the last couple of days.  I haven’t been able to get near a petrol station because of the queues of people panic buying, so I’ve put the old girl on the drive and I’m reverting to public transport!

It occurred to me that I don’t know very much about our British transport system.  How long has it been in place?  When did it start?  What was it like?  I decided to have a look at a book we published by Stan Yorke a couple of years back called FARES, PLEASE!

It really is a fascinating read; looking at the history of public transport and explaining how services developed into the system we are familiar with today.  Starting with horse drawn open buses and cabs; through the age of trams, steam trains and trolley buses; to the much loved red Routemaster buses.  There are stops on the way to take in the genius of Victorian invention, the chicanery of politicians, and the turbulence of social upheaval. 

I enjoyed Stan's book very much and I think it is well worth £5.99 (with 20% discount when ordered direct from our website).

http://www.countrysidebooks.co.uk/book-catalogue-book-details.php?book=1721

Today, sitting in the comfort of a high-speed train, the journey from London to Glasgow takes a scant few hours.  It is astounding to realise that the same journey, undertaken in the 1800s, would have taken nearly a fortnight to accomplish.

In the 1600s the rich had their own private coaches, but anyone else who wanted to travel any distance had to buy a place on a stage wagon; an uncomfortable mode of transport which, as well as carrying passengers, also transported goods and livestock.  This primitive and uncomfortable conveyance gradually developed into the stage coach.  The drivers of these vehicles were the heroes of the day; famed for their prowess in manoeuvring the heavy coaches. 

By the 1890s it is estimated that London alone had some 40,000 working horses plus probably as many again in private use.


The Mail Coach, travelling overnight when roads were virtually empty, also took passengers.  Each coach had, as well as the driver, a heavily armed Post Office guard who stood at the rear of the coach with the box containing the post.  The guard stayed on the coach for the entire journey, even when it stopped to exchange mail or change horses, and in hard winters it was not unknown for these men to die from hypothermia!

With the arrival of steam, public transport developed in leaps and bounds as the railways spread across the country, providing efficient, affordable travel for all.  By the 1920s trains carried hundreds of thousands into the cities and back every day.  Trams, both steam and electric, had also become popular in cities and towns across the land.

The development of petrol and diesel fuels and the improvement of roads were destined to deliver a fatal blow to trams and inflict lasting damage to rail services.  After the Second World War the country’s transport system was worn out and needed vast amounts of investment.  The motor bus was modern, comfortable and versatile and appeared the obvious way to go.

Stan Yorke’s lively history will take you on a journey of discovery.  The book is filled with colour photographs that show a glorious cavalcade of public transport vehicles of every kind.  There is also a list of places to visit where many examples, lovingly restored to working order by the hard work and enthusiasm of dedicated devotees, can be seen today.

‘The journey from the time when there was no public transport at all, to today is a ride through invention, politics and social upheaval’ says author Stan Yorke. 

It certainly puts having to queue for petrol or wait for a bus into proper perspective!

Happy travelling!
Deb


For a full list of our titles please visit our website www.countrysidebooks.co.uk


Friday 23 March 2012

You shall have a fishy … but for how much longer?


Dance ti' thy daddy, sing ti' thy mammy,
Dance ti' thy daddy, ti' thy mammy sing;
Thou shall hev a fishy on a little dishy,

Thou shall hev a fishy when the boat comes in.


For some, a favourite meal is a plate of delicious, golden-battered haddock accompanied by a pile of hot, crispy chips.  For others it’s a mouth-watering prawn cocktail, artistically presented.  It might even be a sophisticated sea bass with saffron sauce.  Whatever your seafood preference – Harry Ramsden or Rick Stein – there would be no choice at all if it was not for the  hardy individuals who battle the elements and risk life and limb to catch and bring back to shore the harvest of the ocean.

Through war and peace, good times and bad, fishermen have put to sea and braved the elements to earn their living.  For countless generations fishing has been a way of life with sons following in the footsteps of fathers and grandfathers.  But, due to diminishing fish stocks, government and EU regulation, and the increasingly high cost of fuel, it is becoming more and more difficult for fishermen to make a living from a way of life that has been handed down through the generations.

Before a way of life disappears completely and the memories are lost forever, four of our authors took the time to visit their local fishing communities and talk to the fishermen who struggle, day-in day-out, to keep their heritage alive.

Using first-hand accounts and a fascinating collection of old and contemporary photographs Sheila Bird, Ian Robb, Ron Freethy and Bernard Bale tell the stories of four fishing communities: Cornwall, East Anglia, Lancashire and Lincolnshire, recording the memories of local fishermen and their families; the conditions, the work, the people and their humour.

I've put together some short extracts from each of the books.  They make fascinating reading and I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

I have certainly learned a great deal about the fishermen of Britain and my admiration for the work they do under the most extreme circumstances is boundless.

Let’s hear it for the folk past and present who are the very life of the fishing industry.  To each and every one of them from skipper to lumper and from owner to apprentice and their families – Thank You.

Happy reading,
Deb



MEMORIES OF THE CORNISH FISHING INDUSTRY by Sheila Bird







Brian Bowdler, a fisherman and member of the lifeboat crew at Looe says ‘There’s no two days the same when we go to sea.  If anything goes wrong, we tend to have a laugh about it.  There’s humour in any hard job, else it would be un-doable’.  His father, Lionel remembered ‘We had a wartime mine that we towed up, which we had to bring in to shallow waters for the Navy to blow up.  That was quite interesting!  Brian had to sit on it all the way in, to stop it from rolling around.’

Alan Dingle of West Looe recalled ‘The men I trained with were very experienced.  They knew everything about the area – the weather, the conditions of the sea, and you were told not to do this, and not to do that.  We were out there one night when I was a youngster, and I was whistling.  The skipper, he said to me, “We got enough wind without you whistling”, and he wouldn’t let me have no dinner!  So I learned my lesson there, quick!’

During the Second World War local fishermen were enlisted by the Royal Navy.  Claudie Richards of Polruan has vivid memories of his wartime service in his requisitioned boat, Rosemary.  Sent to rendezvous with a submarine, he recalled, ‘It was dark, with patches of drizzly rain.  I slowed the engine down, then it come calm and I could smell cigarette smoke.  Then suddenly this great thing loomed up in front of me – it was the conning tower of a submarine!  I went alongside and this officer called out “I say, how did you find me?”  ‘It’s your cigarette smoke!’  He says, “Well, I’m damned!” 

MEMORIES OF THE EAST ANGLIAN FISHING INDUSTRY by Ian Robb

Ernie Childs of Great Yarmouth recalls the hundreds of boats moored in the harbour during the height of the herring season in the 1950s.  On a Sunday morning when all the crews had gone to church, locals could climb across from one boat to the other to get from Great Yarmouth to Gorleston, rather than walk the half mile around and over the Haven Bridge!

One of the greatest losses to the East Anglian fishing industry has been the Scots fishergirls.  They moved south following the fishing, travelling from port to port, gutting, pickling and packing herring by the million as they went.  In East Anglia vast number of these Scots lassies could be found in Great Yarmouth, Gorleston and Lowestoft throughout the herring season.

Ernie Childs of Great Yarmouth recalled his early life on the Fish Wharf in the 1950s and retains his affection for the lassies ‘I’ve grown up with these old girls, y’see.  They were “girls” no matter how old they were.  When you’re down with them, it’s lovely.  You used to be among them and they were singing away.  It was a wonderful atmosphere.’

MEMORIES OF THE LANCASHIRE FISHING INDUSTRY by Ron Freethy


Mick Rodgers has been a deckhand all his life.  ‘I began as a galley boy and I’ve never been so ill in my life.  There’s nowt worse than sea sickness.  Imagine a high sea running and I’m sat there peeling spuds and putting them into ice cold water.  Suddenly the metal bucket lurched across the deck and I waited for the next roll to bring it back because I were too ill to move.  It was then I realised how a good crew worked together.  A deckhand looked at me and told me to go and lie down and he continued with my work.’

Retired deckhand Mick Rodgers recalls ‘I was shipwrecked twice.  The first time was in the Boston Lightning.  It was blowing a gale when we were struck amidships by the Grimsby trawler Lord Howe.  Her bow embedded in our vessel but the Grimsby skipper kept his head.  We were losing water but the Lord Howe partly sealed the gap.  We were able to launch a boat and then board the Lord Howe.  The Grimsby lads then went astern and took us to a safe billet on the west coast of Iceland.  The luckiest man alive that day was Jimmy Crisp who was our wireless operator.  He had just left his radio room when the collision occurred and a Grimsby anchor demolished his radio room completely.’

Those who fished off the coast of Lancashire faced, and still face, potential danger every time they put to sea.   Joyce Openshaw, former director of the Iago Company remembers the wrecking of the ST Red Falcon off Skerrymore in 1959 when 19 men were lost.  ‘This was the worst day in the history of the Iago Company and we were all devastated.  What can you say to a grieving woman with children at her skirts?  We lost a ship but the families lost loved ones which is much more important.’

MEMORIES OF THE LINCOLNSHIRE FISHING INDUSTRY by Bernard Bale
http://www.countrysidebooks.co.uk/book-catalogue-book-details.php?book=1830




John Vincent, the resident guide for the Grimsby Fishing Heritage Centre, recalls ‘I was eight when my father first took me on a trip.  It is a fishing family tradition that boys go out for a maiden trip at around that age. You are old enough to take in what is happening but there is little you can do to help. It is a kind of baptism thing with everything going on around you.   It was a great experience though and by the time I came back I knew where my future was going to be. I don't know what it was that was the greatest appeal. Perhaps it was a successful voyage, bringing home food for the nation and a pay packet for the family, maybe it was simply being out on the sea which is a world of its own, the camaraderie on board or just the fact that I wanted to be like my Dad. I don't know. I just knew that I was hooked from the start and I have never regretted it.’

Former deep sea fisherman Michael Sparkes of Grimsby recalls ‘Sailing home in bad weather our steel bobbins broke loose one morning and the mate sent me and another deckie, Norman, to secure them.  We saw a tremendous sea coming at us on the starboard side. I managed to duck beneath the ship's rail which meant it went over me with its full force. Poor Norman was washed over the winch by the wave, badly injuring his back. He later spent quite a while in hospital recovering after we arrived home and decided not to do deep water fishing off Iceland any more’.

There is a 20% discount on all books ordered through our website.
For a full list of our titles please visit www.countrysidebooks.co.uk