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NOVEMBER 2008 NEWSLETTER

PLEASE DO NOT FORGET THE 19th NOVEMBER AS MOST OF BIRMINGHAM DOES EVER YEAR.


BSA MEMORIAL WEBSITE

OCTOBER NEWSLETTER 2008

Sorry this newsletter is a little late but I am very busy at the moment. The website and forum are down at the moment thanks to the incompetence of the hosting company STREAMLINE. I have been trying to change back to MS Front Page to edit the site but apart from taking my money for the change I have had little success and their latest answer seems to have involved them making the site unavailable. If anyone can recommend a decent website host please let me know as I am definitely not staying with Streamline.

Below are some links to pertinent news websites of interest to us.

First MG’s from Longbridge go on sale

The New Longbridge

Nechells Oral History Proiject


Railways are in the news this week and it kicked off with a Pete Waterman documentary telling us that Beeching may not have as been as bad as we thought. BBC Birmingham got in on the act too running a week long feature within the main news on the effect of the Beeching cuts on Birmingham and the surrounding area. I was asked to provide some information which I did in the form of my old station master Les Hollins of Streetley, who was interviewed.

www.madeinbirmingham.org/wamley.htm

Les was in charge of Penns for Walmley until Beeching, with his crooked survey, decreed that the station should close. Les lost his job along with 1000s of other railway workers. There have been plans discussed for the last 20 years to reopen Penns Station but so far there has been no progress.


Rather nice short video of Coalport Station

New Street Station Re-vamp

Moor Street Memories


While searching on the web I found this letter that I had completely forgotten about, I wrote it in 1999!

-----------------

Marples was a director of Marples Ridgway a road building co. that built the Chiswick flyover.
Because of the advent of cheap motor cars (The Mini) a social revolution took place that many people choose to ignore when debating this subject. What ever happened to the British Motorcycle industry, the mini ruined it not the Japanese? They did help of course.
Macmillan and co saw the railway as a Victorian antiquity, a form of transport left over from a time gone by. The attitude towards the railway at that time was remarkably different from today, it is wrong to look at the railway then with the eyes of today. Today the railway is seen as the way forward in reducing gridlock on the roads. Then the railway was a leftover, with quaint steam transport, unprofitable and uneconomical. Even the rail unions didn’t fight the Beeching cuts.
England and Wales had been over ‘railwayised’ from the start and still today it has the densest network in the world. Railway mania saw railways built that never made a penny from conception to closure. Note that of all the railways that were taken over by preservation schemes after closure, not one of them has operated a successful public transport service, they only exist for novelty entertainment and nostalgia.
From the social point of view many many of the Beeching closures were wrong. Again social values were different in those days. Remember we are talking of the days when a union could bring the country to a standstill. People, equality and rights were also different in those days.
I believe the major mistake of the Beeching plan was that it allowed removal of the infrastructure. It is interesting to note that were BR did re-establish services it was only on lines were the infrastructure was intact.
There is nothing to stop railways being built again.
Public transport will never entirely replace the private car and what a god forsaken world it would be if it did.
What is needed is good government management of private transport.
Even if it was free there is never going to be a mass move towards public transport.
Rail privatisation is the best step ever towards making the railways successful and encouraging investment but you are only going to see that on long distance peak lines and dense commuter networks. Money talks and we live in a world dictated by MONEY that’s why railways were built in this country in the first place.
In case you are wondering I am a life long railway enthusiast and REALIST.
Regards JP
15th November 1999


WEBSITES OF INTEREST

South Wales Valleys

Llandrindod Wells Victorian Festival

William Powell Gunmakers


BIRMINGHAM LORD MAYORS

Birmingham has had a Mayor (and elected council) since 1838. One of the most famous was Joseph Chamberlain
(1873-76) who brought water from the Elan Valley and redeveloped the town centre. In 1889, along with city status, Birmingham had its first Lord Mayor.

Each Lord Mayor stands for a year, and is installed into office at the Annual Meeting of the City Council, Lord Mayors are non-political and non-executive during their term of office and act as Chair of the Council. As the First Citizen of Birmingham, the Lord Mayors represents not only the City but also the people of Birmingham.

The Parlour
The Parlour staff support the Lord Mayor by managing the Civic Diary and assisting the First Citizen to reach all sectors of the community. The Parlour also co-ordinates major annual events such as Remembrance Day and Civic Receptions to regional, national and international visitors.Support is also given to organising many charity fund raising events.

Courtesy Birmingham Council website


HALLOWEEN, What is it all about really?

History
Halloween has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain (Irish pronunciation: [ˈsˠaunʲ]; from the Old Irish samain).[1] The festival of Samhain is a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture, and is sometimes [2] regarded as the "Celtic New Year".[3] Traditionally, the festival was a time used by the ancient pagans to take stock of supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores. The ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, now known as Halloween, the boundary between the alive and the deceased dissolved, and the dead become dangerous for the living by causing problems such as sickness or damaged crops. The festivals would frequently involve bonfires, into which bones of slaughtered livestock were thrown. Costumes and masks were also worn at the festivals in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or placate them.[4][5]
History of name
The term Halloween is shortened from All Hallows' Even (both "even" and "eve" are abbreviations of "evening", but "Halloween" gets its "n" from "even") as it is the eve of "All Hallows' Day",[6] which is now also known as All Saints' Day. It was a day of religious festivities in various northern European Pagan traditions,[3] until Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV moved the old Christian feast of All Saints' Day from May 13 (which had itself been the date of a pagan holiday, the Feast of the Lemures) to November 1. In the ninth century, the Church measured the day as starting at sunset, in accordance with the Florentine calendar. Although All Saints' Day is now considered to occur one day after Halloween, the two holidays were, at that time, celebrated on the same day. Liturgically, the Church traditionally celebrated that day as the Vigil of All Saints, and, until 1970, a day of fasting as well. Like other vigils, it was celebrated on the previous day if it fell on a Sunday, although secular celebrations of the holiday remained on the 31st. The Vigil was suppressed in 1955, but was later restored in the post-Vatican II calendar.
Symbols
The carved pumpkin, lit by a candle inside, is one of Halloween's most prominent symbols in America, and is commonly called a jack-o'-lantern. Originating in Europe, these lanterns were first carved from a turnip or rutabaga. Believing that the head was the most powerful part of the body containing the spirit and the knowledge, the Celts used the "head" of the vegetable to frighten off any superstitions.[7] The name jack-o'-lantern can be traced back to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack, [8] a greedy, gambling, hard-drinking old farmer. He tricked the devil into climbing a tree and trapped him by carving a cross into the tree trunk. In revenge, the devil placed a curse on Jack, condemning him to forever wander the earth at night with the only light he had: a candle inside of a hollowed turnip. The carving of pumpkins is associated with Halloween in North America,[9] where pumpkins were readily available and much larger, making them easier to carve than turnips. Many families that celebrate Halloween carve a pumpkin into a frightening or comical face and place it on their home's doorstep after dark. In America the tradition of carving pumpkins is known to have preceded the Great Famine period of Irish immigration. The carved pumpkin was originally associated with harvest time in general in America and did not become specifically associated with Halloween until the mid-to-late 19th century.
The imagery surrounding Halloween is largely an amalgamation of the Halloween season itself, nearly a century of work from American filmmakers and graphic artists,[10] and a rather commercialized take on the dark and mysterious. Halloween imagery tends to involve death, magic, or mythical monsters. Traditional characters include ghosts, ghouls, witches, owls, crows, vultures, pumpkin-men, black cats, spiders, goblins, zombies, mummies, skeletons, and demons.[11]
Particularly in America, symbolism is inspired by classic horror films, which contain fictional figures like Frankenstein's monster and The Mummy. Elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins and scarecrows, are also prevalent. Homes are often decorated with these types of symbols around Halloween.


BEST WISHES TO YOU ALL


JP