[BITList] york

Sat Mar 26 04:51:33 GMT 2011

frank
hey – that’s really interesting; my #1 son was born in portsmouth. I was attending a long course at HMS Sultan at the time and renting a very nice house in a very nice part of lee-on-solent. I can view the house easily via google earth [isn’t that thing truly fascinating.?]
moving to hull certainly was going from the frying pan into the fire – much of the place was flattened during the war. my dads sister lived there – I remember going as a lad and being quite taken by the silent trolley buses which I had never seen before!
now I see how you got to view the sights of york via hull. 
in those days you could climb up to the top of the minster – I have a number of photos I took from up there. did you make it to the top? the main tower is now closed to visitors.
I used to be a train spotter too – maybe we were in york station at the same time – sunday afternoon was favourite. I used to know the times when the expresses came thro the station also from the train number one could tell where there home base was. in fact I had a friend whose dad was the manager of the loco sheds near the station. we would go in there at the week end when it was quiet – the place was ancient with all the machine tools driven by belts from and very long overhead shaft system driven by one very big electric motor using fast and loose pulleys to start and stop the lathe, drilling, machine, saw, etc. Not only was it ancient but it was black with grime and soot from the locos, it hadn’t been cleaned for perhaps 100 years!
there were 2 engine turntables in the sheds where the locos were turned and moved into the 8 or so repair docks.
many, many years later when I went to york on vacation I saw the national railway museum had been moved to york. to my absolute surprise I discovered that the filthy ancient loco sheds had been completely overhauled and were now a pristine national railway museum complete with the 2 original turntables [all the machinery and drive shafting, etc. had been dismantled and removed.] 
how it went from black sooty grime to clean white I don’t have much idea. the only way I could see to do it was vacuum cleaners then weeks of sand blasting – would have cost millions.
here’s a photo of york minster for your scrap book – all photos of the minster are taken looking at the front or side from street level – this is the best vantage point in all york and you’ll never guess where the photo was taken from.
Behind a rack of ladies dresses on the top floor of marks and spencers in parliament street, york – this is the view from the window....................................the striped canvas tops of market stalls can be seen bottom right.

some american friends of mine were visiting UK some time ago, they asked my where they should visit. of course I recommended my home town – York.  The first thing they said to me when they returned here after they visited York and the UK was, “what the hell are you doing here?........................................................nuff said.
incidentally,some time ago the local york newspaper produced a special  edition showing the bombing of the center of york and the station during WW2- I had no idea how badly the station was damaged, it was almost destroyed. 
a bomb landed in the back garden of the house across the street from us, luckily it didn’t explode. I recall the army bomb disposal squad went digging [by hand] for weeks on end to find and dispose of it. they gave up in the end – so the bomb remains there still.
colin t

PS   this wasn’t done on my apple!

From: franka 
Sent: Friday, March 25, 2011 8:54 PM
To: BitList 
Subject: Re: [BITList] YouTube - basement.mp4

Colin,
I was born in Portsmouth my father was a submariner and Mother was the district midwife in Gosport which kept us next to HMS Dolphin the sub base, after my father went MIA in the submarine HMS Orpheus and I came back from being an evacuee in Cornwall we moved to what was supposed to be a little fishing village on the north east coast Hull (some village)  to get out of the bombing, out of the frying pan into the fire as only one house in ten was left standing at the end of the war, anyway it was while living in Hull that we made trips up to York to see the Railway museum,the Minster and other sights, I used to be a train spotter in those days, after finishing school we returned to Portsmouth and I started my apprenticeship in the Dockyard to be followed by BI and the rest as they say is history
your picture bought back memory's
frank

On 3/26/2011 2:14 AM, COLIN TAYLOR wrote: 
you are right, frank
i grew up in york and going to the york museum was one of the highlights of the school year- fabulous collection of stuff.
the museum was founded upon a collection of artifacts from a local doctor  -- dr. kirk - in fact the place was known as the kirk museum.
i don't know who decided to make real streets in the museum - but they are wonderful. 
one of the first views of the street when entering the museum, is from an upstairs window, looking down from one of the beautifully furnished period rooms - quite outstanding. 
my sister-in-laws brother was one of the curators before he retired. 
as you live on the other side of the world - when and why did you go?

another regular york event was my school taking us to concerts by the Halle [sir john babarolli] , LSO [sir thomas beecham - young persons guide to the orchestra, etc], etc. at a local cinema owned by the dad of john barrie - the composer of james bond themes and other hollywood music.
his family name was named prendergast, his dad owned  2 or 3 cinemas in the area. at xmas time his dad had a free saturday morning matinee for school kids and gave each kid a new shilling.
the Rialto was one of their cinemas; they had a huge wonderful electric organ with iights which changed colour; it arose from the cellar during the interludes with a real live organist, bloody impressive! 
there i saw the ted heath band [lita rossa, south african singer dennis lotis, the great don lusher, trombone, etc], humphrey littleton, eric "boom boom' delaney, lonnie donegan, paul anka, frank sinatra [only joking - i saw him in new orleans]. great times. 
i took my girl friend there every friday evening!

i must apologies for the poor presentation of this email.
i am using my apple computer - which is about the most un-intuitive [is that a word] system and time consuming anyone could possibly devize  - if you want to actually do stuff - as opposed to play.
Halk
f the videos i get it won't play, it delets backwards, there is no delete - onlt send to trash!...............
i am using it, but haven't yet succumbed to what the attraction is. so far it has  escaped me..........anothe rfew years.................
perhaps is is because i have not partaken of the apple juice mystique!
colin t
mistakes c/o apple.

On Mar 25, 2011, at 9:31 AM, franka wrote:

Reminds me of the street inside the York Museum

frank

_______________________________________________
To unsubscribe from this email List, send an email to:
BITList-unsubscribe at lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com

BITList mailing list
BITList at lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com
http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/mailman/listinfo/bitlist

COLIN TAYLOR
x50type at cox.net

_______________________________________________
To unsubscribe from this email List, send an email to:
BITList-unsubscribe at lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com

BITList mailing list
BITList at lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com
http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/mailman/listinfo/bitlist

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
To unsubscribe from this email List, send an email to:
BITList-unsubscribe at lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com

BITList mailing list
BITList at lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com
http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/mailman/listinfo/bitlist

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20110325/8483df2d/attachment-0001.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 78563 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.bcn.mythic-beasts.com/pipermail/bitlist/attachments/20110325/8483df2d/attachment-0001.jpe 