When I saw the theme was greyish I immediately thought of battleship grey.
HMS Illustrious - 1940 Aircraft Carrier
This photo comes from my brother's photos taken during WWII. He served on the Illustrious in the Mediterranean and may have been aboard when Swordfish aircraft from the carrier attacked the Italian fleet at Taranto.
Swordfish (I think)
Seaplanes also flew off carriers but this one seems to have lost its way.
Grounded - Supermarine Walrus
To add a bit of colour to our greyish theme I'll change to grey and green,
13th Century Parish Church, St Mawgan, Cornwall
Dedicated to St Mauganus and St Nicholas
St Mauganus was a Welshman so I'm told.
In North Yorkshire the best preserved ruins of a Cistercian monastery are those of Fountains Abbey.
Fountains Abbey, North Yorkshire
I have nearly 40 photos of the Abbey but for this greyish theme you will have to be satisfied with one.
30 years later on the 18th October 1988 the Post Office
released four new high value stamps featuring the same castle. These are the ones I have in my collection or so I thought.
Castle Stamps
The castles came four different regions of Great Britain ; Carrickfergus (Northern Ireland), Caernarfon (Wales), Edinburgh
(Scotland) and Windsor (England). The 1988 stamps had been based on photographs taken by Prince Andrew, Duke of York and were engraved and printed by Harrison and Sons Limited
Four years later in 1992 the set was re-released with enhanced
security features. The original Queen's head
was changed to a silhouette and an elliptical
perforation was added half way up the sides of the stamp.If you look at my stamps you can see both the silhouette and the elliptical perforation
By 1995 inflation had taken its toll and the £1 Carrickfergus Castle
design was replaced by a £1 stamp of the standard low-value Machin
design. The Carrickfergus
Castle was re-released as
a £3 high value in 22nd August 1995. My stamps include both the £1 and £3 denominations
In 1997, the contract for printing the stamps was
moved to Enschedé. Enschedé had to re-engrave each design. Although the general
appearance of the stamp barely changed, the individual engraving marks were
completely different,
Apparently you can distinguish between the two printers by examining the letters 'C' and 'S' in the word 'Castle' where there are differences in the lower point of the 'C' and the lower tail of the 'S'. This is difficult to see on my scanned images. The £1 Carrickfergus must be pre-1995 and be by Harrison and Sons.
There is no doubt about the Windsor Castle stamp being by Enschedé because their design has the 'W' looking as if it comprises overlapping 'V's.
The sad thing to me is that these lovely castle stamps were discontinued and replaced in 1999 by small format Machins just showing the Queen's head.
As you may gather participating in Sunday Stamps this week has taught me things I didn't know about my stamps. Now you may check out others choices at Viridian's Sunday Stamps-59
I have never understood all the fuss about shoes (our theme for this
week); they say you should put your best foot forward so I guess its a
case of:
Yarm shop
This led to a bout of window shopping for shoes (female of course).
Buckles & Bows, Yarm
And the appropriately named -
The Shoe Box,Yarm
This shop is in a narrow wynd; its other window looks like this -
The Show Box window
The dress shop round the corner on the High Street sells shoes as well.
Shoe Stripes
These looked decidedly elegant compared with a shop in Stockton which was as empty as it looked.
Shoe Zone, Stockton
Not at all attracted to this I decided to look back in history and rejoiced in finding this 'gallant.'
Pepys & Lady Batten
By James Digman Winfield - 1861
The Diary of Samuel Pepys for Wednesday 15 November 1665 reads in part: "Up and all the morning at the
office, busy, and at noon to the King’s Head taverne, where all the Trinity
House dined to-day, to choose a new Master in the room of Hurlestone, that is
dead, and Captain Crispe is chosen. But, Lord! to see how Sir W. Batten governs
all and tramples upon Hurlestone, but I am confident the Company will grow the
worse for that man’s death, for now Batten, and in him a lazy, corrupt, doating
rogue, will have all the sway there. After dinner who comes in but my Lady
Batten, and a troop of a dozen women almost, and expected, as I found
afterward, to be made mighty much of, but nobody minded them; but the best jest
was, that when they saw themselves not regarded, they would go away, and it was
horrible foule weather; and my Lady Batten walking through the dirty lane with
new spicke and span white shoes, she dropped one of her galoshes in the dirt,
where it stuck, and she forced to go home without one, at which she was
horribly vexed, and I led her; and after vexing her a little more in mirth, I
parted..."
In Edwardian times there were other delights:
High Heels 1910-1917
By Jean Agelou (1878-1921) - source www.edwardian-delights.com
I'd better stop at this point before I develop a high (heeled) fetish and return to what I posted recently under Pairs.
Spare pair of shoes up street lamp in Norwich, Norfolk
(by Keith Evans -- CC A-SA 2.0 license)
But my favourite shoes will always be these that you've seen before.
Sam worn out by gardening
OK they may be boots but
So perhaps you should walk right over to Sepia Saturday 114 and choose some more shoes.
No film stars for me this week. I had to visit a local market stall to find the subject for this week.
There's no doubt that it's a man, but who?
Newcastle man
He's still unknown but the back of the CdV helps a bit.
Photo Art Studios
I've managed to track down a member of the Royal Photographic Society, one Edward Lyddell Sawyer (1856/1927). He was living in Newcastle in the 1880s/1900s and more importantly was the son of Henry Sawyer (1830/1896) who was described as 'Portrait Painter & Photographer.'
I have been less succesfull with my next man on a cabinet card.
Photographer - P Crane & Co, Swiss Art Studio, Bishop Auckland
Again I have been unable to name the man in the chair; the card has seen better days but I was pleased to see something of a match between the table legs and those on Alan's chair.
To find out who has memories of film follow the finger pointing you to Sepia Saturday 113
In May 1940 the bridges over the River Maas at Rotterdam were the scene of fierce WWII battles between Dutch and German troops. The bridges appear on my Weenenk & Snel postcards from the early 1900s.
Bridges over the River Maas
I also located another photo of the bridges from between 1890 and 1905.
Bridges over the River Meuse (French) - River Maas (Dutch)
(US Library of CongressPrints & Photographs Division, Photochrom Prints Collection)
In 1829, aged 30, Aleaxander Pushkin fell in love with a 16 year old girl named Natalya. They married two years later.
Pushkin was the famous author of Eugene Onegin in which there is a clear depiction of Natalya as 'Tatyana.' According to gossip Natalya was having an affair with a dashing Frenchman, Baron Georges d'Anthès whom the Pushkins had met in 1834. D'Anthès was to marry Natalya's sister.
In 1836 Pushkin received a poison pen letter electing him to 'The Serene Order of Cuckolds.' Whether or not the charge was baseless, Pushkin decided to play out the script of Eugene Onegin where the hero is provoked into a duel over Tatyana.
The monument on Pushkin's duel place, Saint-Petersburg
Photo by Vladimir Ivanov
The duel between Pushkin and d'Anthès took place on 27 January 1837. D'Anthès fired and wounded Puskin; Pushkin merely winged his opponent. Pushkin was fatally hurt and died eventually on this day in 1837.
Notes:
The Times records Pushkin's death on 10 February 1837 in its 'On This Day' column of The Register.
Love, Sex, Death & Words, surprising tales from a year in literature - 10 February- 'The king of cuckolds dies.' Authors John Sutherland & Stephen Fender. Icon Books
With the advent of supermarkets and out of town shopping centres grocers' shops have disappeared from many villages and towns in the UK. So to remind you of how it used to be I'm posting this shop from Australia.
Date c. 1910
John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland
Interior of
Dalton Brothers Grocery Shop in Ipswich, ca. 1910 Grocers and provision
merchants situated on Nicholas
Street.
Well-stocked shop with seating available for shoppers while their orders are
being made up. Household goods such as teapots and cooking utensils as well as
consumables.
The nearest I could get was a greengrocer's that I have shown before when the theme was vegetables.
Yarm greengrocer's shop
As I refuse to photograph a supermarket I have had to settle for a collection of groceries in our kitchen.
This led to a discussion about just what are classed as groceries. I decided to ignore items like toilet rolls, cleaning fluids, soap - the list is endless and just rearrange the above display with a few new items added.
