Love in a desolate spot
The week the king was dead and buried - part two
It's been cold, this last week. The day I took my mother out to the post office was the last clear day we've had. It was also the last day I posted anything. Could there be a connection? I put off lighting the fires for a while, but as the rain set in the Tabby cat started dropping hints that it was cold.
I had another quick look through the retro pile, and this caught my eye almost immediately.
I always thought that in-flight refueling was developed after the war to help the jet fighters stay aloft long enough to have a chance of intercepting angels at 15,000 feet, but here it is, in 1939, announced as a breakthrough for mail delivery to America to help deal with the increasing amount of letters and parcels. The flying boat which carried the mails across the Atlantic needed more fuel for the trip than it could take off with. The solution was for the flying boat to load up the mails and as much fuel as it could take off with, then rendezvous with a converted bomber for a top-up. The flying boat let out a line with a weight on the end, which the tanker grappled, (hopefully not with the propellers,) and attached a fuel line to. The flying boat then hauled in the line, connected it to the tanks and filled up, then departed for the big place over the other side of the pond. The aircraft illustrated, for the anoraks amongst you, are an Imperial Airways C class flying boat, and a converted Handley Page Harrow bomber.
And the location is, I am fairly certain, the Solent, although I am wondering if it might not be Poole Harbour.
Three years and six months earlier, the Empire was in shock following the (not unexpected) death of the reigning monarch. The papers, not surprisingly, were full of it. It even managed to affect the football. 13 pages in, and we read that:
"Following hours of dilemma in sporting circles, uncertainty was set at rest last night by the Football Association's announcement that all matches in the FA Cup, fourth round, will be played on Saturday as arranged."
The problem, it seems, was that if it were to be left to the clubs themselves to decide whether to play or not, there was no guidance to say what should happen if one of the two teams set to play decided that they would rather honour the dead monarch. Should the other team gain a victory by default? Should the team deciding to cancel their appearance to show respect for the King be given points? Play on, they said, and to hell with the icebergs.
I have been scanning the papers from that week looking for anything that didn't directly involve the dead monarch, which in the Daily Mirror, January 22nd, one day after the death of the king, amounted to about 5% of the paper, not counting the adverts.
WOMEN DEFY WOLVES
British Drivers' Risks in Great Car Rally.
A report on the Monte Carlo Rally, due to start that day, mentions that previous contestant have had to contend with huge wolves lying in wait for cars at the Dragomans Pass and chasing them out of the forests on to the plains. (Who said eco-warriors were new?)
Lining up to take on the vulpine, and other challenges, were Miss Joan Richmond (Triumph), Miss M. Anderson (Riley), Miss J. Astbury (Singer), and Mrs, A. Gordon Holmes (Standard).
Of the 105 entries, Great Britain ranked first with thirty-three, and it was stated as also significant that of the twenty-two cars in the small-car class (under 1,500 c.c.) fourteen were of British make. We used to make cars, you know.
And so to the final story that caught my eye, this time with no connection at all to the main events of that week, apart from death. As last time, I have blanked out certain of the names.
TRAGIC ROMANCE IN A MENTAL HOME
Lovers Who Escaped Found Dead on Hillside
A secret romance between two inmates of a mental home, which ended in their flight for freedom and their death will be revealed at a Bodmin inquest tomorrow.
Seven months ago, -------- --------- of St. Blazey, Cornwall, and -------------- ------------ of Lanivet, Cornwall, decided to escape from Bodmin Mental Hospital. They had met in the institution. Friends believed that they fell in love.
Last July they disappeared, and the authorities guessed they had run away together in the hope of finding happiness. Nothing more was heard of them until this week.
Then Mr. Albert Truan, a beater, was out with a shoot at Lanhydrock, the seat of Viscount Clifden, near Bodmin. Hidden beneath a bush on the hillside he discovered the bodies of a man and woman. From scraps of clothing and personal articles the remains were identified today as those of the runaway lovers.
Warders at the mental home were able to tell the Bodmin coroner's office that --------- and ----------- had formed a deep attachment in the home. At every social gathering they were together, and at dances they were always partnered.
The Sopwith Camel is fascinated by death in lonely spots, Mallory and Irvine on Everest,somewhere on the upper slopes slowly bleaching in the sun and the wind, Maurice Wilson lower down refusing to stay buried despite two attempts several years apart to hide his bones from the light of day, Boardman and Tasker many years later repeating Mallory and Irvine's disappearance even to the detail of one body of the pair being subsequently discovered but the other remaining steadfastly lost; and now these two, who preferred a short spell of exposure in the open air to a lingering confinement in the bricks and rules of an institution.
I think that this world needs more people who are prepared to try and live outside the boxes that the bureaucrats would have us live in. Unfortunately, the price of freedom is nearly always death. Or ridicule. Or not having an internet connection.
It's been cold, this last week. The day I took my mother out to the post office was the last clear day we've had. It was also the last day I posted anything. Could there be a connection? I put off lighting the fires for a while, but as the rain set in the Tabby cat started dropping hints that it was cold.
I had another quick look through the retro pile, and this caught my eye almost immediately.
I always thought that in-flight refueling was developed after the war to help the jet fighters stay aloft long enough to have a chance of intercepting angels at 15,000 feet, but here it is, in 1939, announced as a breakthrough for mail delivery to America to help deal with the increasing amount of letters and parcels. The flying boat which carried the mails across the Atlantic needed more fuel for the trip than it could take off with. The solution was for the flying boat to load up the mails and as much fuel as it could take off with, then rendezvous with a converted bomber for a top-up. The flying boat let out a line with a weight on the end, which the tanker grappled, (hopefully not with the propellers,) and attached a fuel line to. The flying boat then hauled in the line, connected it to the tanks and filled up, then departed for the big place over the other side of the pond. The aircraft illustrated, for the anoraks amongst you, are an Imperial Airways C class flying boat, and a converted Handley Page Harrow bomber.
And the location is, I am fairly certain, the Solent, although I am wondering if it might not be Poole Harbour.
Three years and six months earlier, the Empire was in shock following the (not unexpected) death of the reigning monarch. The papers, not surprisingly, were full of it. It even managed to affect the football. 13 pages in, and we read that:
"Following hours of dilemma in sporting circles, uncertainty was set at rest last night by the Football Association's announcement that all matches in the FA Cup, fourth round, will be played on Saturday as arranged."
The problem, it seems, was that if it were to be left to the clubs themselves to decide whether to play or not, there was no guidance to say what should happen if one of the two teams set to play decided that they would rather honour the dead monarch. Should the other team gain a victory by default? Should the team deciding to cancel their appearance to show respect for the King be given points? Play on, they said, and to hell with the icebergs.
I have been scanning the papers from that week looking for anything that didn't directly involve the dead monarch, which in the Daily Mirror, January 22nd, one day after the death of the king, amounted to about 5% of the paper, not counting the adverts.
WOMEN DEFY WOLVES
British Drivers' Risks in Great Car Rally.
A report on the Monte Carlo Rally, due to start that day, mentions that previous contestant have had to contend with huge wolves lying in wait for cars at the Dragomans Pass and chasing them out of the forests on to the plains. (Who said eco-warriors were new?)
Lining up to take on the vulpine, and other challenges, were Miss Joan Richmond (Triumph), Miss M. Anderson (Riley), Miss J. Astbury (Singer), and Mrs, A. Gordon Holmes (Standard).
Of the 105 entries, Great Britain ranked first with thirty-three, and it was stated as also significant that of the twenty-two cars in the small-car class (under 1,500 c.c.) fourteen were of British make. We used to make cars, you know.
And so to the final story that caught my eye, this time with no connection at all to the main events of that week, apart from death. As last time, I have blanked out certain of the names.
TRAGIC ROMANCE IN A MENTAL HOME
Lovers Who Escaped Found Dead on Hillside
A secret romance between two inmates of a mental home, which ended in their flight for freedom and their death will be revealed at a Bodmin inquest tomorrow.
Seven months ago, -------- --------- of St. Blazey, Cornwall, and -------------- ------------ of Lanivet, Cornwall, decided to escape from Bodmin Mental Hospital. They had met in the institution. Friends believed that they fell in love.
Last July they disappeared, and the authorities guessed they had run away together in the hope of finding happiness. Nothing more was heard of them until this week.
Then Mr. Albert Truan, a beater, was out with a shoot at Lanhydrock, the seat of Viscount Clifden, near Bodmin. Hidden beneath a bush on the hillside he discovered the bodies of a man and woman. From scraps of clothing and personal articles the remains were identified today as those of the runaway lovers.
Warders at the mental home were able to tell the Bodmin coroner's office that --------- and ----------- had formed a deep attachment in the home. At every social gathering they were together, and at dances they were always partnered.
The Sopwith Camel is fascinated by death in lonely spots, Mallory and Irvine on Everest,somewhere on the upper slopes slowly bleaching in the sun and the wind, Maurice Wilson lower down refusing to stay buried despite two attempts several years apart to hide his bones from the light of day, Boardman and Tasker many years later repeating Mallory and Irvine's disappearance even to the detail of one body of the pair being subsequently discovered but the other remaining steadfastly lost; and now these two, who preferred a short spell of exposure in the open air to a lingering confinement in the bricks and rules of an institution.
I think that this world needs more people who are prepared to try and live outside the boxes that the bureaucrats would have us live in. Unfortunately, the price of freedom is nearly always death. Or ridicule. Or not having an internet connection.
posted by Sopwith-Camel | 11:00 pm
2 Comments:
Keep on posting the retro stories, they're marvellous.
Sometimes I feel it would be great to live outside the boxes, but well... I spent the last summer without the internet and most probably won't try that kind of extreme self-torture anymore.
I was following your house adventure while you were blogging it with great interest. Sometimes I would like to get an old house somewhere up on the edge of Lapland and tell the world where it can get off, which would be at least 50 miles away from my front door.
You can sometimes get a satellite internet connection, the download comes through the satellite link, the upload goes through a normal phone line. Have you tried getting that for your other house?
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