How well I remember that day 

Digging it out

I came back from my milk round to the Horlicks Dairy depot in Old Street to find the workmen digging like mad.

The Land Yeo ran open through the yard except for the bridge to allow entry.

At long last the company had decided that it would be best if it were culverted. The first section to be done was to the upstream side of the yard.

The work crew dug too close, and lo and behold : --

The end wall of the goods room slid down the bank into the river. Found the negatives on the scanning session. I always carried a camera with me when I was working, I developed the film but never printed the negs. It is too difficult to black out the flat successfully. Have a whole series taken through the days the work was going on.. 

Found a negative of one of my godsons. Back in the early days of photography I used to use a light setup for portraits. Then I found that flash with an umbrella gave a good modelling light although I did not get a back light.
Over-run bulbs didn't last long while flash would go on with no problems.
I had a Mecablitz that normally used a small accumulator but also has a mains connection. Used to do a lot of baby pix with that and my old Pentax S3 and the f1.8 85mm Pentax lens. 
Ilford Panf  film and Beutler developer was a good combination.

Surprised myself 

The winter of 83 I think

Looking through another folder of around 600 negatives I came upon one of the snow in - I think - 1983. Could have been later but not a lot. It was so bad for a few days that I had to haul a bread crate up and down a couple of the side roads with an assortment of the milk wanted for delivery.

Marine Hill was not too bad because the bus ran along there and cleard it a bit. Copse Road, Seavale and Leagrove were the worst. Not a lot of through traffic to break it up. Couldn't do Chapel hill and had to go all the way round via Old Church Road and Elton Road to get to the Sixways. Forgot that I took these and it was a surprise to find them. 

Severn Valley visit 30 years ago.

Complication

Simplicity 

I can remember I got a lot of micky taking from John and Robin because I took a pic of a little diesel shunting loco cab interior.

I wanted to emphasize the easyness of driving a shunter like that and the number of controls on a steam loco.

Must have been at least 30 years ago - I wonder what the next stuff to turn up will be.

How Many More?

British Rail standard class loco 

Came upon a photo book with around 80 pix from Severn Valley and I expect some from West Somerset. I reckon I took them around 30 years ago, when I went up there with friends while I was on one of the week-offs from the milk round.

No good to leave them so I started scanning them into JPG's. I am keeping them in a separate folder until I finish doing it. Then I can post whichever on to Flickr and Morguefile with the correct tags.

My Epson 4870 is certainly earning its cost even if there is no financial return from them.

Thank goodness for the rain.

Nunney Castle with the Torbay Express

Never though I would welcome rain in the summer but at last there is steam allowed once more. No fire risk after the rain of the last week.

Raining occasionally this morning so I wore my Dryzabone to shelter the camera under it. Might as well get some use out of it even if I did get it secondhand on Ebay. Best £75 I ever spent I reckon. I must try to get a hood to snap onto it for the rugby season.

I was a bit more patient too and waited a little longer. 17 pix with the last 3 with only part of the loco on them. 

800 ISO and took at 1500 th at f3.5. Best shot I have taken so far using the rapid 12 x. 

Busy - -  Busy - - - Busy  

What a find 

Getting towards the end of the planning applications and found the plan submitted (660) for the original Picture House that was built. Later it was added to and turned into the present Curzon Cinema.

Uncle Cecil Lane was foreman carpenter on the crew that did the alteration.

Took a bit of cleaning up from the original scanned negative.

but I reckon it was worth the effort. There was an earlier application (618) that showed the building as being parrallel with Old Church Road not at right angles.