Hogan plus Vowles

Once upon a time the French built one of the most beautiful Trans-Atlantic Liners ever to sail the seas - the S/S "Normandie"- she was the fastest turbo-electric vessel ever constructed and achieved 32 knots. This magnificent ship competed with the Cunard Liners - the "Queen Mary" and "Queen Elizabeth" for the Blue Ribband in the late 1930s until the outbreak of World War II. These liners crossed the Atlantic to New York in under 5 days This ship was taken over by the US Government to be converted to a troop carrier in 1941 and the modifications were being undertaken in New York Harbour when a fire was ignited by accident. The New York Port Authority set about putting the fire out with every endeavour possible. They put the fire out but as the leading Firemen in discussion said: “Well, the fire went out”…. “Yeah but the ship sank”…. “I know that, but the fire went out!” What you may ask has this collapse of a vessel weighing over 79,000 tons and measuring ...

The following is a direct transcript from some 30 pages of memories written by Nan. The photograph is Grace Goode [Nan] taken in 1928 when she was 14 years of age. She's the girl on the left of the picture [the other girl is unknown] and they are both holding a hay rake: "Of course, there were the light nights of Haymaking time, when we all had our jobs. All and sundry were 'set on' to get the hay in when dry. I had a school friend, Winnie McDonagh. She was as fat as I was thin but we we were inseparable, use to put 'Cocker' in the little trap and off to the Fox Inn at Higham for a stone jar of ale, bring it back, Mam would put it into bottles, and then we would take it round to the haymakers. First Dad had to mow the fields, then the cut grass [Oh, you should have seen the wild flowers in it, daisies,buttercups,lady-smocks, cowslips,moon-daisies and little blue and pink periwinkles] had to be piled together for forking up to the carts. We had to take the spa...

"Of course, there were the light nights of haymaking time, when we all had our jobs. All and sundry were 'set on' to get the hay in when dry. I had a school friend, Winnie McDonagh. She was fat as I was thin but we we were inseparable, use to put 'Cocker' in the little trap and off to the Fox Inn at Higham for a stone jar of ale, bring it back, Mam would put it into bottles, and then we would take it round to the haymakers. First Dad had to mow the fields, then the cut grass [Oh, you should have seen the wild flowers in it, daisies,buttercups,lady-smocks, cowslips,moon-daisies and little blue and pink periwinkles] had to be piled together for forking up to the carts. We had to take the spare heavy horse down to help the one in the cart to pull up the incline. Then my favoutite job was the horse-rake, sitting on a metal seat above this contraption, rake on the ground, Gee-up, and gather any grass left behind, lift a lever and leave a neat row of grass, down, and r...

Don't you wonder what your children will do in life? I am sure that you do and, later, as Grand Parents, you again wonder what the Grandchildren will do with their lives. Of course we all hope that they will be happy above all else. You also get surprises, Tina and I never expected Velia to be a Nurse [yes! that's her in the Nurse's uniform aged 4!] but we are proud of her as is Al, her husband. We wonder what Grace and Jack will do - it looks right now as if Grace will do something in the Arts and Jack? Something like "Hockey Night in Canada", he has a devilish look and looks very smart in his Don Cherry shirt!

There is a new religion called "Global Warming" and I am a most assured Agnostic . G.K.Chesterton, the great English essayist said "A man who ceases to believe in God does not believe in nothing; he believes in anything. " The West certainly has abandoned belief in God, particularly in Europe, and so environmentalism, global warming, has taken over. It has all the trappings of a religion, Al Gore is the new self appointed Messiah and Kyoto the new Jerusalem. The latest acolyte is the Conservative Leader. Mr. Cameron [call me Dave] but the rush is lead by Guardian readers and others of that ilk. What really marks it as a religion is the gob smacking hypocrisy generated by the believers that hits the media every day! I have never been persuaded on this subject. It is not that I think that mankind has not changed the world, far from it, no land has been more changed [and some of it with great beauty] than England. However to state, affirm, and declare absolutely that ...

Tina was talking to Rachael recently on the telephone and the discussion focused on her studies at Lincoln University. [Our Granddaughter is doing an Arts Degree there in design etc.] She said that she was currently focusing on millinery or the design and manufacture of women's hats. By the way the derivation of the word "millinery" is from Milaner or a person from Milan - for long the center of world fashion before Paris. Tina has had interesting discussions with Rachael on design, crafts, and particularly knitting. The photo shows Rachael trying on an Aran coat knitted by Tina. The connection raised by Tina is the fact that Rachael's Great-great-great-grandmother, Fanny Wykes [born 1844] was a milliner ! Fanny Wykes married Thomas Moore, a shoemaker, and they had 14 children including Mabel Moore in 1884, who was Nan's Mum. Fanny made bonnets following discussions with a lady across the road. The lady had a small shop and wanted Fanny to help meet the demands f...