Broithe

A chap I worked with in England had been sent there as a child refugee during the Spanish Civil war and he made his life there. This included having an allotment next to the railway on the southern approaches to Stafford station. Over time, his allotment expanded over the fence and finally reached up the embankment to the trackside. I became aware that I also knew a chap completely separately who actually drove the weedkiller trains on the overnight spraying sessions and I asked him if he'd ever noticed this - "Oh yes, there's a pencilled note in the book, we're all careful to avoid spraying that bit"

Did you do the apostrophe module in Honours English at St Declan's CBS?

Michelin is just offices and a bit of retreading these days, and that's looking a little shady, but still sort of 'there', unlike most of the rest of Stoke's industries. One of "our lads" worked there from 1974-78, I think he left as soon as he got some paperwork - Ian Cowie, Scottish, so he might have ended up at Dundee, I suppose.

I did a Mechanical Engineering course at what was then North Staffs Poly. There was a tradition of trying to get the administration to record fake students. One of the lads had an older brother who had been there, so he knew about all this and was prepared. It was a 'sandwich course, so we all had "sponsors" as they called them, and this employment would be noted, as each lecturer took your details at the start. He mentioned that there was a lad who was not there at the time, which was fairly plausible and was asked if he knew much about him. He said that he thought his name was Eric Worthington and he worked for Bass in Burton. They spotted Worthington E as soon as they wrote it down, of course. But they didn't spot Dick Marsh, who was supposed to work from BREL in Derby, where another lad, who didn't turn up all the time, also did. Eventually, they got fed up of this Dick Marsh, who seemed to never turn up much and wrote to Derby to complain about him. A couple of weeks later, they got a reply from Sir Richard Marsh, Chairman of the British Rail Board, apologising and saying that he'd been a bit busy.

The Cortina could be as early as 1970, even with the yellow plate, but the Escort makes it 1975+. I can't make out the other car on the ramp. The "Express Parcels" logo may have first appeared around 1972, allegedly.

Bagnall's 'Isabel' was outside Stafford station for many years. Fully accessible and the scene for many heirloom photographs. Eventually, there was some deterioration to the point that things became a little 'difficult'. However, she was repaired, after a false start, and now runs again on the Amerton railway a few miles away. A couple of hundred yards away, in the play park, was a steam roller, with rather larger drops available from it.

Almost ashamed? Ten months is nothing. I have a kit upstairs that I started in 1977. I'm about 80% of the way there now...

The size of the market defines that production will be of a batch nature, so items will often be sold-out fairly quickly. @WRENNEIREis, amongst others, often a source of odd remainders from the past. Do you have any particular targets?

I understand a Bf 110 was claimed.

Ha, this reminded me of something that confused me for a while. The dreaded reports were issued, and one teacher very surprisingly described me as 'very interested and engaged' with his subject. For several weeks in the summer holidays, this intrigued me, as I very much doubt that I was - then I realised what he thought he was seeing. I went to ten schools and this was one where you moved room for every subject through the day - you were required to queue up outside the room and be let in. I always made a strong effort to be at or very near the front of the queue, and this was presumably what his assessment seems to have been based on, there was no other reason that I could see. I was at the front of the queue because I was keen to get a window seat.

The yellow should, obviously, also be a bit paler. I'll leave it on a windowsill, until it's more of a straw colour.

I found myself using this beermat last night. It performed its task adequately, but I was disappointed to see that it had a black chassis.

https://www.facebook.com/LaoisHeritageSociety/posts/pfbid05nJzbsfZWjAcUo2Di7g6T2ngTTSLvnmmqxNrHZiWrSQVyVSU21ss2hgGVVBo9ftvl

Many years ago, when I was still able to use the train to access the Holyhead ferry on the Big Island, I was returning and sat behind four railway staff, on their way to work in Chester. Their discussion was mostly around the location of redundant objects that could be 'released' into their possession for subsequent resale. One sign was going to be quite difficult to access, being above a tunnel portal, and there was some dispute about who was going to be the 'lucky' one to abseil down to it.

No mention of a bus replacement service.

There was also the Izhma Tu-154, dragged back out of the forest, patched up, flown out to be repaired properly and flown on for another decade.

Looks like they needed Capt Kallbach.

If they came expecting a 9V supply, then they will work happily wired up like that. The resistor would, ideally, need to be of a slightly different value, if they are intended for a 12V or 16V supply, but they should still work adequately off 9V with the supplied resistor, maybe just a little dimmer, which is not usually a problem.