Religion, Altruism etc

I woke up late this morning and, as I lay in bed enjoying my first coffee, the radio started broadcasting the Sunday Service. If I’m still listening at this point I normally switch off. This morning I was a bit slow to move so I caught the vicar’s opening words which, unusually, resonated with me.
She said “God wants us to bless the communities in which we live and work”.
I switched off part way through “Bread of Heaven”.
Nothing Earth shattering about what the vicar said, but it got me thinking. As it happened, I was thinking about the oak trees that I’ve planted over the years at the time. That is a way of blessing the community that I live in. Of course, I derive some personal pleasure from it. The trees I planted 30 years ago are now grown up and, with the help of the Jays, spreading their acorns each autumn to begin more trees. I love to see this, and I love to check on the younger trees and imagine the beautiful woodland that they will form.
They will provide homes for countless creatures and spiritual uplift for people who walk amongst them. They will also sequester carbon from the atmosphere, much needed on our overheating planet and, perhaps, eventually, provide timber for a future generation of wooden boatbuilders.

Of course, I won’t see most of this. The best I can hope for is to view the adolescent oaks in 30 years time from my wheelchair. This is my way of blessing the community where I live and work.
A few days ago one of my friends posted on Facebook “What’s the point”? A more complicated question than it appears. The ruling idea in Western culture is that the only point is personal gratification. Liberals have an idea of enlightened self interest, where pusuing your own personal gratification has the happy spin off of benefitting others. Sometimes it does, but, often, the pure pursuit of personal gratification really benefits no-one, including oneself. I think of the Simon & Garfunkel song “Richard Cory” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euuCiSY0qYs
Interestingly, when the self interest of a political leader, normally backed by that of the owners of the military industrial complex of whatever nation or political bloc, require us to go to war, then the self interest of ordinary people is thrown out of the window. Young men (and women nowadays) have to sacrifice themselves for the ‘greater good’ and their parents, spouses and lovers have to grin and bear their losses whilst working all hours to keep the production lines running to supply more military hardware.
So, where does religion come into this. As a child I rejected the Christianity that I was born into because, despite including the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” it’s leaders clearly condoned warfare. It was also, in my mind, associated with a hypocritical establishment and seemed to be offering a promise of everlasting life that was a claim that could not be substantiated.

re hypocrisy- Malcolm Muggeridge, for all his holier than thou ness was a serial philanderer, Bishop Mervyn Stockwood was a closet gay.
Despite this, I’ve always had a sense of there being something more than the here and now. The idea that we are more than mere mechanical creatures and contain a spirit that lives on when our bodies die. That does not necessarily mean that our consciousness lives on.
In trying to understand this I’ve worked my way through paganism and pantheism, finally (perhaps) arriving at Panentheism. This is the idea that there is a deity that is within every atom of the cosmos, including each of us, and beyond. That includes before the big bang and after whatever finally happens to the universe. It is what I call The Great Spirit, but others may call God, Allah, Rama or whatever. I have a spirit, you have a spirit, everyone has a spirit. They are sparks that have come from the great spirit and will ultimately return to it, only to be sparked off it again to inhabit another being.
We can choose to grow our spirits by living in a way that brings joy and growth to others, or we can choose to diminish our spirits by living selfishly, concerned only with our own short term gratification. If you’re looking for enlightened self interest it lies in the true joy that this brings, so much greater than the brief enjoyment of owning things or experiencing physical sensations.

My way of communing (for want of a better word, the English language is reaching its limits here) with the Great Spirit is through the Latihan, a spiritual exercise organised by an organisation called Subud. Each Latihan is a unique 30 minute session of a spiritual experience that I cannot describe, words fail me. While I call myself a Panentheist, others, beside me in the Latihan, may call themselves Muslim, Jew, Christian, Buddhist etc etc. It really doesn’t matter.
It’s a great shame that so few people know (or care?) about this.



A Cat, A Rat and A Boat

I decided to cycle over to the Heritage Boatyard today. There are a lot of cats that occupy the boatyard. They're not feral, they all have homes to go to and servants to look after them. They just like to hang out in the boatyard. I don't mind as they help to keep the vermin at bay, and they seem to have learned not to crap all over the walkways.

I opened the door to the boatyard to be met by one of them retching among my potato plants. In front of the engineering container I found a clue as to what had upset pussy's stomach.

This particular ex rodent was pretty much undamaged, except for being dead, but I suspect my feline friend had consumed one of its relatives. They must have been brave rats, or just infected with the Toxoplasma gondii parasite. This nasty little organism lodges in the animal's brain and makes it seek out rather than avoid it's predator.

After disposing of the corpse I wandered over to the canal side. I noticed that the water was moving, indicating that the locks were in use. Sure enough, after about 15 minutes a boat appeared heading towards Ashton.

It was called "Goliath" and was the first boat I'd seen moving since the lockdown. The steerer said he was going to Yorkshire via the Rochdale as Standedge tunnel is still closed due to social distancing difficlties. I wished him luck.


The Lickey Bank


Another day out in the car with Merv in 1962. We went to Bromsgrove to see the Lickey Bank. This is the steepest incline on any British mainline railway at 1 in 37. Originally trains were hauled up it by ropes attached to a stationary engine at the top. Later, banking engines were employed, including for many years a massive engine nicknamed "Big Bertha".

By the time of our visit some of the expresses had been taken over by the "Peak" class diesel locos, though many were still hauled by Jubilee class steam engines. The first picture shows Peak number D105 heading South out of Bromsgrove. On the left you can see a queue of tank engines at the coaling stage where they waited for their next turn at banking a train up the incline. By this time Big Bertha had been replaced by a modified 9F.

The gradient rises northward from Bromsgrove up about 2 miles into the Lickey hills at Blackwell. About halfway a minor road dives under the railway, but originally there was a level crossing here. The old crossing site was a handy point from which to view trains labouring up the bank. This was 9F number 92118 on a long goods train. In the distance you can see a plume of smoke from the banking engine.

In the opposite direction, drifting downhill on another goods, is 9F number 92151.


Nowadays the passenger trains in use are so powerful that they hardly notice the gradient, but bankers are still needed to assist the heavy freight trains. The line is now electrified from Birmingham to Bromsgrove for outer suburban trains that whirr up the incline with no trouble.

Nearby the Worcester & Birmingham Canal climbs into the Lickey hills by the Tardebigge flight of 36 locks. The longest lock flight in the country.

9F on The Great Central

I

wasn't sure if I could get anything out of this awful photo. I think I took it with a fairly useless plastic camera that came with a bag of sweets but had the advantage of taking twice as many pictures on a roll of film. As film was expensive this would have been good, if the pictures were.

This is a 9F passing Charwelton station on the Great Central main line with a Northbound train of coal empties. In those days the economy ran on coal. Not only was it burned in power stations but it fueled a lot of industrial boilers as well as domestic hearths. As there was little coal available in Southern England a constant parade of trains transported it from pit to furnace

The Great Central was the last major railway route built in Britain (pre Eurostar and HS2). Completed in 1897 it linked Sheffield with London Marylebone, connecting with a pre-existing link over the Pennines to Manchester. Originally the plan was to link to the South Eastern & chatham Railway via the London underground and thence via a channel tunnel to France.

By the time I found the railway it had lost it's express trains but was still an important freight route. In particular, frequent coal trains ran from Annesley in Nottinghamshire to Woodford Halse in Northamptonshire. Here they were re-organised and despatched to various destinations in the South.

I think this must have been 1962. I was 9 and big brother Merv was 17 and had just passed his driving test. Sometimes he would borrow the car when Dad wasn't using it and we would go off chasing trains. I'm not sure whether on this occasion we still had the old Austin A30


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_A30

or whether, by then, we had our new Morris 1100 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMC_ADO16   I think that may have come in 1963. As it was our first new car it indicated that Dad was going up in the world.


I remember that I was obsessed with the song Duke of Earl and probably drove Merv mad constantly singing Doo Doo Doo Dook of Earl Dook Dook Dook of Earl Dook Dook

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQnfooEED8Y

I was dismayed to be told by him that Charwelton station, just about visible silhouetted in the background, was slated for closure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charwelton_railway_station . The ironstone quarry railway that left the goods yard, on the right of the photo, had recently closed. In general it was a dismal time for anyone obsessed with trains, but I had no idea of the destruction that was to come.

The 9Fs were the last of British Railways steam locomotives, built between 1954 and 1960. They were clearly the best of the British Railways standard classes and were the most powerful engines in Britain, being intended for heavy freight work. In spite of having the small wheels of a goods engine they had quite a turn of speed. On one occasion the engine for the crack Red Dragon express from South Wales to London failed and the only spare engine to take over was a 9F. Not only did this humble coal hauler make up the time lost in changing engines. It was recorded at a top speed of of 92mph and used less coal and water on the trip than the express engine would.

The standard engines were a set of steam designs built during the 1950s as a stopgap pending the intended electrification of the railways. The capital for universal electrification was never forthcoming from an increasingly road obsessed government. In 1956 a change of tack brought in a headlong rush to dieselisation. This resulted in the standard engines, especially the 9Fs, having ridiculously short working lives. Many of the early diesels made premature trips to the scrapyard too as over hasty procurement resulted in some troublesome or inappropriate designs being constructed.

92212 British Railways Standard Class 9F 2-10-0













Fosse Road

Another of my favourite locations was Fosse Road. This is where the railway crossed the Roman Fosse Way, here just a country lane, on a high bridge. A cinder path led upwards to the trackside. This path carried on to the signalbox, but I kept away from that for fear of being chased off by the signalman. On the far side of the tracks, the down or northbound side, was a loop where slow goods trains could be held to allow expresses to overtake them.

This picture shows a Hall class engine, to be precise, 4984 Rodwell Hall, on an up, Southbound express. Someone will be able to tell from the headcode exactly what train this was and where it was going. I'm not geeky enough to know things like that. It wouldn't be a London express as these were hauled by King class locomotives. It's probably bound for the South coast, possibly Southampton. Such duties are nowadays performed by Cross Country Voyager units.

Halls were the main mixed traffic engines of the old Great Western Railway. Their lineage goes back to the start of the century and the Saint class of express engines. The Halls were a development of these with smaller wheels to make them suitable for pulling both goods and passenger trains. They were in production from 1924 to 1950, albeit the later ones being rather updated.

Harbury Cutting

I thought I might start uploading photos from my collection. A lot of them are very bad but they remind me of things. In 1961 aged 8 I got a bike for my birthday and my sister gave me her old Brownie 127 camera. Unfortunately it wasn't entirely light proof which spoiled a lot of pictures. Anyway, I was able to cycle away from home (no restrictions in those days) make friends in other villages and take photographs of trains. This is, I think, my second ever photograph.

Harbury cutting is, I think I'm right in saying, the deepest railway cutting in the country. It's on the old Great Western London to Birmingham route a few miles south of Leamington Spa. The deepest part of the cutting is pretty inaccessible but, from Harbury village, a little lane runs downhill then crosses the cutting on a high 3 arch bridge, ending on the far side at a farm. It was here that I photographed the up afternoon Blue Pullman.

These trains were pretty new then and were almost the only diesels that we saw. They ran between Paddington and Birmingham Snow Hill, Paddington and South Wales and, the Midland Pullman, from St Pancras to Manchester Central. They were an attempt at retaining business custom in reply to the challenge of the M1 and domestic air travel.

The Birmingham and Manchester Pullmans were also intended to retain rail traffic between these cities using alternative routes whilst the main west coast main line was being disrupted by electrification work. With the switching on of the wires through to Euston in 1966 the Birmingham and Manchester services finished and the redundant units used for posh commuter runs to Oxford. They were scrapped in the mid 1970s when Inter City 125 units were introduced. Part of the route into Paddington that they used to take has been mothballed as trains on this route now terminate at Marylebone. Part of the route of the Manchester Pullman through the Peak District has long since been ripped up and Manchester Central is now the Gmex exhibition hall.

Although they were seen at the time as trains of the future they weren't really that brilliant. Like most of the first generation diesels they were underpowered. They had a 1000 horsepower engine at each end. The Inter City 125s have twice the power. The ride was also not great, especially on the sectional clickety clack track of the time.




Another bit of Ashton history goes up in smoke.

For ages we've had such a poor turnout for weekday evening recycling trips that we've had to do them by road. I was pleased on Monday 4th to find that we had plenty of volunteers.

Aaron took the tiller and we had a pleasant journey down to Fairfield.


On Monday evenings we collect on Fairfield Road and Gorsey Fields.  This time most of our crew were youngsters who were shy about knocking on doors, so they did the barrowing back. We had a reasonable haul to take to the charity shop.

On Tuesday afternoon we had a trip on "Hazel" with a really nice couple with an autistic child. The mother seemed interested in the canalside history. As we passed Oxford Mills

https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101084307-the-oxford-mills-st-peters-ward#.XU6ORfzTVuQ

I told her about their history   and about Hugh Mason who had them built  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Mason

As we passed the old mills on the returned trip I noticed a strong smell of burning plastic. I checked in the engine room to make sure that nothing had fallen on to the exhaust manifold, but that was fine.

I went home for my tea. While I was there my friend Bev Ackford rang to tell me there was a fire in a laundry near the canal.

On my return to Portland Basin I found that there was an even better turn out for the Tuesday evening trip. Ominous black smoke was billowing from a big fire close to our intended route.  I was unsure if it would be safe to run the trip but Debbie Leach told me that she had just cycled up the towpath to join us and there was no problem.

After a bit of boat shunting we set off, rather later than usual. As we approached the burning area we were enveloped in smoke but I could see that the fire was well back from the canal so we would be able to pass safely.


Fire persons were busy working between the fire and the canal, pumping water out to spray on to the burning buildings. There was some banter with the fire crews about them stealing our water.


Oxford Mill was an E shaped building. One wing had been largely demolished before it was listed. As we passed I saw that the fire had spread from the relatively modern buildings where it started into the upright and middle stroke of the E. The remaining wing remained untouched, though shrouded in smoke, so I hoped that this at least could be saved. I had noted previously that it was used for storing stuff in cardboard boxes.

At Brewery bridge tape had just been put up to close the towpath. A smart young firefighter was just climbing the steps on to the bridge. Debbie, who never misses the opportunity for a bit of banter, asked him if he was touting for business. I chipped in by offering him a lift to Canal St (Canal St is the heart of Manchesters gay village). He took it in the spirit intended.


We had another good collection in the Ashton Hill Road area of Droylsden. By the time we were ready to return it was nearly dark, so I turned on the headlight. At Brewery Bridge, at the South end of Pottinger St, we got a good view of the fire. The brigade's efforts had seemingly been in vain. The whole area was now blazing well, particularly the top of the E, presumably turbocharged by whatever was in all those boxes. The gable end of this wing was close to the canal and it was clear that parts of the building had already collapsed. If the gable were to fall outward as we passed we would be toast.

We backed up into the bridgehole and I managed to get a pin into the tarmacced towpath (grrrr) to tie to.

I left the boat guarded by Aaron and walked rather a long way round to Portland Basin to collect the van. Kids had removed the tape on the towpath and were whizzing up and down on bikes despite the danger. I chose not to go that way.

The streets had a carnival atmosphere, like a huge free  bonfire party for the whole community. As I walked I heard a rumble as anothe bit of historic mill tumbled.

Returning with the van I had to take an even longer route as the main Stockport Road was closed. Luckily I know the back streets well. We unloaded the goods from the boat into the van. I parked it up for the night then, after taking a few photos,



I retired to "Forget me Not"s cabin for the night.

In the morning I woke at about 5 AM and made coffee. As i lay in bed enjoying my first brew of the day I could hear intermittent bursts of police radio. I hoped they wouldn't try to stop me returning the boat to her home, as I clearly couldn't leave her there. I felt the boat move as though someone had stepped aboard, then heard a rat tat tat on the cabinside. I stuck me head out and saw a man and a boat. He had made an early start to go to Manchester but "Forget me Not" was blocking the bridgehole. I explained that I wasn't dressed yet. He offered to move the boat. I agreed and, as I dressed, I could feel the hull grinding against the copings as he pulled her backwards.

He tied the boat to the railings of the high level footpath that leads to Guide Bridge Station, at just the right height to decapitate passing cyclists. Luckily there were none and I was soon untied and on my way, kicking up lots of froth, presumably from chemicals washed into the waterway.

I had to walk back from Portland Basin to collect the van. On my way I took some pictures of the smouldering remains being damped down.