I'm now well over the half way mark with the Online cine film and it has been very enjoyable with some remarkable footage in Spain and Portugal as well as the main subjects in this batch London 1960s to 70s. I'll probably catch up with Peter at the archive in Shrewsbury later this month. I've also got a wealth of PMP films degitised and can continue with their scanning as time permits. I'll wait and see the weather outlook for next week and decide possible film locations. I'm trying to push back some of the early year plum spots such as Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool etc until there is better light. Tomorrow we have blood letting at Holmes Chapel Health centre all part of the annual MOT process for us oldies. I'm loading the clip on Youtube tonight for the second part of the Birmingham bus and tram coverage. Here are a few shots of family at the wedding yesterday
A splendid family day yesterday with Gill and Nigel's wedding at a hotel just outside the tiny city of St Asaph in North Wales - great as ever to have an excuse for a family get together and a reminder from cousin Mark that I need to get some of the old Hardy family docs scanned, another one on the to do list then. We had a leisurely breakfast then drove to Ellesmere Port and had my haircut, then to M&S for a brew and some food shopping, also found a pair of gloves which might suit photography and warmth, always trying new ones in search of the holy grail, warmth and workability. Then it was the Polio Fellowship meeting, I'll have to do the minutes as our sec couldn't get there, we did get some dates settled for events and some more things on that lengthening to do list. I'm now well over the half way mark with the Online cine film and it has been very enjoyable with some remarkable footage in Spain and Portugal as well as the main subjects in this batch London 1960s to 70s. I'll probably catch up with Peter at the archive in Shrewsbury later this month. I've also got a wealth of PMP films degitised and can continue with their scanning as time permits. I'll wait and see the weather outlook for next week and decide possible film locations. I'm trying to push back some of the early year plum spots such as Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool etc until there is better light. Tomorrow we have blood letting at Holmes Chapel Health centre all part of the annual MOT process for us oldies. I'm loading the clip on Youtube tonight for the second part of the Birmingham bus and tram coverage. Here are a few shots of family at the wedding yesterday My last early start for the week, up at 6am and off down the M6 to Birmingham. It is still mostly roadworks all the way, the only section clear is from ourselves to the D road at Stoke. Then it is painful, even the traffic in the 50mph section crawls much more slowly, then outskirts of Birmingham it grinds to a halt over the same section that ever were so. The millions spent on messing around with so called Smart motorways haven't worked at all and the misery is still there. Arrived at the car park near tony Hancock memorial about 8.45. The rush hour traffic was so so, the weather breezy and mostly overcast, wind though was the problem. Then by 10 am it started raining and got heavier plus strong winds. I did however manage to make a lot of progress and eventually before I left mid afternoon I had enough for a two parter which will include the new Tramway extension through to the library. The road works and building around it are ongoing, it was the lady in the second cup cafe who showed me how to get to the end of the tram line by foot, it isn't obvious and involves a lengthy section of corridors between building works . I did find yet more spots useful to film buses. The end of the line for the trams was by some sort of amusement park and supposedly I library, I saw a museum, it had some original series tram track. I decided just to battle on, it stopped raining, dark but atmospheric and I got around spots I don't normally see like the Digbeth coach station, there I saw my one and only 69 reg, nothing new at all with National Express. Tonight two slide shows, one on Birmingham and the other some stills from the Spain and Portugal cine I have scanned. Amazon blocked the link to the film I sent to China ref the defunct scanner which amazingly did actually copy one of the George Roberts 200' reels when I tested it after a days rest. I may well purchase a second machine and copy them in 200' sections in tandem speeding up the process and not over straining these relatively weak and under powered and under engineered gadgets, good conception poor execution. We are at a family wedding tomorrow staying over night in Wales, then on way home Thursday stopping off at Ellesmere Port for the Polio Fellowship meeting at the Whitby club. We have doctors appointments on Friday. Corby rather denies an adequate description, I think its woes and the steel plant closure were once a cause celebre among sociologists and urban planners. It remains as something akin to a 1970s Soviet development in Siberia and would be a good place to use if Johnson starts internal exile, the sort of stunt most dictators do to be one stop less than butchery. It was freezing cold albeit the absolute temperature was about 8 with the wind chill it was minus. I started at Kettering which was remarkably quiet at 9.30, things looked as if they were picking up by 10am but by then boredom had set in and I was dubious if Corby would have anything of interest. I arrived as a Whippet whipped out and changed a battery at the car park and watched a Centre bus fly by, I thought they had pulled out, anyway it was 100% Stagecoach and ditto other than Diamond Coach decker at Kettering. I did stop at Nuneaton but the battery I had died, I've cancelled the replacement on Amazon as it is still out of stock and ordered a much cheaper Chinese look alike ( never learn) and hope it works, I dread to think what a Panasonic battery would cost. I think a bit of memory effect has started on all three I use at present, I've had them for some years and they get a hammering. I'll probably go back to tele cine copying of the films I've got to assess at the moment so I don't keep hold of them too long, unless the supplier which is I think manufacturer can suggest anything I can mend such as the slipping drive belt then I'm happy to have a go. it is so frustrating. I wish there were alternatives to the one I got, a stronger more robust dare I say non Chinese one would be favourite , they do turn out some junk, all those who rush for Chinese buses will regret it very quickly. As my visit to Nuneaton was halted so quickly the clips I took will go to Youtube as internet viewing only. The advertising revenue plummets in the new year, its about 50% now of pre Christmas level so please support in all ways, order downloads or DVDs or watch the adverts on the clips. The Chinese seem to make some of the worst engineered machines in the world, perfect in concept then manufactured with rubbish components. The faulty drive chain has bee advised to them in reviews but obviously nothing has been done, they must rely on people doing a very small amount of copying and getting fed up with it as it is so slow before it goes wrong anyway. I've spent ages messing around with these two machines if it doesn't get better I will have to revert to the old tele cine method which gives fair enough results with good original material. I've done a lot of other jobs such as getting the DVD covers done for recent releases. Tomorrow I hope to go filming, perhaps in Kettering, Corby, Nuneaton then Tuesday Birmingham and Stoke but iof course the weather can change any moment. Here are the covers for the new DVD releases Here are some screen shots from the films I managed to scan before it broke down yet again Amazing journey through time and space as I continue with the high grade cine film scanning, it takes such a long time to get through a reel but the quality is way beyond anything we have achieved previously. The collection I'm digitising and identifying is from the 1960s and there are trips to Spain and Portugal taking in most of the trams and trolleybuses and any British make of bus which is particularly fascinating as there were some real gems on the Iberian peninsula in those days. For a bit of a break and fresh air we had a drive out to Derbyshire , we stopped in Bakewell only to find our favourite cafe at Thorntons has been sold, it was obvious from the moment we walked in, the atmosphere had changed, the produce meagre and poor and the attitude stank. Walked out!. As that was the main reason we visit I was actually glad that I'd gone into my favourite shoe shop as I did get a superb pair of light grey suede shoes , I usually manage to find something I like there, nice wide fitting, so comfy. It was a pass on the jewelers, they'd had a bumper Christmas and sold a lot of stock, can't be bad. The scanning continues most of the time, I'm nearly half way through the loaned material and any time then left I will use to have a go at my own 400' reels, I haven't the energy to go back and start all over again on the reels I already copied in tele cine mode. It does however make so many things useable, I may even still have a go at the Llandudno Bus Spot Ultra , I'm toying with the idea also perhaps Wrexham. I've edited Chester, clip on Youtube. I've updated the PMP DVD list on our shop page. I've three covers to make for the latest DVDs. The planned trip to Cyprus for the potato harvest may just be a solo by myself as flights in May are mega expensive, I can get a good deal in late April and do an Easyjet for a short period and hire the cheapest small car. Talking of Cyprus lets have a look back to previous trips. I constructed a spool holder for feeding the cine scanner which has worked a treat and only one momentary interruption on three 400' reels. They do take so long, about 5-6 hours depending on how much has been crammed on to the reel, a problem in itself. The last of the Christmas decoration come down tomorrow, we've already taken the inside tree out with the intention of keeping it for next year. If we get some dry weather I could do with a go at the dead plants in the garden,well dead foliage thatis, if the plant was dead it would be dug up. Anyway we have a busy week coming up, Monday and Tuesday may take a bit of working on but the only free days next week. Wed we have a family wedding in the afternoon but also they are coming to repair the burst and make good the ceiling so they wiill have to carry on when I'm gone. Then Thursday its the Polio Fellowship monthly meeting, we can go on our way back from Wales. Then Friday we have midday doctors checks just the annual mot as it were. I got up early and entered up the information I'd gained on Sam Osborne's past and relatives - it has proved difficult to get much further than the researchers in Kent who found all the clues and Sam's imprisonment on the Isle of Wight at the start of the war, he later volunteered for the parachute regt and died on the D-Day early morning drops intended to knock out control and command posts. He had been a steeplejack in civilian life. I also set the scanner off early to try the spooler and also cracked on with Bus Spot Ultra Sheffield which I finished this evening after a full days work on it, glad to get it out of the way I can now work on the Wrexham and Chester visits, shots from Wrexham... We are off to a flying start to the new year and new decade with a film visit this morning to Chester and then on to Wrexham. I also used my time in Wrexham to visit the archive centre and got some hints on possible sources of information on Mandy's natural father Harold Patterson. Also on the family history front I got some more info from Swanley Family History center who are researching the people of their war memorial and found a lot on Sam Osborne who was killed in 1944 when parachuting into Normandy as part of the early attack to take out Nazi command posts. The research group have found a lot of information including two great uncles who were killed in WWI and not recorded at all on the memorial. Anyway enough info to start updating the family tree on my adopted side. Chester was very quiet but normal bus services and friendly drivers made it a pleasant visit and similar in Wrexham although by lunch time it was quite busy. Both locations had unfortunate people with mental health problems staggering around and making life difficult, the police got involved in Wrexham briefly blocking the bus exit from the bus station to main road. No sign of anything new at either location other than a year old coach at Chester which arrived as I was departing, I'll get on with editing the Bus Spot Ultra on Sheffield tomorrow as it will be sunshine and cloud not good for filming, fingers crossed for more opportunities next week. Shots first from Chester this morning. The cine scanner decided to go on the blink again after successfully copying a couple of films but from what I read it could be the drive belt which is probably not much better than an elastic band but also it could a little tension pulling the film throw from the feed for which I've used a passive projector. I may make a very simple jig with a box and dowel to feed free of friction which will take pressure off the drive, I can still use the projector as a quick re-winder. While I've been struggling with this I've also been making slow progress on the bus spot ultra Sheffield, I've got all the pre video era stuff on I may edit that and then address the video era, I had to get rid of some files which were filling the memory of the computer, its hard finding the stuff which is dragging it down as there are so many areas it is stored in, I'm loathe to delete the main editing file as there are so many files used in common with all the productions. In the process I did lose the link to files I'd downloaded , it was easy enough putting them back but now I'll get cracking with proper editing then I can just add the video era files from the master copies rather than the edited DVDs as this can take up so much memory. I have a wealth of material covering well over a century of public transport tram and bus in the city. I need to decide where I'm filming tomorrow, a simple excursion is to Wrexham and or Chester or Stoke. Others include Corby, Kettering, Nuneaton which don't get covered as much as other locations I visit annually. I've also managed to put the grout sealant on the tiles grout in the bathroom, we can't use the shower for 48 hours which means lasting until Friday evening but no probs with sinks etc. So day day of great length, not the perfect New Years celebration really but some nice footage used which had shots on the 1966 RTL trip to Spain and France. There are others covering Portugal and Spain if I can overcome the glitches. I did manage to get some screen shots which I think came out well. |
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