Once

It used to be that rail passengers looked out of their windows and watched the world passing by, perhaps thinking about the ups and downs of their lives or they would strike up conversations with other travellers that may have led to laughter, frequently experiencing the random joy of simply connecting with another human.

It used to be that young mothers coo-cooed at their babies as they pushed them along or tucked their blankets in or squeezed their little cheeks as those small children carefully observed their mothers' expressions, learning things faster than at any other time in their coming lives, appreciating the immeasurable value of eye contact.

It used to be that workmates talked to each other on their breaks - perhaps joking or solving work problems together or talking about family, sport or popular films or simply the weather.

It used to be that people kept moving on public staircases or when simply walking down the street and when people crossed those streets they put safety first, looking this way and that, paying heed.

It used to be that elected representatives in political chambers paid attention to what was being said in the here and now, perhaps responding with questions or points of their own, fully engaged.

It used to be that in restaurants, couples conversed between courses, confiding in each other and perhaps making remarks about the service or other diners. And it was the same in pubs - it was the socialising that mattered most.

It used to be that people read books and magazines and letters they had received in the post and sought pub quiz answers in their heads

But now - what are people doing instead?

They are looking down at their smartphones. 

Never up, always down.

Quiztime

We all love baby animals don't we? They are so cute! In this quiz you are asked to identify ten baby animals. As usual, the answers will be provided in the comments section. Good luck!

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1.  (a) African elephant (b) groundhog (c) aardvark (d) Tamworth pig

2. (a) mole (b) echidna (c) giant anteater (d) river dolphin

3. (a) German shepherd puppy (b) arctic fox (b) grey wolf (d) fennec fox

4. (a) bald eagle (b) kestrel (c) dodo (d) grey parrot

5. (a) emperor penguins (b) king penguins 

(c) rockhopper penguins (d) hedge sparrows

6. (a) donkey (b) carthorse (c) alpaca (d) Shetland pony

7. (a) komodo dragon (b) marine iguana (c) chameleon (d) gecko

8. (a) hyena (b) Tasmanian devil (c) Yorkshire terrier (d) grizzly bear

9. (a) beaver (c) giant otter (c) duck billed platypus (d) water vole

10. (a) snow leopard (b) cheetah (c) Bengal tiger (d) honey badger

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That's all folks! How did you do?

Lowry

In Manchester Art Gallery, I expected that there would be some paintings by L.S.Lowry and indeed I was right. Above is a typical Lowry canvas painted in 1928. It's "Coming Home from the Mill" and it exemplifies the artist's  lifelong interest in the lives of ordinary working people. They trudge around like matchstalk figures - small in the industrial landscape they inhabit.

This one is titled "Laying the Foundation Stone". Painted in 1936 it depicts the pomp and ceremony of  a municipal event as a tiresome town councillor addresses his audience. He is beginning the process of building a new school. Lowry was rather repulsed by such events.

In this picture, "Street Sceme With Figures" (1949), a hurrying man turns to look at the artist. His back is bent and there is something quite clownish about his face. Behind him factories belch smoke. In the grand scheme of things, his existence is of little importance even though he has places to go, people to see.

This is a picture of Piccadilly Gardens in the heart of Manchester. It was commissioned and completed in 1954. The gardens stand on the site of the old Manchester Royal Infirmary with The Coronation Fountain in the centre - created to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's ascension to the throne.

And here is the artist himself, Laurence Stephen Lowry (1887 - 1976). Like him or loathe him, he certainly made his mark. I have referred to him and his artistry several times before in this blog...

Hammer

Songs that say something meaningful or stirring about socio-political issues have always appealed to me. They are not too plentiful but they are certainly out there. I think of "Imagine" and "Working Class Hero" by John Lennon , "We Shall Overcome" that evolved from a church hymn, "Little Boxes" by Malvina Reynolds, "No More Auction Block" and other American slave songs,  "The Red Flag" by Jim Connell, "Hurricane" and "With God On Our Side" by Bob Dylan, "Born In the USA" by Bruce Springsteen and "The Internationale" by Eugène Pottier and Pierre De Geyter.

Often such songs are driven by strong senses of injustice or exasperation. They can pierce your heart more than a dump truck load of soppy love songs.

Four years before I was born, American folk figures Pete Seeger and Lee Hays wrote a powerful yet simple socialist anthem that most readers of this blog will be very familiar with. It's "If I Had A Hammer". Of this song, Pete Seeger once said that it had a message for ordinary working people - "We have got tools and we are going to succeed". He also remarked that back in 1949, "Only 'Commies' used words like 'peace' and 'freedom'". Recordings of the song were blacklisted in America and in 1955 Pete Seeger was summoned to give testimony before  the House Un-American Activities Committee. He stood up to them bravely.

If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning

I'd hammer in the evening, all over this land

I'd hammer out danger, I'd hammer out a warning

I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters all over this land

If I had a bell, I'd ring it in the morning

I'd ring it in the evening, all over this land

I'd ring it in danger, I'd ring out a warning

I'd ring in love between my brothers and my sisters all over this land

If I had a song, I'd sing it in the morning

I'd sing it in the evening, all over this land

I'd sing it in danger, I'd sing out a warning

I'd sing out love between my brothers and my sisters all over this land

Well I got a hammer and I got a bell

And I got a song to sing all over this land

It's the hammer of justice, it's the bell of freedom

It's a song about love between my brothers and my sisters all over this land

The song has been recorded by many different artistes, some of whom failed completely to convey the angry political message it contains. It's not meant to be a happy little ditty with you grinning and winking at the camera. It is intended to stir and inspire.

Pete Seeger lived a long and fruitful life, remaining true to his core principles. He died in 2014 at the age of ninety four. The recording I have chosen to end this blogpost with was made  five years before his death. Thank you Pete.

History

Woods where the site of Wood Hall is located

Traffic on the A1 was congested as I drove slowly to Darrington - a village south west of Leeds and about twenty five miles north of Sheffield. Then I was off the busy road and heading east along byways to the ancient village of Womersley. It was an area I had not walked in before - what I call virgin territory.

Map study at home showed me that there had once been a moated medieval manor house called Wood Hall - a mile and a half north of Womersley. I planned to plod there along farm tracks and that's what happened.

As half expected, the woods that have grown up on the manor house site have become almost impenetrable. Not many walkers go there and beyond it there are spoil heaps connected with former coal mining activity in the area with the addition of waste from remaining power stations.

I had almost given up locating something of interest but then, through the perimeter fence, something caught my eye and I scrambled in. It was the archaeological remains of  Wood Hall's  stone gatehouse and a wooden structure that I did not fully understand but I know that in past decades the hollow would have been filled with water. 

Later I learnt that in the 1990s, the site had been investigated by archaeologists from The University of York. They had made several interesting discoveries and documented work that led to a clearer picture of how Wood Hall would have appeared, evolved and functioned threough the centuries.

I took photos of Grade I listed St Martin's Church in Womersley. A stone effigy of a knight of yore lay supine in the north aisle. He was very probably Sir Adam de Newmarch who, in the late thirteenth century went off to fight the muslim "saracens" in The Holy Land. Many wealthy English nobles did the same and there are indeed many recumbent stone effigies of knights in English country churches. Sir Adam was certainly not alone but it makes me wonder why? Why did they up sticks and travel to distant lands to wage religious wars, leaving their homes and loved ones far behind? What was it truly all about?

I drove on to a small and rather unattractive village called Cridling Stubbs. The best part about that village is its name. It sounds like a nineteenth century artist who specialised in painting farm animals or a certain blogger with an exasperating right wing perspective on current affairs.

Then back to Darrington where I parked Butch on Church Lane close to another lovely old church - St Luke's. In the village shop, I treated myself to a sausage roll and a can of "Costa" coffee before aiming Butch back to Sheffield. 

Again the Friday traffic crawled sluggishly along the A1 but all was fine on the M18, the M1 and The Sheffield Parkway. I was home in time to make a nice tea for her ladyship and I - smoked gammon with pineapple, grilled tomatoes, dauphinoise potatoes and a medley of green vegetables followed by little Belgian chocolate cheesecakes that I had picked up in "Aldi".

Cow Lane, Womersley

Vans

The world of vlogging is a bit of a mystery to me. However, we all know that there are people out there in the world making money from their YouTube vlogs. Some vloggers post new material every few days and attract thousands of loyal supporters and subscribers. These people have to be fed regularly with new stuff or they will simply drift away - possibly to find new vlogs.

Recently, I became aware that there are a lot of creators who claim to live outside the 9to5 rat race and travel in vans to different locations. Their vlogs will invariably take viewers along for the ride and frequently the vloggers will share their innermost thoughts.

Their vans are their homes - sometimes customised by the vloggers themselves. You might say that these van people are like modern day solitary  drifters with cameras and wifi and a few of them have drones as well. 

The concept is quite attractive to those of  us who live in houses with foundations. Maybe we will occasionally fantasise about getting away from it all to experience the freedom of the road so the van vlogs appeal to that kind of yearning.

Ashley Azzurro is from the southern suburbs of Manchester and she has a blue Ford Transit van. She also has a young sheepdog called Apollo. There's a kind of innocence about her output as she seeks pleasant, often secretive country locations to share with her audience. She is into wild swimming and the simple life.

Give the confusion, apprehension and bitterness that many people experience in the so-called "real world", Ashley's Vanlife is an oasis of niceness and rural simplicity where the only things that ever seem to go wrong are her old blue van's moving parts.

Of course, it might all be illusory. There could be someone else with her on her adventures and maybe she goes home to get a shower and a proper feed. She comes across as a sociable human so how does she survive solitude without her friends?

Mmm... Perhaps I should not have introduced that slight note of cynicism. It would possibly be better to take the channel at face value. If you are interested, here is one of Ashley's most recent videos. It is typical of the genre...

Leftovers

 Just ten random pictures I have taken in the last month - but not posted before...

The Union Hotel, Nether Edge, Sheffield

Statue of Emmeline Pankhurst in Manchester. She was a leading light in the 

British suffragette movement - campaigning for women to get the vote.

Our Phoebe as a butterfly at Sewerby Park

The author of this blog with a Lego sabre toothed tiger at Sewerby Park

Cobbler's dummy on Ecclesall Road, Sheffield

The Path to Rawmarsh from Parkgate

Railway footbridge at Halfway

Phoebe in the old bearpit - Sheffield Botanical Gardens

Dock plants one evening in Bingham Park Woods, Sheffield

The Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield - rising above the leafy suburb of Broomhill

And that's all for today folks!