Ralphadeus. Music movies comics feature in this look at life from Somerset.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Ari Up of the Slits has passed on
Sad news indeed. The 48 year old had a long and serious illness apparently. Rest in Peace.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Guss and Crook
Picture is of Foxcote Carting Boys in 1904 - I wonder if my Grandfather Jack Mitchard is one of them? He was a carting boy at Foxcote at that time. Started aged 12. Got taken to the Co-op to join the society and buy his pit boots after his first day. The lads in the photo (from 'History of the Somerset Coalfield' by Down and Warrington) are protesting about the Guss and Crook - a horrible device that went around the waist and below the groin that turned boys into beasts of burden and always resulted in blue scarring around the mid region. Only Somerset miners used this device because of the narrow seams.
Friday, October 08, 2010
Shannon 'Abergavenny' (1969)
It's funny isn't it when you hear a song that you haven't heard for some 40 years and it acts as a strange time capsule - this one did that - I heard it on WFMU of all places Irwin's show - the same show played one of our records and we get a kick out of hearing the whole show and whoomph this one took me right back to rainy holidays in Wales, feeling carsick driving through bleak mining villages and just trying to pass the time and singing this song when the town's name appeared on a signpost. It's easy to feel nostalgic for the easy listening songs of the 1960s isn't it? Do you know the way to San Jose?