TRIBUTE TO STEAM

[Mick H.]

To those amongst us who are steam enthuisiasts without being anoraks,just like to see it. .A picture of the first new steam train to be built in nearly fifty years. And a famous poem.

 

Mick H.

 

 

Sorry the poem is a document ,which you can look at, but does anybody know how to convert it to a picture to be able to see it on here.

NIGHT MAIL POEM by W_H_ AUDEN.doc

[bootbags]

Great poem. Not sure how to attach as text ? Will have a play

[Mick H.]

bootbags - 2008-08-02 2:28 PM

 

 

 

 

 

Playing to an audience? Bootbags.

 

Oooh somebody else joined in

[bootbags]

Mick H. - 2008-08-02 2:31 PM

bootbags - 2008-08-02 2:28 PM

Playing to an audience? Bootbags. Oooh somebody else joined in

Not sure what you mean by that

[Hymer C 9.]

Gosh that was hard work but got there in the end a couple of pics of the lovely old steam trains that run regularly in LLangollen taken a couple of weeks ago. Carol.

[J9withdogs]

We had a steam rally here a couple of weeks ago with 'Catch Me Who Can' the full-size working replica of the 1808 Bridgnorth locomotive built by the engineer Richard Trevithick.

 

There were some amazing beasts!

[Mel B]

This is the poem:

 

NIGHT MAIL

by W H Auden

 

This is the Night Mail crossing the border,

Bringing the cheque and the postal order,

Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,

The shop at the corner and the girl next door.

Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:

The gradient's against her, but she's on time.

Thro' spa**e counties she rampages,

Her driver's eye upon the gauges.

Panting up past lonely farms

Fed by the fireman's restless arms.

Striding forward along the rails

Thro' southern uplands with northern mails.

Winding up the valley to the watershed,

Thro' the heather and the weather and the dawn overhead.

Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder

Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,

Snorting noisily as she passes

Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.

Birds turn their heads as she approaches,

Stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches.

Sheepdogs cannot turn her course;

They slumber on with paws across.

In the farm she passes no one wakes,

But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes.

Dawn freshens, the climb is done.

Down towards Glasgow she descends

Towards the steam tugs yelping down the glade of cranes,

Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces

Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.

All Scotland waits for her:

In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs

Men long for news.

Letters of thanks, letters from banks,

Letters of joy from the girl and the boy,

Receipted bills and invitations

To inspect new stock or visit relations,

And applications for situations

And timid lovers' declarations

And gossip, gossip from all the nations,

News circumstantial, news financial,

Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,

Letters with faces scrawled in the margin,

Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts,

Letters to Scotland from the South of France,

Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands

Notes from overseas to Hebrides

Written on paper of every hue,

The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,

The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring,

The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,

Clever, stupid, short and long,

The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.

Thousands are still asleep

Dreaming of terrifying monsters,

Or of friendly tea beside the band at Cranston's or Crawford's:

Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,

Asleep in granite Aberdeen,

They continue their dreams,

And shall wake soon and long for letters,

And none will hear the postman's knock

Without a quickening of the heart,

For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

 

[Mick H.]

Well done Mell. Did you up, down, sideways load it or just type it out.

[kelly58]

Just a couple of my pics I would like to share with you.

[Mel B]

Mick H. - 2008-08-03 4:09 PM

 

Well done Mell. Did you up, down, sideways load it or just type it out.

 

I just opened the attachment you'd posted in Word, then highlighted it all, copied the text and pasted it into the forum. I did pratt around for a while trying to turn it in to a jpg file but it kept cutting off the first few letters of each line so I gave up! :-S

[Geof Angi]

Whoops

[Geof Angi]

Sorry

 

NOT STEAM, but the thought was there

 

Well that is my excuse

 

Geof

[howie]

That picture showing the Invictor steam roller brings back some memories Kelly. One of the first jobs I had was maintaining the tynes mounted on the front of these rollers. These were steel bars, pointed and angled, about 2ft long by 2" square used to rip up the road prior to relaying. Kerbs and manhole covers made short work of these tynes and the cradle they were attached to, but the really hard part was removing the cradle without marking the paintwork on the roller which was given the same care and attention of a new born baby by the driver.

This was his pride and joy, and looking back rightly so. Diesel rollers may be more reliable and efficient, but these steam rollers really did have a personalty and life of their own, which might explain the nostalgia whenever we see them.

[kelly58]

Howie

The roller "BECKY" is owned by my nephew . we will be driving her on the road from near Spalding to the Sandringham Country Fair in September quite a long haul at 4mph.but great fun . Kelly

[Mick H.]

I assume all you steamers have been to The Great Dorset Steam Fair,down near Blandford forum, Dorset.If not you have missed the greatest steam day, (or week if you want to camp there,) ever and can thoroughly recommend it

Starting 27th August