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Hi Guys. Been playing catch up for the last quarter of an hour or so. Sorry I've not been on lately but I have been as busy as a little bee ever since Christmas. Working away much of the time. Call this retirement? Huh! Still things have slowed a little now although still moderately busy. Trouble is I enjoy what I do and can't leave it alone really. Hey, Graham, what's this about not mentioning tractors, our home for aged and orphaned tractors is still thriving. You should have requested no mention canals or railways either! I'm sure Anth will agree. Incidentally its good to see Anth back on line again. Forgot to mention, we are busy at home as well, having some building work done this summer. We are on phase 1 at the present, build shed to store some of the furniture during the alterations. Just putting the roof timbers in place at the present. Got a good system going, I cut and joint all the timber to size and son and mate assemble and erect. Good old Bath Tec education coming into it's own again. Now, what was it Ray Jones told us about using chisels? Have fun all. Sticky.

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Hi Sticky, While your lads are assembling the shed you use the chisel for a DA haircut! Ray showed how this was done at the Old Gaol on Richard Brown! Poor Richard also had to plane a piece of wood to a matchstick for constant disruption of Ray's lessons!! Happy days! Canals & trains too? I just traveled on the Canadian VIA rail system from Montreal to Kingston & back. Very smooth but boring landscape. I will post a picture of train '57' in your honour! With the rain today I might find a canal image too. Hope that your retirement settles down. Since the second grandaughter (and another in August due) we seem to be into back-up mode. I cannot say that retirement is boring. One advantage is not doing too many things that I don't like. On saying that I mowed son-in-law's lawn recently. I disposed of my lawns about 15 years ago so why was I doing that? Keep smiling.

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Graham, you want an interesting train ride? Try Indian railways from Varanasi to Howrah, Calcutta, to begin with the train was 4 hours late, to be fair it had come from Amritsar, then, it was approx nine o-clock in the evening, there was a power cut on the station and in the ensuing darkness rats ate our travel snacks, (don't trust Indian train food), followed by the fourteen hour journey to Calcutta, during which one of your travelling companions gets knocked unconscious by a vendor of said train food when he clouts the side of her head with his plastic basket, poor girl had concussion for two days. Having said that travelling across India by train was an experience not to be missed, more fun than long distance train journeys in China where the only problem was in not being able to read station nameboards, when leaving the train became something of a lottery. Good fun though. Cheers all Stu PS. Good to see you back Sticky.

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Hi Again. Thanks for the welcome back, both. Shame you didn't visit the Darjeeling and Himalaya line, Stu. Narrow gauge of course but still running some of the original British built locomotives. The website is well worth a visit. Maybe I was jumping the gun a bit with mention of canals, I assumed that everyone knew that Anth and Bill were doing some serious investigative work on the old Somerset Coal Canal a while ago. Incidentally there are some interesting developments at our local canal, but more of that another day. Hey, Graham, after fifteen years it's a bit late to realise that you have withdrawal from lawn mowing, and going to all that trouble to satisfy the desire is a bit extreme isn't it? Have to go now guys, talk again soon. Sticky.

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Whilst I was about as ham fisted as you could be in woodwork and metal work, I have never forgotten some of the basics that Ray drummed into some of us practical numpties - about truing up faces of timber, putting a curly mark on one and a "V" on the other, reversing the square after 2 faces on preparing a cuttting line etc etc. - which I still do religiously today. The hell that was practicing compound dovetails, when one could only barely manage a shabby cross-halving joint and the frequent time wasting that went on around the hot animal-glue pots left me feeling at the time that some aspects of CBTS were for for me and a significant number of my contemporaries a utter waste of resources and energy. However, here I am nearly 50 years later actually enjoying using timber, cutting fairly respectable joints, taking pleasure in tolerable levels of accuracy and generally trawling the old grey matter for Jones' pearls of wisdom. Mike H

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I am like Mike, never quite got 'vertical' or 'horizontal' but have spent many a happy hour making things with wood. My brother-in-law is a carpenter so I used to stand back in amazement when he knocked up items that were straight in a fraction of my time! He worked with Ray at the Technical College evening classes as a tutor once he became an occupational therapist. Funny how I still hold a saw, incise a mark with a chisel and reverse the set square in the way that Ray taught us to this day. Blimey that is at least 54 years ago in my case!

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Ray Jones and Harry Mower were absolute stars, both to be admired for their dedication. Not only did they put up with us little buggers but they managed to teach us the rudiments of their skills. Proven by the fact that we all now seem to know the correct way to hold a saw, use a square and a chisel, or in Harry's case a hacksaw and file. Further more now 50 years on we are still able to use these skills. Unfortunately for the kids today, they do not seem to have the benefit of tuition by such people, partly as a result of the dreaded health and safety regs, partly because they do not seem interested in anything that has no screen and partly because the skilled practitioners do not seem to be there to teach them any more. Then the politicians claim that there are not enough engineering skills to satisfy British industry!!!!!!!!!!!Sad aint it? Sticky.

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Quite right. Do you recall melting lead offcuts in the workshop? I never had Harry Mower but still appreciate those distant days. Just bought some fence panels as one of the posts has rotted and is causing potential mayhem. Ray's skills with hammer, saw & screw-driver will soon be needed once more. Son-in-law presented me with a powerful electric screw-driver. I can't wait to test it. Dr Who eat your heart out!

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Hi Graham. Yes all the power tools we have these days certainly speed things up a tad. Once you have used the new battery screwdriver a few times you will never be parted from it ever again. Talk about quick!!!! When I get a minute I will take some piccies of the shed now under construction. You will be able to see where the Jones touch comes in. Have fun all. Sticky. PS Oh yes! Lead smelting, a definite health and safety nightmare these days, but we thought nothing of it! It's a wonder any of us survived. As I remember it we did that in the second or third year in the nissen hut affair next door to the old gaol.

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My memory puts the metalwork shop on the ground-floor of the Old Gaol on the right as you entered. Jones was upstairs. Fire-escape entrance too? Oxy-acetylene cutting to the left hand-side with a forge as well? Did any of you ever blow holes in the wall with cordite from cartridges brought in by Corsham lads? The D-Day railway spurs at Potley still had loose .303" ammo around the wire fences dropped during loading for D-Day 1944! Now a Gypo site. Putty in the cordite with mud. Ignite & 'bang!' Darned great hole blown in the mortar before lesson began!

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Hi Guys, I long time since I was on this site. As you celebrate the Queens Golden Jubilee in the UK, I would like to share a memory I have of the Coronation some 59 years ago. My mum all of 33 years old had taken myself and 3 siblings up the North East to her home village of Ryhope County Durham, near Sunderland. I was a mere 7.25 years old. It was a long train journey in those days best part of a day, departing Bath at Green Park and changing to s speedy train at Mangotsfield. Whilst in the North East, I got belted on Coronation day by my cousins Geordie mates, remembered watching the Coronation on BBC in black and white it was raining was it was in the NE. On returning to school receiving the gold plated mug with Phil and Liz’s photograph on the side and a few weeks later the whole school marching down to the Beau Nash Cinema to watch the film of Sir Edmund Hilary and Sherpa Tensen being the first to reach the summit or top of Mt Everest. Ken

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Hi Ken, It drizzled in Bath on 2nd June 2012 and I was 1/4 mile from Larkhall where parents hosted Coronation party/TV session for whole street in 1953. Lounge/Dining Room opened up with long table for kids and then serious viewing by adults on B & W screen. Curtains pulled all day! Bored stiff at age of 8 (+1 day). This time also in similar rooms with bunting flying & only the family. Champers & a fine time had by all. Today the Thames pageant was a huge success despite heavy rain. God Save the Queen!

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I don't think we were particularly flush as a family in the early fifties but my father "invested" about £100 in a 12 inch Bush television (which picked up a very suspect signal from the Sutton Coldfield transmitter along with the customary "snow") some weeks prior to the Coronation. Mother prepared a cold collation including sausage rolls, jelly and carnation milk, and endless mountains of sandwiches. A rotation of friends, family and assorted hangers-on paid visits during the day, being invited into our darkened dining room to watch the proceedings - I remember being bored silly by the whole affair preferring to spend much of the day playing with my Dinky toys on the landing. My mother was unimpressed by my behaviour and made it very clear afterwards that when guests were in the house I should be there to "be polite". I can remember the colour of the blackout curtains, the arrangement of chairs in the dining room, the irritating behaviour of my cousin and much else but nothing of the events unfolding on the box - such was the power of television in those days! Mind you there are only just so many boats bobbing down the Thames that any sane minded individual can watch without going catatonic - even in hi def!!! Happy days, Mike H

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Hi All, Happy days indeed! I feel brass-monkeyish after sitting in a drafty marquee with most of the village this afternoon. Boy it hammered down! Good spread but oh the rain! Better last night watching the fireworks before each beacon lit up in the distance until ours on Lanhill joined in. Warm & clear. Over 4,000 fires I gather. Quite a spectacle as Cherhill & Westbury white horses lit up first. Enjoyed the Thames pageant despite ignorance of the craft through weak reporting here. Golly poor old Duke stood there for 4 hours at 91 years old. No wonder he is in hospital. Can stand any number of ships since my Dad was Admiralty. Now all is over (will we repeat in 10 years?) so I have a full glass, a fuller tum, and happy memories. God Save the Queen!

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