The carved stonework above the main entrance has the beehive logo, along with two corner roundels; one of  scales and the other a handshake (& what looks like a heart above) denoting fairness and cooperation.

It is very clean and modern, if a little utilitarian. Good to have the facility back though, as we had to do without for a couple of years whilst the new one was rebuilt on the site of the old one which was put up for a price in 1973 when Morley Borough Council knew it was going to be abolished and they didn’t want to simply give the assets to the newly formed Leeds Metropolitan Council (known as Leeds City Council for continuity).

This development is a Private Finance Initiative scheme, so we will still be paying for it long after it has fallen down…

If you are into shots of grinning councillors in hard hats then you can see some of the interiors here.

The book charted the social and architectural jigsaw of the rise and fall of the Cooperative Society in the town. At its peak there were five distinct sets of adjoining retail premises along with twenty-one branch shops in outlying areas, warehouses and even a pie factory.

The book can be bought at Co-op travel and Co-op pharmacy in town and you can read a review here.

There are still snippets of history around the town un-noticed to most. This photo shows where it all began 141 years ago on the corner of Albion Street and Commercial Street, the premises now belonging to a firm of Solicitors.

I thought at first that the clock had survived from a distance but I hadn’t appreciated that the faces had gone and what I was seeing was daylight through the tower. Up closer, the bitter truth becomes apparent.

The fire is regarded as suspicious by many and there is a £500 reward from local Councillors.

Now the Strand isn’t anywhere near Victoria by any stretch of the imagination and it involved a Tube change (or a taxi ride, or a brisk walk), but GEC got a Corporate rate there so it was the preferred choice. As I was going to be on-site for a total of twelve weeks, I eventually moved to the Grosvenor Victoria (over the station) for a cheaper rate which didn’t have quite as grand a public floor but the rooms were much more comfortable.

Now the Strand Palace celebrated its Century last year but the current building dates from the mid-twenties and it takes up an entire City Block (spilling to adjacent properties via a staff bridge in a similar manner to its former sister hotel the Regent Palace just off Piccadilly Circus). My impression from thirty years ago was smart public rooms (if somewhat marble-bland) but not up to much upstairs. The hotel had lots of single rooms, all rather pokey, generally far too hot and the ones I stayed in all seemed to face into a light well rather than out to the street. (Ditto most of my colleagues). If you opened the window, you got cooking smells & noises from the depths.

Back during my first stay, I went urbexing a couple of times and managed to explore the various rooftops and get into the hoist rooms for the Otis state of the art lifts (the sort that had neon touch pads in the cars for the floor buttons).  The lifts were rather small and thinking about it, it might have been the Esso lifts that were state of the art.

The only other memory I had of the hotel was the rather strange light fittings in the lower lobby, a glass globular structure not unlike prophylactics which I nicknamed Condoliers. In 2010 the Johnny-lamps have gone but the basic lobby shape  was vaguely recognisable.

Upstairs, a lot more fire doors have appeared in the narrow corridors, but floor layouts are helpfully shown on large panels in the lift lobbies revealing that there are actually six light wells in this large building. This stay, I had a club room which was on the corner facing onto the Strand and a scintillating view of a big shimmery sign for Legally Blonde at the Savoy Theatre opposite. (This hid the famous Hotel sign that inspired the Rolls/Royce radiator shape due to lots of scaffolding).

The room was visually stylish, very clean and the bed comfortable, but I seemed to have a lot of insomniac neighbours so had a somewhat disturbed night. The buffet food earlier didn’t have too much choice & was a bit dried out from the hotplate. Despite the shortcomings of the hotel, it has one thing terriffic going for it- location. It is next to the Lyceum Theatre, opposite the Strand Theatre and very close to Drury Lane and the Royal Opera House. The Covent Garden Piazza is moments away and it is but a short stroll to Trafalgar Square.

The Hotel remains very popular with tourists & mid-market business travellers. Whilst I’d hesitate to recommend it, rooms can be had for a reasonable price & I’ve stayed in much worse.

My Bosses’ Boss, though, thought it sucked- a pokey, drab, gloomy, too hot room on a high floor at the back.  Some things don’t change…

The hotel was famous in the thirties for its striking Art Deco foyer spaces, some of which apparently still exist behind the scenes. Elements were recreated for an exhibition at the V&A museum seven years ago, a taste of which can be seen here. (& in flash here)

The arena has 96 corporate suites on two U shaped levels between the lower and upper tiers of seating. Levels 2 and 3 are only accessible from VIP entrances and whilst it is hardly exclusive in that they must accommodate getting on for 2000 people,  the concourses feel spacious and quiet compared to the throngs below who paid good money rather than getting schmoozed.

Arriving at the suites themselves, they have a decent sized lounge with bar and sofas, with three rows of sets beyond stepping down to the balcony edge. Each row of seats (between 5 and 10 depending on the size of the box) has individual cupholders and are pleasantly comfortable, at least for an arena. Glassware is not allowed on the seating but you can take your drinks down in plastic glasses, or alternatively, there is a shelf and barstools if you prefer to hold on to your drink (& chat).

The staff from Virgin holidays told us that they share the box with Virgin Atlantic and it costs them a five figure sum as the catering and drinks are supplied by the venue, you can’t bring your own catering in. As it was a 21 seat box (three rows of seven) they chose nine lucky winners who could bring along a guest. We had specifically allocated seats and Karen and I were lucky enough to get the front row. (I had guessed that from the eTickets we had been sent, and also guessed correctly that the box would be almost opposite the stage rather than off to one side).

Our coats were swept away into the suite wardrobe and we were immediately offered drinks from their extensive bar and given free rein to the finger food. We had red wine before the show and in the interval, with a refreshing Magners iced Cider at our seats during the show (refreshed after the interval).

Now Karen loves Dancing on Ice whilst I am much more Blase’ about it (probably a side effect of relamping at the top of wobbly scaffold towers actually on the ice at Richmond Rink back in the 80′s.) I did, however, enjoy the performances of national treasures Torvill & Dean.

The trouble with ice shows is that they are a vast open stage and very difficult to fill, although they had a valiant effort at the start with large tent style cloths doing an impressive Kabuki drop afterwards . It was ten years since we had been to the Greenwich Peninsula (it was the millennium dome then and a bit of a touchy feely PC flop when crowds stayed away in their thousands but it did have one massive success – the opening ceremony Millennium Drop). Now the O2  is vibrant and thriving, the entertainment avenue feeling a little like Universal Citywalk, although the dome is still only half full in the doughnut around the arena and the British Music Experience was only drawing a trickle of people, probably because the tickets were £15. (It sounded a bit too much like an online interactive version of the ill fated pop museum in Sheffield that we managed to visit before it bombed.

As we had been to see a Matinee, we squiffily made our way to the Leicester Square TKTS booth and picked up some (slightly) cheap(er) tickets for Sister Act at the London Palladium, Stalls Row C right at the side. It doesn’t have any of the songs from the movies so if you went expecting that you might be a little disappointed but we already knew that and the new Alan Menken songs certainly rock. I also got a big scenery fix as the set changes are stunning. The wine wasn’t as good as Branson’s though and also rather expensive, stinging my Mum £21 for three glasses of red ordered for the interval.

Here are some low quality pics from the O2, they don’t let you take decent cameras in.

It is a couple of decades since your Shadester held a Tiller but it didn’t take long to get back in the groove. I ended up Skippering most of the time as the first Mate and Billie no-mates seemed to be good at zig-zagging between banks (and occasionally into them).

There were only two locks on the stretch we covered which we locked down through on the Saturday and locked up through again on the Sunday. This meant that it wasn’t too strenuous for the crew.

We headed from our base at Chirk to Llangollen on Saturday afternoon, being on the world famous Pontcysyllte Aqueduct within an hour or so of setting off.

We went up to Llangollen on the Saturday morning, winding there and returning back, cruising steadily through the day and mooring up at Ellesmere. On Sunday we chugged along a bit further to look at some wildlife sanctuaries before returning and mooring up an hour or so south of Chirk (after a brief stop for a late liquid lunch).

On Monday morning, an early start gave us a clear run through the Chirk aquaduct & tunnel before returning the boat to Black Prince, intact other than a broken glass from the washing up and a few extra scratches on the hull (& a light coating of brick dust on the roof- those tunnels & bridges are tight…)

However, another member of royalty also visited twice in 1968, that TV Superstar and Queen of Soap Lover’s TV schedules, actress Pat Phoenix, otherwise known as Elsie Tanner from Coronation Street. She opened two buildings; the new (& still trading) DFS Furniture store in March and the refurbished (& now defunct) Star Bingo less than six months later in August.

The Star Bingo, which became Walkers Bingo, was formerly the New Pavilion Cinema, built as a Theatre in 1911 and featured previously on this blog. Up until now, no early  interior photos of the Pavilion were known to be available and local author Ronnie Barraclough struggled to find any at all for his book Morley Entertainers and for previous research into the building. (There are a few photos of actors on stage and in the foyer but not of the auditorium).

However, last autumn, journalist Stephen White was invited to give a presentation at the Morley Literature Festival and he looked though his extensive collection of Leslie Overend photographs for a selection of topics. He found some shots of the Pat Phoenix Bingo opening including some curious interior shots which I reproduce below.

Stephen mentioned that he found the photos surprisingly evocative; it transported him back to messing about at Saturday afternoon picture shows as a youngster, having a great time and generally returning home much dirtier than when he went out. Having seen the state of the carpets in some of these photos, that is hardly surprising!

Hover for additional comments.

Thanks once again to Stephen White and leslieoverend.com for finding these very rare interior shots and for letting me reproduce these images. High quality prints or scans from his huge collection are available by contacting him.

Additional note: It looks like the Star Bingo banner above the proscenium which I took to be a pelmet is actually painted directly onto the Safety Curtain.

Now, the room has been totally transformed. The 1923 interior has gone, revealing the original ceiling. The balcony has gone and the stage has swapped ends. The windows have all been uncovered and a small wrap-around balcony has been inserted.

They very kindly sent me a photo of a project they knew I would love to see. On first sight, it looks like some sort of tent structure with an inverted fountain as the centrepiece. Putting it into context though, this is actually a scaffolding birdcage structure in order to provide a working platform for a high ceiling. When you look more closely at the picture, the scale starts to become apparent.Those scaffolding platforms look small but they are twice the height of the Artisans. Also notice in the far right, what looks like a large tilted lantern and the top of some form of ornamental column. These reminded me of a similar decorative feature in the London Playhouse but a trip to Google showed that these were the capitals of two enormous tent type poles supposedly supporting a massive canopy above the proscenium. The picture is from the wonderfully evocative Beacon theatre in New York, an escapist Movie House apparently built for the legendary showman Sam “Roxy” Rothafel in 1926. (Never actually operated by him, however, according to Wikipedia).

Take a look at these various restoration shots, here, here and here.

By the way, Scagliola isn’t a type of pasta, it is a decorative finish designed to look like marble.

Contrast that with a trip to Forbidden Corner, for a Charity Barbecue. Forbidden Corner is a Folly near Leyburn in North Yorkshire, we have wanted to go there for a while but it is necessary to pre-book and the thought of doing it in bad weather did not appeal. Fortunately it was a balmy evening and a fun couple of hours searching through the rather peculiar attraction for stickers to put on our collection card for the prize draw. There were surprises all over the place, but the biggest one of all was in the toilets in the car park. You entered through outhouse Privys (fortunately out of order!) into luxurious surroundings. The Ladies was smart but undistinguished, whilst the Gents was decorated with an exotic mural and you were able to pick a Continent of your choice for the purposes of micturation.

Ironically, I enjoyed the rainy days best, as the Boot of the car was full of various board games and we all enjoyed ourselves around the big table. In the evenings, we converted the caravan into a dormitory, with various seating areas converting into sleeping areas.

If I had to list the bad things about caravans in the 70′s, it would revolve around their general feel of the fit-up, having to turn everything around for eating, sleeping and general relaxing. They were always a bit cold and damp, a bit too narrow to be useful without having to climb over each other, the fixtures and fittings rather cheaply assembled, the inconvenience of the muddy walk to the loos and finally, the deafening  noise on the roof when it rained stair-rods.

Over the years, we have stayed at holiday camp caravans and they have gradually improved. They started to get toilets, hot & cold running water, TVs, fridges, electric lighting and even showers. Their beds have always been a bit ropey though and they end up very cold if you wake up in the middle of the night.

However, after a week in a very smart caravan indeed in a camp near Scarborough, I think I have finally put most of my demons to rest.  This one had discrete furniture, en-suite, an actual bath, therostatic shower(s), elegant lighting, tons of cupboard space and a kitchen better equipped than at home. It was double glazed with thick, insulated walls, central heating, hot water on demand and a dolby digital sound system for the flat screen TV.

After a week, though, you start to realise that whilst it is indeed a luxury caravan, it is still essentially a pressed steel box on wheels with designer styled fixtures that are constructed in a similar manner to MFI flatpack furniture. You start to miss the little home comforts, like curtains that block the light so that you can sleep past dawn and spin cycles on the washing machine that don’t make you feel slightly nauseous. You also miss walls and ceilings that don’t have screw caps and light switches that are where you actually want them. Grandma missed a bed that you didn’t fall out of (or crash into the wall) when turning over and migrated to the Sofa Bed after a couple of nights.

That is just nitpicking though, the only demon it hasn’t totally chased away is the noisy roof issue, when it rains heavily it will wake you up. (Not that it did, but Grandma Pat experienced heavy rain when we were out and confirmed it was very noisy). It is the best caraven we have ever stayed in and I’m not surprised some people buy them as holiday homes. However, the Circa £50k price tag puts me off!

It was a very cool Caravan but it seems that it is already last year’s model, Messrs Willerby have already redesigned it for the new season. Open Plan is now in…

Sat 08 Aug 2009     Whitby Swing Bridge 100 Celebrations
Lots of events today to celebrate our grand old lady’s 100th birthday.
From 12.30  Swing Bridge paintings exhibition in Pannett Art Gallery.
Entertainments from the Tourist Information Centre to the Swing Bridge:
Cleveland Police Band, Marske Fishermens’ Choir, Saltburn Victorian Society,
Stakesby School Steel Band, Coblers Monday Folk Group, etc.
3.30 pm Civic leaders assemble at the bridge.
4.00 pm  Bridge opens and William Riley lifeboat leads Regatta through.
Speech and Blessing as they sail past.
4.25 pm  Bugle fanfare as plaques unveiled by Whitby Town Mayor and
Scarborough Borough Mayor. Fanfare, National Anthem,
Bridge closes for parade across the bridge.
Organised by Whitby and District Tourism Association, WTC, SBC & NYCC.

In the meantime, we decided to revisit the town on Monday and take in a bridge talk in the evening. Sadly, the museum closes Mondays, although we got a glimpse of it (and the famous Hand of Glory) on the way to the talk.

The talk was by the modern equivalent of the Borough Engineer and was somewhat technical in nature which was fine by me of course. It was all too brief and followed by a question and answer session which exposed much of the petty rivalries and frustrations of various eccentrics in the Town Civic Society. (My Mum said that two old dears next to her were indulging in a muttered bitchfest during the Q&A, much enlivening it for her in the process).

The bridge is in two parts which can rotate independently, although the northern leaf has to be moved first as there is a curved arc in the road where they move (and lock together with a pin mechanism underneath) and the curve is convex north, concave south.  They are based on a cantilever principle, with a long slender roadway counterbalanced by a shorter, thicker section landside. The mechanisms are hydraulic rams driven by electric pumps, with fallback diesel engines as backup.

The bridge leaves are controlled by a panel on the bridge pavement underneath one of the streetlamps on each side. When all is well, the operator simply presses one button and the leaf moves automatically. Sometimes, though, things don’t work properly, in which case the bridge can be moved manually by pressing various buttons in the right sequence.

Reliability of the control systems has been a recurring problem, so they are in the process of upgrading all of the equipment to IP 68 standard, i.e. it could be fully immersed and still work OK.

One thing we weren’t told is how they decide to open the bridge. It is quite simple really, it is manned either side of high tide and opened on the hour or half hour by request of shipping- on VHF maritime radio.

Anyway, I have a few photos but I can’t seem to upload them at the moment, I’ll do it when I can.

Happy birthday, Whitby Swing Bridge.

One year, I’ll visit the Tyne Swing Bridge on heritage weekend. (I don’t know about this year, Uncle Nobhead is visiting again).

By co-incidence, we were there exactly 82 years later and we signed up for a “VIP Tour”, a chance to see “backstage”.

Of course, it isn’t really backstage at all, or even behind the scenes, as we didn’t go anywhere that the paying public would not also be able to access. It was a chance, however, to have a guided tour round the foyers and a quick peek into the auditorium, as well as the “VIP lounge” in the nearby Mann’s Chinese 6 (a modern multiplex) and a sit in a D-Box chair, theme park meets flea pit!

Our knowledgeable guide handed out headsets with belt packs and my first thought was that it was some form of recorded commentary. It was actually a radio based personal PA system so we could hear everything he said to us over his boom Mic (unless we lagged too far behind).

The cinema is unusual in that it has a frontage set back from the road forming a large paved elliptical area. It is designed as a Chinese temple and I’m not certain that Syd Grauman actually indended it to become the tourist trap it is today with the “Forecourt of the stars” (Intended or not, it was a brilliant piece of marketing though, even if it does sound like a celebrity petrol station).

Having seen the Disney reconstruction in Florida, I can remember visiting the Hollywood one some 12 years ago and being somewhat disappointed to see a rather out-of-place rectangular opening hacked into one of the side walls, with a cheap sign above showing the way to the car park. That opening is still there but it has been much played down architecturally as it only leads to a fire exit corridor and the wall of a large construction site to the left of the Cinema. To the right, a large shopping centre has now been built, which also houses the Manns Chinese six.

Entering the lobby of the theatre, a rather visually jarring refreshment counter betrays that it was formerly part of the back stalls, with richly elaborate fibrous plaster cross-shaped medallions on the ceiling.

We were led quietly through the darkened auditorium- Wolverine was showing on the huge 90′ screen! It was much bigger than I was expecting, although it now only seats 1,200 or so. (It doesn’t have a balcony, but did/does  have private boxes upstairs).

They let me come back later in the interval though, to take this snap.

Whilst it has lost much detail over the years, what remains is still very striking.

Much more of the history and vintage photos here.

The reason for her call was that their old High School was celebrating it’s 80th birthday and they were inviting as many former pupils as possible.

Now Karen’s old school is surprisingly famous. No, it isn’t Eton, or Harrow, or even Rodean. It is Levenshume High School, otherwise known as Weatherfield Comp as it is regularly used by Granada TV for filming as part of Britain’s longest running Soap opera, Coronation Street. (Karen comments that the Wikipedia entry is spherically, plurally, incorrect, although the other school mentioned may have been the case some time back).

Karen keenly follows Corry and as I generally surf with a laptop on my lap in the lounge (or more accurately with a laptop on my belly) I am peripherally exposed to the Soap. Being a Mancunian by upbringing, she would regularly point out any OB scene that she recognised. The shots of the school intregued me as it looked somewhat like a grand old 19th century Arts and Crafts Country House.

Anyway, David and I came along to keep her company. She had told us a bit about the school- how it was an E shaped building with classrooms in the wings and the hall in the central strut along with Gyms beyond. She told us it had a posh entrance down the end of a long driveway that the pupils weren’t allowed to use. She recounted her three years there in the 3rd, 4th and 5th forms, pranks that had gone on and punishments, including her class being banished to a corridor for form registration for the entire 5th year. There had been a lower school in another building further down the road, now long gone.

On arrival at the school, marshalls directed us down the elegant tree lined drive and along the front of the building, past the dining hall onto the tennis courts. (“Hah! These were the netball courts”, interjected Karen.) The school is indeed still “E” shaped, but with much tweaking and extending so that there are various lumps and bumps on the structure, including some low grade 50s buildings and a brand new energy efficient community use sports facility called the Energy Box. (I christened it the sweat box).

When we arrived, we went into the main hall, where there were various displays about the school history and the future. There were extensive archive photographs as well as some old documents through the ages. (Apparently most of this was pulled together for the 75th anniversary celebrations five years ago so it was comparatively easy to restage).

Now a school that has no direct memories for me is relatively academic for interest so I was more attentive to the spatial arrangements and how it had evolved over the years. It turned out that this school had been built in 1928, officially opening in 1929. It had always been a Girls school and indeed had been a selective Grammar school until such time as the Trotskyists in the LEA abolished such elitism in the pursuit of mediocracy.

The building was light and spacious (apart from the basement), but not overly disabled friendly, being on three main levels (with a lift) and a few rooms on landings due to some of the quirky extensions built over the years. The original Gym block looked as though it had been built in the 60s with exposed concrete columns and window walls whilst the main building style was not too far removed from Victorian. The dining hall also looked like it dated from the 60s with exposed ceiling zig zag steel trusses and weetabix ceilings, all now painted shocking shades of green and yellow.

The main entrance area near the hall was smartly painted with extensive wall and floor tiling, although most other areas were rather utilitarian, with the original staircase blocks looking like their brickwork had been simply glossed over. I didn’t even see any of that local authority surface mainstay, speckled texture paint.

One striking thing in the main hall was the light fittings- very large and deep circular shades with translucent infills and sides in school green. Smaller matching shades were also found in the entrance hall and vestibule, whilst everywhere else florry lights (or CFL fittings) were the norm. The hall also had some additional decorative lighting- aircraft-like PAR fittings lit the bases of the ceiling beams as well with some wall up/downlighters on the stage proscenium. A neat little lighting controller at the back of the hall integrated the tungsten and discharge lighting for assembly and performance use.

Looking at the older photographs, they had quite a few whole-school panorama shots, some outside, some inside. The indoor ones were in the hall and I noticed that the original lighting fittings were large open bottomed circular frosted glass shades, one of which was missing, exposing the 500 Watt GES (Goliath Edison Screw)  GLS (General Lighting Service) clear lamp to view. A later photo showed that the original open bottom shades had been replaced with large spherical shades and yet again there was one missing. (My own school had flying saucer shades and two were missing in the main hall, an occupational hazard of either allowing sports in the hall, or possibly the precarious practice of relamping on large wobbly wooden ladders by the caretakers).

Whilst Karen enjoyed looking around, she felt that the event had not been as successful as my recent school trip, mainly because we were left to ourselves and there wasn’t any obvious programme. However, we were excellently fed with a huge buffet in the dining hall and many of the pupils acting as ambassadors kept bringing  trays into the main building.   There may have been speeches towards the end but we only stayed for the first couple of hours. The children were putting on various forms of entertainment on the stage but nobody was introduced or anything like that.

As for the uniform, we assumed it was still bottle green but most of the kids had a white T shirt on with some form of stylised picture, possibly of the school. We did see an old lady with a school scarf though, impressive that she saved it for forty years or so since she attended. (I still have my school prefect tie but I retained it more for fancy dress purposes, it has to be said).

One other comment Karen had (and her sister also made on seeing the pictures)- the buildings looked rather run down and tired. A new build is on the horizon though and a large set of complex plans were also on display, although I struggled to get a chance to study them, as ambassadors kept offering me sandwiches, vol-au-vents and samosas.

It was also reassuring to see that Karen’s memory is just as fallible as mine. She showed us three successive classroom doors that she recalls had been booby-trapped with a bucket to trick the teacher, each successive door she changed her mind and assured us it was this one. The last was a cupboard!

The tower is 331 feet tall. The building was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, also famous for Battersea Power Station and the Red Telephone Kiosk.

Tangentially  related to the K2, (as in being commissioned for the British Post Office), I also walked past this fine post box  down near the Albert Docks area, near the office where the Duck boats depart.  This would not look good with an extra postman storage box bolted onto the side of it.

I once had a trip to the Post Office Research Establishment near Rugby and visited their house of the future. One interesting feature was a household external drop box, openable by the householder and also by delivery tradesmen. I’ve waited for such an item to appear for years and got mildly interested when Royal Mail started using the term Safeplace  on their delivery cards. Disappointingly, the scheme is not quite what I’d like yet.

On my first behind the scenes visit to the complex, we were passing through the Baronial Hall when olur guide decided to try a door, which he was pleased to find unlocked. This led to the dressing room block and the stage house fly gallery. Here was a rather bizarre sight, that of the bricked up proscenium, the safety curtain chained to the grid and below us, the false ceiling of the cafe. It was bright up there as there was a frosted glass decorative skylight in the Cafe ceiling and this was lit from above by a couple of Sodium discharge floods on Dexion struts. Most people eating in the Cafe would have no idea that above them was a forty foot void. (This was the same for visitors to Newcastle Odeon Screen Four, the back half dozen rows being under the abandoned fly tower there).

Nowadays, the Pavilion Circles are abandoned and mostly draped off. Whilst there is theatrical lighting for the stage platform and tungsten lighting on the balcony front, much of the  downlighting was from Mercury discharge highbay floods so the venue looks rather garish.