Battle of Wounded Knee...

 

Scrobs was going to do another musical post next, but time at a desk has been reduced as the knee is hurting more than somewhat!

It's no real big thing, but the smallest jobs take a lot more thinking don't they, so as it's on the mend, I'll start again!

I was going to make some reference to the real Massacre at Wounded Knee, but reading the Wikipedia section has further affected my dislike for the way that so many Indians were treated back then, (see Scrobs Passim - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre the illustration seems to have gone, but it's just a stock pic so not important), and my fat joint is not worthy of a comparison!

But anyway, the dog's been walked, the fire cleared and all is on the mend as expected!

Chapel in the valley...

Back in 1965, a teenaged Scrobs was on a short holiday with his family in Wales, and we stayed in a converted chapel miles away from anywhere! It really was very bleak, and why such a fervent place of worship should be so far from the flock it was meant to administer, I've never understood! But anyway, I remember it clearly as quite a pleasant place, and incredibly quiet and peaceful.

My dad took a few photos, and when we cleared out their house back in the nineties, I kept them, as one does!

The tree line to the left is actually the River Severn, but merely a stream at that point!

Dad's Vauxhall VX490 TDY 175 parked further along.

Scrobs at seventeen...

It had a huge fireplace, and my mum had come equipped with several packets of John Player Mild fags, and dad had brought several of the new style Ind Coope beer cans - the sort you opened with a sort of triangular spanner! So all was well with the world!

Scrobs back then carried fewer ounces of course, and that was possibly going to change, but of course, he didn't know that back then, fifty-five years ago...

But...I could never remember the address of the place! I knew roughly the area (most of South Wales), and that was it!

Fast forward to the recent lockdown times - Scrobs is in the roof, clearing some of the usual dross which has accumulated over the years, and his old writing case appears from nowhere! A quick shufti through the contents brought forward some old letters, and lo and behold, a couple of these missives were from a certain holiday home to the west of Llanidloes! An internet search, however, came to nought, and I spent ages poking around country lanes, 'driving' past all sorts of barren landscapes, and getting nowhere!

Cue a chum here, Mr MC, (Morbid Curiosity - on the right), who immediately found a list of all the redundant chapels in Wales, and their locations! Superb deduction!

The rest is history, and here is the exact chapel, modified a bit around the front door, and clearly a happy home in the hills for someone who treasures such idyllic surroundings!

Geufron Chapel

Clutching at straws...

I really must put up a new post, as the fabulous Enid one has gathered so many comments (smarm), I feel it is time I did something more!

As lots of chums here know, I'm still stuck in the 'pomp rock' years, and just to make some waves with several afficianados, I want to post a link to one of my favourite albums...

Fish has such a distinctive voice, he's a very clever man, and some of the tracks on here are just staggeringly fabulous!

The Enid - live at Hammersmith Odeon - 1979...

'Judgement'

D3 has just told me about this performance, and it is just stunning - especially at 5.15am, as I was wide awake, and JRT wanted to go out!

I missed out on a lot of good music around 1979, as family members were unwell, and work was too  good, but time-consuming, the girls were very young and I had to be away a lot...

'Pomp Rock' has always been foremost here, (I even got bollocked by Tuscan Tony for not knowing much about early Pink Floyd, and preferred some of the later stuff), but hopefully, there'll be a few more from D3 from around then, and I'll get up early for those as well!

 

Shed music and other considerations for good friends...

I have a decent selection of all my old cassettes in a box in our shed The old double-player is tied to the roof, over the door, with pencilled instructions on FF, Play etc!

This week's preferred tape is this one...

Hellfire, it's over 40 years old! 

And, to welcome one of my favourite chums back to the blog, here's a special one for Lilith and Elby!

New Year common sense...

And she never had a Grace...

Senora O'Blene and I were mulling over what Christmas presents we were given during our childhood the other day.

I started the 'mull' with a description of a No 4 Meccano set, which was in fact a gift from a business friend of the family, and received a few days before the big day. Senora O'Blene has heard this story around eighty-five times - every year, and always counters with her collection of toy farm animals and people like farmers, milkmaids etc.

It's a recall of much joy, when we realise that all these gifts were in fact 'educational', or perhaps interactive, whereby a child-like imagination was set free, and anything could be made from these items, like a whole village, or that strange strung-up model in Meccano, a 'Telfer Span'!

But this year, I heard something else in the discussion about the various characters on the farms my dear wife made. She admitted that 'She never had a Grace', which was a reference to Grace Archer, from that epic programme which depicted the awful fire in the stables, and the poor girl never got out!

Now there's a revelation! Of course, nobody in their right mind would have such a tragic figure in any game, and I still believe the conspiracy theory that the Beeb did that on purpose, to get the headlines away from the new ITV channel, which was starting that night!

And they didn't even play the closing music at the end either!