The Avebury Stones

The village of Avebury is seen as a mecca for those who believe in Paganism, Wicca, and Druidry. The Avebury Stones surround the village in the fair county of Wiltshire England, a county renown for it’s fine quality hams and fresh country vegetables.

The summer solstice and pagan festivals held at Avebury attract visitors from all over the world, as Avebury stands on the St. Michael ley line that runs from Cornwall to East Anglia - and in the village itself ; The Red Lion Public House can offer you one of the most ghostly inhabited pubs in England!

Bletchley Park near Milton Keynes England was a secret for over 30 years. Once it was Britains best kept secret. The Enigma cipher machine was developed and used here during the second world war to break the German codes. It was very successful and believed to have shortened the war by around two years, saving countless lives.

Today the park is open to the public as a heritage site and museum, and Marilyn and I explored the wide range of exhibitions and learnt how its codebreaking successes worked. More incredible than fiction, the story of Bletchley Park was a desperate race against time. The mission of codebreakers like Alan Turin, was to crack Germany’s coded communications, such as those sent via the German Enigma machine. Bletchley Park was Churchill’s secret passion; he called the codebreakers his “Geese that laid the golden eggs but never cackled” 8.500 people worked at Bletchley Park during the war and all done with amazing secrecy.

Colossus was on view; this was the world’s first semi-programmable electronic computer and developed for Bletchley Park. The size of a small room, it used over 2,500 valves, and the rebuilt version is operational today.

Bletchley Park was the world’s first large-scale codebreaking centre, and there is much to see and do there. Marilyn and I enjoyed our day, visiting the Mansion House, a number of well-staged exhibitions, the fine Cafe, and the codebreaking huts. The Park is situated in a beautiful parkland setting, with a lake, wildlife and an American Garden Trail commemorating the special relationship formed here.

Bletchley Park is online @ www.bletchleypark.org.uk

Behind the blast screens that protect this bungalow is a multi-room complex protected by 10ft thick concrete walls. This is where the government of the day and senior military persons would have run things in the event of a nuclear war.

The Bunker built near Brentwood, Essex, England, is now open to the public. If it was ever to be used, it could house some 600 government personnel, a BBC studio, a dormitory, sick bay and canteen. Also included in the complex is a scientist's centre and plant room for life support.

Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Cold War Bunker is online at: www.secretnuclearbunker.co.uk

Some years later they had a son and named him Robin Geoffrey. But tragically, he died at the very young age of only ten years whilst away from home and at boarding school.

Regretfully, the distraught parents separated in 1918, and Enid and her mother moved to London in order to stay with friends. It was here, that Enid’s interest in the stage began to blossom. She had reluctantly entered a beauty contest and then won the first prize of a part in the chorus line of a top West End show. The quality of her voice and exacting diction soon led her to stage training under Rosina Filippi, and in 1923 she toured in the ‘The Lady of the Rose’. During the thirties and forties, along with her agent Al Parker, she successfully built a powerful film and stage persona. 

In 1929 she married the prosperous businessman Sidney Colton, and in 1934 they had their beautiful daughter Robin Anne’. However, two years later the marriage was over and consolation came in the form of another businessman by the name of Louis Jackson, and for a while they lived happily at Catherine Place, Westminster; close to Buckingham Palace.

Sadly, Enid died alone, and during the bitter cold winter that followed the summer of 1945. She had collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage in the bathroom of her Park Lane address and was found by the maid in the early hours of that subsequent terrible Monday morning.

Some of the photographs included from time to time on my weblog pages -because this site is dedicated to words and pictures, a picture is worth a thousand words… come from Robin Anne’s own private collection. They are… those treasured memories that we like to keep as images of a near forgotten world.

And now, she sleeps so prettily, beside the little picturesque church of St. Nicholas in the quiet and charming Surrey village of Alfold, and where now and then… I refresh a single red rose to her memory.

Stephen Donoghue was one of the most famous English jockeys in racing history. He began riding in 1909 and achieved his first big success winning the Cambridgeshire stakes in 1910. He rode 143 winners in 1920 and won the Derby six times from 1915 to 1925 thus establishing a record on the turf. He was born in 1884.

Amy Johnson. (Mrs. James A. Mollison) She worked for a time in a London solicitor’s office. Then after qualifying as a pilot, established her first record with a solo flight to Australia in 1930. Next year she flew to Japan and then with her husband flew to the Cape. Sadly, she perished in an air accident in 1941. She was born in 1904.

Dame Sybil Thorndike. A badly sprained wrist, due to too much piano practice, led her to give up her ambition to be a concert pianist and to become an actress. She acted in Shakespear plays in the UK and USA, and she also had many other leading roles. Born in 1882.

Well, would you ever believe it!…

The ‘SS. Politician’ sank off the Scottish Island of Eriskay in 1941, and eight years on the Ealing movie romanced the story of how the islanders seconded some of its 24.000 cases of Scotland’s finest scotch whisky.

Whisky Galore can be found at: www.thewhiskygalore.com/

The Water of Life is available in many blended and single malts from Whisky Galore…

It was in the summer of 1948 when the Ealing crew arrived on the beautiful Island of Barra in the Western Isles of Scotland. Michael Balcon, head of Ealing Studios had not been happy about the production, saying as he looked at the story board, he just did not understand it!  “It holds few laughs” he was heard to comment. Based on a Compton Mackenzie novel, shooting almost entirely on location presented huge problems, everything, including cast and crew, and a huge amount of camera equipment, had to be shipped from mainland Scotland. Actors were billited with a number of the Islanders, and in fact, many of the inhabitants appear in the production. Their view of the film people was… That they were quite mad! Prefabricated sets were constructed at Ealing Studios in London then shipped for assembly on Barra. Under the brilliant direction of Alexander Mackendrick, an American born Scot, the film gently eases you into a world of warmth, gentilityand innocent skulduggery. It think this was partly due to Mackendrick’s insistence on being present during every scene, however, this did push the budget over by 20,000, and in those days that was a lot of money…as Michael Balcon soon pointed out, and when he saw the rushes he hated it, and ordered the film to be cut and released as a B’ supporting picture! At this point, Mackendrick asked Charles Crichton, a top editor, if he would look at the negatives. He did… And Recut, and Recut… the result was a more acceptable product for the Ealing Studio boss. Being based on a true maritime sinking means that some facts had to be changed. The real sinking took place off the Isle of Eriskay, and the local Islanders did profit from their huge haul of ‘Scotch’… Unlike the movie that had to deal with the moral issue. In America the movie was given a new title and called “Tight Little Island” because a number of States were at the time ‘Temperance’  If one looks at the stills today Alexander Mackendrick is always there beside the camera operator, and I think, that is what made it such a lasting and enduring, warm and attractive film.

Walter R. Hammond. Played for Gloucestershire as an amateur cricketer in 1920, and when he turned professional in 1923 scored over a thousand runs in his first season for that county. Afterwards, he played for England against Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the West Indies.

John Berry Hobbs. Starting on the ground staff of Surrey County Cricket Club, he was eventually made a playing member and excelled as a batsman. By 1935, when he retired, he had made the then unsurpassed record of 197 centuries, including twelve in Tests against Australia. During his career he played many times for England.