Monthly Archives: July 2023

by | July 29, 2023 · 6:17 am

Widdle (7) or, more accurately, the Rise of the Urban Fox

After the First World War, London began to expand as a city, particularly to the north and west. What had been farmland was now purchased and then built on. Many, but not all, of the woods were chopped down, the trees and branches were burnt, and new houses were then built on the site. The people who lived in those new houses for the most part worked in the centre of London and new words had to be invented to describe what they had to do in order to get to work. They took the train. Suburban, local trains, whose only purpose was to carry people who were now being called “commuters”, on their way to work. What they did was called “commuting”, and it obviously paid them to do it. Their salaries must have been high enough to justify adding a couple of hours to every one of their working days.

The very best paid commuters lived in what were called the “leafy suburbs”. They could even afford to buy a detached house near the golf course, with four or five bedrooms and a large private garden all the way round it:

In some cases, the leaves of the new leafy suburbs were attached to trees which pre-dated the building of the new houses. Builders with a bit of vision had soon realised that they could save themselves a lot of cash, and finish up with a much better product if they kept as many of the mature trees as possible. All they had to do was to build the houses between them and to do the same with the streets, if they could. Look at the age of these trees:

That slight change in approach by the builders had quite an effect on the suburbs created at the ends of the hundreds of the suburban railway lines which linked the centre of London with the houses where their office workers lived. And, to their credit, instead of just moving on elsewhere, the creatures which had lived in the woods before the developers arrived, made enormous efforts to stay in their homes and not be forced out.

In some cases badger setts survived the building process and remained unnoticed behind the park-keeper’s new storage sheds.

Hedgehogs hunted slugs and snails in rockeries and vegetable gardens, just as they had in spinneys, copses and woods.

Mice, shrews and rats went unnoticed, as they always have. But above all, one animal benefited enormously. That was “vulpes vulpes”, better known as the fox. They carried on their lives pretty much as they always had done, taking little or no notice of human beings and their machines. If anything, life was considerably easier, and food more plentiful now that they lived in a city suburb, which was always a few degrees warmer than the bleak countryside. And very soon London had in excess of 10,000 urban foxes. And many other cities experienced the same process. Bristol. Birmingham. Sheffield. And Nottingham, the home of the most famous fox of them all…….

Here’s another of them, hurrying to the fish and chip shop to see if anybody couldn’t eat all of what are, hopefully, generous portions:

Foxes, like all undomesticated canids, are extremely intelligent. Once they have made a friend such as a big, fat rabbit, they always like to see if they can get even closer to him, perhaps by pulling a likely chain:

And here’s one of the very few photographs of Banksy Fox”…….

Next time, we take a look at the quality of the sausages available in the Iceland supermarket chain, exploring the views of one of their keenest consumers…………

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by | July 23, 2023 · 6:17 am

Brincliffe Grammar School for Girls (3)

There was a strong connection between Brincliffe School and the High School but not, as you might expect, between the boys and the girls. Instead, the connection was a sporting one, and consisted of a number of football matches, all of them played between 1877-1880, when the physical building on Balmoral Road accommodated “Porter & Jones, boys’ school (Tudor House)”.

The High School had played their first match against another school seven years previously. News of the game appeared in the new school magazine, “The Forester”, which introduced a section entitled “Our Chronicle”, which was designed to allow reports about “the sports… of the School.”

Thus, on November 19th 1870, having travelled to Mansfield, the Nottingham High School First XI played a Mansfield Grammar School XV at football, beating them 3-0. Around 110 years later I took the First XI to Mansfield, not in a steam train, but by minibus, and we played them on a darkish Wednesday afternoon. We lost, although by then they had changed their name to Brunt’s School, now changed again to Brunt’s Academy. The Orange Arrow shows the High School, Mansfield is in the middle of the top edge of the map, and then see if you can find Eastwood, the birthplace of DH Lawrence, ex-pupil at the High School (1898-1901).

History always likes to puzzle us with the fogs of confusion that it loves to create, though. Just as we were digesting the fact that the High School played its first ever football match on November 19th 1870, when the First XI beat a Mansfield Grammar School XV by 3-0, I found that there is a some evidence that organised football was played by the High School even before this.

In just one edition of “The Forester”, there is an allusion to a football game between the High School and a Tudor House School XV on February 27th 1878. Charles Edwin Attenborough, the son of a hosier from Bilbie Street, was unlucky enough to break his leg and dislocate his ankle. It was reported at the time that, with the exception of one broken collar bone in, probably, the 1872-1873 season, this was the the first injury of any consequence “since the new school opened in 1868”.

This intriguing phrase might conceivably be taken to imply that football matches had taken place in that short interim period of just over two years between April 1868 and December 1870, when “The Forester’s” first reports appeared. This is so long after the event, though, that we may never know the exact truth.

Seven years after their first ever game against any other other school, the First XI played Mr Porter and Mr Jones’ “Tudor House” on October 31st 1877, probably on a pitch on the nearby Forest Recreation Ground.  The First XI won 15-0 and “The Forester” recorded that Tudor House did not once get the ball into the High School half, at any point in the game…..

“Goals were obtained as fast as the ball was kicked off.”

Fifteen had been scored “when time was called”.

Four months later, on February 27th 1878, again probably on a pitch on the nearby Forest Recreation Ground, the First XI beat a Tudor House XV by 3-2 (as already mentioned above). During this game, thirteen year old Charles Edwin Attenborough was unlucky enough to break his leg and dislocate his ankle. Despite our modern perceptions of the roughness of Victorian football, “The Forester” reported that, with the exception of one broken collar bone four seasons previously, this was the first injury of any consequence “since the new school opened” in April 1868.

And here it is, a photograph thought to have been taken on April 16th 1868, the school’s first day. The first lesson to be learnt was that more toilets would be needed if queuing was to be avoided:

A week or so after the glorious triumph over 15 boys in the Tudor House XV, on March 6th 1878, on the Forest, the First XI again played a Tudor House XV. and beat this slightly more numerous team by 2-0. These two games were the last two fixtures of the season 1877-1878.

During the following season, Tudor House scored their first ever victory over the High School. On a day misprinted in “The Forester” as October 60th 1878, on the Forest, the reporter said that “This was a very even game, but the fact that Bramwell and four other first team members were absent probably tipped the balance in favour of Tudor House.” They won by 1-0. We don’t know what colours the High School played in. In both these photographs, the colours are black and white. They come from 1897 and 1910, approximately:

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A year later, on March 12th 1879, at an unknown venue, but probably the Forest , the First XI played out a skilfully planned 0-0 draw with Tudor House. This fixture took place in an extremely high wind, which encouraged the Tudor House players merely to kick the ball out of play as far as possible at every opportunity. “The Forester” lamented….

“….Unfortunately there is no rule which provides for occurrences of this kind, but we should have thought there would have been a better spirit prevailing to prevent such unsatisfactory proceedings.”

When I was in charge of the First XI, around 2000, I employed this tactic and it was extremely effective. Even better is to kick the ball into the road, the busier the road the better. Boys are not allowed to pursue a ball in such circumstances and it has to be the teacher/referee who has to go and fetch it. Invariably, he always takes ages.

Seven months later, on October 15th 1879, and back on the Forest, the two teams met again, and this time the wind had dropped and the game finished 6-1 to the High School. Only five of the regular First Team were in what “The Forester” called the “motley crew” who won this game. Now, Mötley Crüe are an American heavy metal band formed in Los Angeles in 1981. Please don’t confuse them with the Victorian footballers. It’s easily done:

Being sensible, and playing Tudor House with a weakened team which lacked many of the regular First XI players didn’t last long, though. The very last fixture ever against Tudor House came on February 11th 1880. Again at an unknown venue, the High School triumphed. The score was recorded as

Nottingham High School “at least 12” Tudor House 0

“The Forester” wrote that

“the difficulty in this game was “not to get goals”, so weak were the opposition. Goal followed goal in quick succession, so that it was rather hard to keep a correct account. It was certainly not less than 12 goals, and may have been more.”

I once coached the Second Team in such a match. It finished 13-0 (referee). 14-0 (me) or 15-0 (several of the players). We lost, of course.

We once lost to another school team who had a nine-year old girl in goal. Their member of staff asked me if it was OK for her to play and I agreed, not knowing that she was Spider Woman in her spare time. We lost 3-2.

STOP PRESS

Elsewhere I have spoken about how, in the attic, I stumbled upon the box containing all of my slides from the 1970s and early 1980s.

The photograph below I took around 1976. It was taken from the corridor which ran down towards the then E13, and you can see the roof of the Old Gymnasium and the Assembly Hall, sometimes called the Player Hall. Directly behind that are the two buildings of Brincliffe. To help you identify them, they both have gables picked out in bright white……..

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by | July 15, 2023 · 6:17 am

The First Day of the Battle of the Somme, July 1st 1916 (Part 2)

This post continues the  story of the disastrous First Day of the Battle of the Somme, using the details discovered by the English historian. Peter Barton, in his careful studies of the German Archives. We now know, for example, that every single German knew about the ten minute delay between the end of the British artillery barrage and the beginning of their infantry attack…….

This allowed them to emerge from their concrete bunkers to prepare their machine guns and their artillery for action. And when the fighting started, thousands of young British soldiers would die unnecessarily……

Peter Barton also discovered that the Germans possessed copies of the British textbook used to teach every aspect of British military tactics to would-be officers on special six-week courses. This wonderful find meant that Germans now had a minimum of a ten-week period to get to know, and how to combat, every single tactic likely to be used in the forthcoming Battle of the Somme, before the battle even began. Unbelievable! But very useful if you were a German.

As well as the book of British tactics, historian Peter Barton also found out from the German Archives that the Germans had in their possession all of the British plans overall and the detailed timetable of their individual attacks.

Part of those plans was to detonate the nineteen mines placed underneath many of the German front trenches. The British timetables the Germans possessed revealed that the mines were due to go off exactly twenty minutes before the main attack. This provided the Germans with a splendid reserve alarm clock, telling them how long they had to prepare their defences.

The Germans also knew all the details of the British artillery and the calibre of all the shells that they were firing.

The British soldiers who crossed no-man’s-land were the “New Model Army”. Recruited by Kitchener, they were very inexperienced and not particularly professional. Hardly any of the men had ever seen a German, and many of them were operating in “Pals” battalions. These were men from the same occupations or the same town and they had all joined up together, trained together, attacked together and, given their inadequacies, they might well all die together. You can probably imagine the effect of hundreds of local casualties on a small Lancashire or Yorkshire town.

Most of those casualties were the direct result of the tactics the British soldiers had been given by their officers….

“There is no need to charge. The Germans will have all been killed by the barrage.”

“Do not stop and try to shoot the Germans.

They will all have been destroyed by the British artillery.

Just walk over and take possession of the enemy’s trenches.”

The German Archives gave Barton further details about how they had managed to engineer such a slaughter of the young British lads.

Firstly, the German positions were physically higher up than the British. This allowed them to look out over the British front trenches and to see the Pals battalions much further back, preparing for their attack. And the German artillery could then prepare, at their leisure, when and where to fire as the Pals set off across no-man’s-land.

In similar fashion, the Germans were careful to set up their machine guns so that they could kill huge numbers of the British. The latter were slaughtered as they walked (as ordered) across no-man’s land.

Indeed, in many places, the location of the German machine guns, which were higher up than the British front trenches, allowed the Germans to fire over the heads of the troops in the British front line as they waited to attack. In this way, many of the British reserves and support troops much further back were killed before they had even reached their own front line, the departure point for the attack.

These more detailed researches go a long way to explaining why the first day of the Battle of the Somme was the worst day ever in the long history of the British Army.

The German archives revealed clearly, for example, that the week-long bombardment had been a complete waste of time and money. British prisoners of war revealed to their German captors that most of the German barbed wire was still intact when they finally arrived in front of the German trenches. The Germans already knew that as few as 40% of most British shells actually went off.

The British top brass had expected around 10,000 casualties among the attackers. There were 57,470. One could even argue that the Germans would have had to have made catastrophic errors not to have achieved the best part of 60,000 British casualties in only 17 hours of battle.

Most ironic of all was the statement that Barton found in the German Archives which stated that the Germans were 100% sure that the British, had they attacked by charging them, would have overwhelmed the German defenders easily because of their numbers. As it was, the ridiculous tactic of walking across no-man’s-land as if they were taking the dog for a walk, ensured that the Germans were able to kill most of the young British attackers.

 

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by | July 8, 2023 · 6:17 am

My best friend, Widdle (6)

The  colour and texture of a fox’s coat may vary due to the change in seasons.  It will be richer and denser in the colder months and lighter in the warmer months. To get rid of the dense winter coat, foxes moult once a year around April. The moult begins from the feet, up the legs, and then along the back, finishing with the neck and head.

Widdle was a fox who came to us, apparently around two years old, one day in 2007. He was looking for affection and for help. He came to us from a desire to understand nice human beings, and most of all, for unlimited access to good quality sausages:

Over the three to four years that we knew Widdle, his appearance changed a great deal. He was certainly not always what our American friends call a “red fox”, because in the spring and summer months, he was the hapless victim of his single annual moult.

According to Wikipedia, quoted above, a fox’s moult “begins from the feet, up the legs, and then along the back”. Sometimes in June, in the middle of the moult, Widdle looked rather like he’d been down to the pub the night before, and had a few too many:

In May, he had tried stretching exercises, but that didn’t last long:

No, the only remedy is a couple of sausages. Or so we thought. It was actually more complicated than that.

Widdle’s main problem with his coat was fleas, particularly during the moult. Here he is, scratching away. As far as we were aware, it was impossible for humans to be infected by fox fleas, and in up to four years with him, we never thought we had. I did once inquire about trying to give him something against fleas, but we were told it was pointless. Something for a dog and its fleas probably wouldn’t work. It might give him an allergic reaction and kill him. And, as soon as he went back to Mrs Widdle, he would be re-infected:

Male foxes fight quite a lot and here he is with part of his coat ripped off, I remember saying to him “That look’s a very painful wound.”, and he said “Well, you should have seen the other fella’.”

By winter, though, Widdle has acquired that magnificent coat that we all know and love. In this photograph, he shows that certainly as far as he is concerned, the neck is the last section to change.

Anyway, by early September, the transformation is complete. All that is missing is the white tip to his tail, which, as far as I recall,  Widdle never had. Well, not in full anyway:

And certainly, by November, it is as if he had been spray painted “fox-red”. He has lost all the black bits on his legs and the black and white stripes on the upper sides of his paws. He is Red Red Red:

The last picture comes from April 2010 when the very first signs of the Great Itching Time are beginning to appear. Even so, the coat still looks exceptionally thick and is standing on end to trap the warm air:

 

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by | July 1, 2023 · 7:30 am

The First Day of the Battle of the Somme, July 1st 1916 (Part 1)

I haven’t written very often about World War 1, but this particular subject, the Battle of the Somme, really attracted me……..

I have chosen the time to publish this blog post with great care.

On July 1st 1916 tens of thousands of British soldiers stood in the trench opposite the German lines.

When the officers blew their whistles, they “went over the top”, climbing up short ladders into no-man’s land, and walking sedately off, into battle.

Some 19,240 men of the British forces would be killed.

Some 38,230 of them would be wounded.

It was the worst day in the history of the British Army.

So……..what brought about this catastrophe?  Well ……..

By the end of December 1915, the Germans and the Western Allies had fought each other to a stalemate, a complete standstill. The latter therefore, resolved to organise massive co-ordinated attacks in 1916 in an effort to change the face of the war. The Russians and Italians, for example, would attack their respective German opponents and the British would carry out their “Big Push” into Belgium.

Things had to be completely changed in February 1916, though, when the Germans attacked the French at Verdun. The French were soon losing men in large numbers and they asked the British to attack not Belgium, but instead, to attack the Germans at the point where their two respective armies, French and British, were next to each other. This was the valley of the River Somme.

During the months of fighting on the Somme, the Allies would lose 623,907 men, including 146,431 killed or missing.

The Germans would lose 465,181 men including 164,055 killed or missing.

Allied casualties were huge……

And so were the German casualties……….

For the Allies, it was the British who fought the first day of the Battle of the Somme on July 1st 1916. These were the highest losses in any one day in the history of the British Army. The Germans, therefore, safe behind their defences, killed 19,240 men of the British forces and wounded 38,230 of their men. In just one day.

For the last century, analysts have argued why such a disaster occurred. I recently watched a three part series about the first seven months of the Somme Campaign. The programmes were based on the researches of an English historian. Peter Barton, who has spent many years as a “battlefield guide” in the Somme area……..

He carried out many of his initial researches largely because of the huge numbers of casualties involved.  He felt the first place to look would be the German language archives and he was amazed to discover that he was the first person ever to do so, and that not a single English historian had consulted them in a whole century.

Peter Barton’s overall conclusion was that the British had suffered so many casualties because of “recklessness, foolhardiness and treachery”.  All three will be explained in due course.

The cunning British plan for the forthcoming Battle of the Somme was simple……

Firstly, bombard the Germans with your artillery until they don’t know their own names.

That same artillery will destroy the barbed wire defences the Germans have in front of their lines.

Assemble huge numbers of Allied troops in their forward trenches, ready to go.

The officers blow their whistles.

The soldiers emerge into no-man’s-land and make their way towards the German trenches.

Walk, don’t run !!!!!

Take possession of the enemy trenches.

In due course, more Allied troops will arrive and any remaining Germans will surrender.

Then, all of the Allied armies will make their way deep into German held territory……… infantry, artillery, cavalry, everybody.

Repeat until you reach Berlin.

The whole thing could well be a perfect example of the strongly held British belief that “the artillery conquers, the infantry occupies”.

Peter Barton, though, found a completely different story in the German archives……

On June 30th 1916, the Germans were outnumbered by at least four to one and were completely out-gunned. Despite that, the following day, the British suffered 57,470 casualties with 19,240 killed.

Such a catastrophe is rather difficult to explain, but Peter Barton found the German Archives had plenty of suggestions.

Firstly, the Germans had been shelled for an entire week. The guns could be heard in London if the wind was right. The result, though, was quite simply unsatisfactory.

The enemy’s defences and guns had not been destroyed because a huge proportion of the shells had failed to go off. The barbed wire in front of the German trenches remained therefore largely intact.

The British troops, meanwhile, had been told to walk over to the German lines and quietly take possession of them. It would be easy, they were told, because by now the Germans would all have been killed by the bombardment.

When the attacking troops arrived at the German trenches, though, they were slaughtered……

The Germans were inordinately well informed about the British attack. For months they had been using a machine called “Moritz” which intercepted British radio broadcasts and created a huge mass of intelligence. By July 1st, the Germans knew absolutely everything there was to know, except the exact time of the attack. This they found out at 7.10 am, just twenty minutes before the whistles were blown, and the men went “over the top”.

The German Archives also proved that the British prisoners of war they had captured before the beginning of the battle had revealed every single detail of the British plans. By the time the battle began, hundreds of them had divulged everything there was to know about the British attack, including the British Order of Battle and the identity and location of every unit in the British forces. Much of it came from one particularly talkative British deserter.

19,240 men killed and 38,230 wounded 

Next time, more details about all the advantages handed on a plate to the Germans, before those fatal whistles blew, at 7.30 am on July 1st 1916.

 

 

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