A very good rule to follow is that under ordinary circumstances the brakes should not be used with such violence as to cause the wheels to skid, or to occasion a jar to those driving in the carriage. If this is carefully observed the vehicle will last much longer.
In his excellent short book “And Life Went On” Joe Jeffrey outlines the effect the Civil War had on the small town of Montevallo, Missouri.
This extract describes how Union troop stragglers came through the town. -
"Great-grandmother Ball had a story she told my grandmother. In later years Union troop stragglers from the regiments came through one time. They had already stolen all her cows but two. She had a young baby--that was my grandmother--and needed the cow's milk. She also had a few chickens left for fresh eggs. They came through and drove her cows off. They also had other cattle they had rounded up. They took the few remaining chickens she had. They came in the house, took her lard, and her flour and butter and sugar that she had gone in a wagon over to Fort Scott to buy. So she went out and pleaded with the officer who was on a horse. She pleaded with him and told him she had a baby in the house and she had an old lady, she had an aunt and some cousins. He said, 'Well, lady if you can call your two cows by name and they will follow you back, you can have them.' She called them and they turned around and came toward her. 'Lady, you may have your cows back.' So I thought he must have had a heart after all. She never did lose those two cows to men coming through."
"She told stories of them coming in and pounding on the table for certain kinds of food. She and her relatives living with her would prepare the food and set it before them. Then as a pastime the soldiers would line them up against the wall and throw knives at them and the knives would go into the wall. But none of them lost their lives and their house wasn't burned like some."
"People weren't safe anywhere. And the people living with her weren't safe there with her, but their lives were spared. Seems almost like a miracle that they were because people in other places were more mistreated."
This extract comes from an excellent article “WAR WITHIN THE STATE” about Missouri in the Civil War, -
After the Battle of Pea Ridge, the Confederacy never achieved rule over Missouri and northern Arkansas. Regardless, the war continued. And while the men fought and died on the battlefields in Missouri and elsewhere, the women and children remained home, existing as best they could. Every male between sixteen and sixty had to fight--by choice or conscription. This left the women, young children and older people alone to make a living. Staying alive on farms was difficult and made worse by military confiscation of horses, food and clothing. A poor fate was made worse by the constant fear of seizure.
No one could remain neutral, for both sides considered neutrals as enemies. However, aiding one side meant possible death if the occupying army changed. For men who decided against joining the army, few options were left open. To remain home meant hiding whenever an army was nearby. Capture resulted in forced joining or being shot as a spy. Some decided to make war on their own, or as a private army with other cohorts. Still others realized the war was a perfect opportunity to embark on crime, in the guise of one army or another, but preying upon everyone.
Bill Wilson was one example of a bushwhacker who embarked on his own. His father was killed by Union troops moving through the area near Waynesville, Missouri. After this, Wilson roamed the wilds, cheerfully gunning down small Union patrols in revenge. The Union command at Rolla placed a price on his head, but he was never captured and lived in freedom long after the war.
Field Hospital and Flying Column
Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister
in Belgium & Russia
By
Violetta Thurstan
At first sight Brussels seemed to be en fête, flags were waving from every window, Boy Scouts were everywhere looking very important, and the whole population seemed to be in the streets. Nearly every one wore little coloured flags or ribbons—a favourite badge was the Belgian colours with the English and French intertwined. It did not seem possible that war could be so near, and yet if one looked closer one saw that many of [8]the flags giving such a gay appearance were Red Cross flags denoting that there an ambulance had been prepared for the wounded, and the Garde Civile in their picturesque uniform were constantly breaking up the huge crowds into smaller groups to avoid a demonstration.
The first thing to arrange was about the coming of my nurses, whether they were really needed and if so where they were to go. I heard from the authorities that it was highly probable that Brussels would be occupied by the Germans, and that it would be best to put off their coming, for a time at any rate. Private telegrams had long been stopped, but an official thought he might be able to get mine through, so I sent a long one asking that the nurses might not be sent till further notice. As a matter of fact it never arrived, and the next afternoon I heard that twenty-six nurses—instead of sixteen as was originally arranged—were already on their way. There were 15,000 beds in Brussels prepared for the reception of the wounded, and though there were not many wounded in the city just then, the nurses would certainly all be wanted soon if any of the [9]rumours were true that we heard on all sides, of heavy fighting in the neighbourhood, and severe losses inflicted on the gallant little Belgian Army.
It was impossible to arrange for the nurses to go straight to their work on arrival, so it was decided that they should go to a hotel for one night and be drafted to their various posts the next day. Anyhow, they could not arrive till the evening, so in the afternoon I went out to the barriers to see what resistance had been made against the possible German occupation of Brussels. It did not look very formidable—some barbed-wire entanglements, a great many stones lying about, and the Gardes Civiles in their quaint old-fashioned costume guarding various points. That was all.
Field Hospital and Flying Column
Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister
in Belgium & Russia
By
Violetta Thurstan
The work in the office was diversified by a trip to Faversham with some very keen and capable Voluntary Aid Detachment members, to help improvise a temporary hospital for some Territorials who had gone sick. And then my turn came for more active service. I was invited by the St. John Ambulance to take out a party of nurses to Belgium for service under the Belgian Red Cross Society.
Very little notice was possible, everything was arranged on Saturday afternoon of all [6]impossible afternoons to arrange anything in London, and we were to start for Brussels at eight o'clock on Tuesday morning.
On Monday afternoon I was interviewing my nurses, saying good-bye to friends—shopping in between—wildly trying to get everything I wanted at the eleventh hour, when suddenly a message came to say that the start would not be to-morrow after all. Great excitement—telephones—wires—interviews. It seemed that there was some hitch in the arrangements at Brussels, but at last it was decided by the St. John's Committee that I should go over alone the next day to see the Belgian Red Cross authorities before the rest of the party were sent off. The nurses were to follow the day after if it could be arranged, as having been all collected in London, it was very inconvenient for them to be kept waiting long.
Early Tuesday morning saw me at Charing Cross Station. There were not many people crossing—two well-known surgeons on their way to Belgium, Major Richardson with his war-dogs, and a few others. A nurse going to Antwerp, with myself, formed the only female contingent on board. It was asserted [7]that a submarine preceded us all the way to Ostend, but as I never get further than my berth on these occasions, I cannot vouch for the truth of this.
Ostend in the middle of August generally means a gay crowd of bathers, Cook's tourists tripping to Switzerland and so on; but our little party landed in silence, and anxious faces and ominous whispers met us on our arrival on Belgian soil. It was even said that the Germans were marching on Brussels, but this was contradicted afterwards as a sensational canard. The Red Cross on my luggage got me through the douane formalities without any trouble. I entered the almost empty train and we went to Brussels without stopping.
Field Hospital and Flying Column
Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister
in Belgium & Russia
By
Violetta Thurstan
A week later I had a telegram from the Red Cross summoning me to London.
London was a hive of ceaseless activity. Territorials were returning from their unfinished training, every South Coast train was crowded with Naval Reserve men who had been called up, every one was buying kits, getting medical comforts, and living at the Army and Navy Stores. Nurses trained [3]and untrained were besieging the War Office demanding to be sent to the front, Voluntary Aid Detachment members were feverishly practising their bandaging, working parties and ambulance classes were being organized, crowds without beginning and without end were surging up and down the pavements between Westminster and Charing Cross, wearing little flags, buying every half-hour edition of the papers and watching the stream of recruits at St. Martin's. All was excitement—no one knew what was going to happen. Then the bad news began to come through from Belgium, and every one steadied down and settled themselves to their task of waiting or working, whichever it might happen to be.
I was helping at the Red Cross Centre in Vincent Square, and all day long there came an endless procession of women wanting to help, some trained nurses, many—far too many—half-trained women; and a great many raw recruits, some anxious for adventure and clamouring "to go to the front at once," others willing and anxious to do the humblest service that would be of use in this time of crisis.
Surely after this lesson the Bill for the State Registration of Trained Nurses cannot be ignored or held up much longer. Even now in this twentieth century, girls of twenty-one, nurses so-called with six months' hospital training, somehow manage to get out to the front, blithely undertaking to do work that taxes to its very utmost the skill, endurance, and resource of the most highly trained women who have given up the best years of their life to learning the principles that underlie this most exacting of professions. For it is not only medical and surgical nursing that is learnt in a hospital ward, it is discipline, endurance, making the best of adverse circumstances, and above all the knowledge of mankind. These are the qualities that are needed at the front, and they cannot be imparted in a few bandaging classes or instructions in First Aid.
This is not a diatribe against members of Voluntary Aid Detachments. They do not, as a rule, pretend to be what they are not, and I have found them splendid workers in their own department. They are not half-trained nurses but fully trained ambulance [5]workers, ready to do probationer's work under the fully trained sisters, or if necessary to be wardmaid, laundress, charwoman, or cook, as the case may be. The difficulty does not lie with them, but with the women who have a few weeks' or months' training, who blossom out into full uniform and call themselves Sister Rose, or Sister Mabel, and are taken at their own valuation by a large section of the public, and manage through influence or bluff to get posts that should only be held by trained nurses, and generally end by bringing shame and disrepute upon the profession.
Field Hospital and Flying Column
Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister
in Belgium & Russia
By
Violetta Thurstan
THE BEGINNING OF IT ALL
War,
war, war. For me the beginning of the war was a torchlight tattoo on Salisbury
Plain. It was held on one of those breathless evenings in July when the peace
of Europe was trembling in the balance, and when most of us had a heartache in
case—in case England, at this time of internal crisis, did not rise
to the supreme sacrifice.
It
was just the night for a tattoo—dark and warm and still. Away across the plain
a sea of mist was rolling, cutting us off from the outside world, and only a
few pale stars lighted our stage from above.
The
field was hung round with Chinese lanterns throwing weird lights and shadows
over the mysterious forms of men and beasts that moved therein. It was
fascinating to watch the stately entrance into the field, Lancers, Irish
Rifles, Welsh Fusiliers, Grenadiers
and many another gallant regiment, each marching into the field in turn to the
swing of their own particular regimental tune until they were all drawn up in
order.
There
followed a very fine exhibition of riding and the usual torchlight tricks, and
then the supreme moment came. The massed bands had thundered out the first
verse of the Evening Hymn, the refrain was taken up by a single silver trumpet
far away—a sweet thin almost unearthly note more to be felt than heard—and then
the bands gathered up the whole melody and everybody sang the last verse
together.
The
Last Post followed, and then I think somehow we all knew.
An overhead projector (often abbreviated to OHP), like a film or slide projector, uses light to project an enlarged image on a screen, allowing the view of a small document or picture to be shared with a large audience.
In the overhead projector, the source of the image is a page-sized sheet of transparent plastic film (also known as "foils" or "transparencies") with the image to be projected either printed or hand-written/drawn. These are placed on the glass platen of the projector, which has a light source below it and a projecting mirror and lens assembly above it (hence, "overhead"). They were widely used in education and business before the advent of video projectors.
Overhead projectors were once a common fixture in most classrooms and business conference rooms, but in the 2000s they were slowly being replaced by document cameras, dedicated computer projection systems and interactive whiteboards.Such systems allow the presenter to project video directly from a computer file, typically produced using software such as Microsoft PowerPoint and LibreOffice. Such presentations can also include animations, interactive components, or even video clips, with ease of paging between slides. The relatively expensive printing or photocopying of color transparencies is eliminated.
While an overhead can display static images fairly well, it performs poorly at displaying moving images. The LCD video display panels that were once used as an add-on to an overhead projector have become obsolete, with that combination of display technology and projection optics now optimally integrated into a modern video projector.
Batman originates all the way back to 1939 where he was first introduced in Detective Comics. Since then he has grown to become one of the most famous, if not the most famous, superheroes of all time. Batman made it from the comic book pages onto the TV screen in the 1960s when the Batman TV series first aired starring Adam West as Batman/Bruce Wayne.
Both Batman and his companion Robin were two crime fighters there to defend Gotham City, their mode of transport was the Batmobile.
Players may move pieces out of their home onto their designated start space only when the die lands on 6. Getting a 6 at any point in the game also allows the player to take another turn, even if the player cannot move any of their pieces (as they cannot land on any of their own pieces). They also may move a new piece out even if they have another piece currently in play, and can also do the same if another player's piece is occupying their "start" space, but cannot do so when one of their own pieces is occupying their "start" space.
Pieces move clockwise around the track. Players can send opponents' pieces back to the start by landing on them. Teaming is not allowed in the game. Pieces are protected from capture after arriving in the final four slots of the finish area. Unlike more complex race games such as Parcheesi, counters cannot be maneuvered to block opponents' moves.
Pop-o-Matic die container
The most notable feature of Trouble is the "Pop-O-Matic" die container. This device is a clear plastic hemisphere containing the die, placed over a flexible sheet. Players, roll the die by pressing down quickly on the bubble, which flexes the sheet and causes the die to tumble upon its rebound. The Pop-O-Matic container produces a popping sound when it is used, and prevents the die from being lost (and players from cheating by improper rolling). It allows for quick die rolls, and players' turns can be performed in rapid succession.
The dividend was a financial reward to customer based on each customer's level of trade with the Co-operative. The distribution of profits on the basis of turnover rather than capital invested is a fundamental difference between a Co-operative and most private sector enterprises.
Customer sales would be recorded in ledgers in the society's stores, at the end of the collection period a proportional payment would be made to the customer.
As the societies grew, the number of customer increased and the method of using ledgers became cumbersome. As a solution the Co-operative issued stamps to customer for qualifying transactions. Customers collected the stamps on a savings card, when the card was complete the customer would use it as payment for goods or deposit into their share account.
The dividend stamps were introduced nationally 1969.
Some three million Stylophones were sold, mostly as children's toys, but they were occasionally used by professional musicians such as John Lennon, Kraftwerk and David Bowie.
The Stylophone consists of a metal keyboard made of printed circuit board and is played by touching it with a stylus. Each note on the keyboard is connected to a voltage-controlled oscillator via a different-value resistor, and touching the stylus to the keyboard thus closes a circuit. The only other controls are a power switch and a vibrato control on the front panel beside the keyboard, and a tuning potentiometer on the rear.
The Stylophone was available in standard, bass and treble variants, but the standard version was the most common. There was also a larger version called the 350S with more notes on the keyboard, various voices, a wah-wah effect that was controlled by moving the hand over a photosensor and two styluses.
In the mid-1970s, a new model appeared that featured simulated wood on the speaker panel and a volume control. However, production of the Stylophone ceased in 1975.
Entertainer Rolf Harris served for several years as the Stylophone's advertising spokesman in the United Kingdom and appeared on many "play-along" records sold by the manufacturer.[
However, they were brought back to the UK in 1999 with a £1 million advertising campaign, perhaps in response to demand from people who had enjoyed them in the 1970s and now had their own children.[citation needed]
The packaging features various cartoon characters (drawn by Gary Dunn): Klondike Pete (a gold prospector who mines Golden Nuggets), his mule Pardner, his enemies - two claim-jumpers named Plum Loco Louie and Boot Hill Bob (jointly "The Breakfast Bandits") - and a Golden Nuggets Bee.[2] The Klondike Pete character was also used in the 1970s to market the US version of the cereal, Klondike Pete's Crunchy Nuggets.[3][4] The box also sometimes features puzzles suited to the 7–12-year-old range.[citation needed] The cereal is marketed with the slogan "They taste Yeee-Haa!"[5] (Previously "They're honey-crunchin' good!").
In ancient Egypt, pharaohs and nobles used distinctive antique signet rings made of hardstone or a blue pottery called faience. In the Middle Ages, antique signet rings were used by wealthy, powerful individuals to sign and seal their letters, proving that they were indeed authentic documents whilst preventing forgeries and tampering.
Thanks to a growing merchant class, antique signet rings became a form of branding during the Renaissance. As European merchants took to the Silk Road and began transporting goods overseas, they used signet rings to stamp seals on their shipments, making it easier to identify goods on arrival.
One of the greatest inventions of the 20th Century was the Pop-a-Point Pencil. I loved these and would buy as many as I could. Great fun and great to use
Pop a Point Pencils are also known as Bensia Pencils, stackable pencils or non-sharpening pencils. It is a type of pencil where many short pencil tips are housed in a cartridge-style plastic holder. A blunt tip is removed by pulling it from the writing end of the body and re-inserting it into the open-ended bottom of the body, thereby pushing a new tip to the top.
Hours of fun and very interesting pictures and patterns with the Spirograph
Spirograph is a geometric drawing device that produces mathematical roulette curves of the variety technically known as hypotrochoids and epitrochoids. The well-known toy version was developed by British engineer Denys Fisher and first sold in 1965.
The definitive Spirograph toy was developed by the British engineer Denys Fisher between 1962 and 1964 by creating drawing machines with Meccano pieces. Fisher exhibited his spirograph at the 1965 Nuremberg International Toy Fair. It was subsequently produced by his company. US distribution rights were acquired by Kenner, Inc., which introduced it to the United States market in 1966 and promoted it as a creative children's toy. Kenner later introduced Spirotot, Magnetic Spirograph, Spiroman, and various refill sets
In his book “Seaward Sussex” - Edric Holmes, describes the battle of Lewes fought on a hill near Lewes in 1264.
In the great struggle of May 1264 between the forces of the Barons and Henry III, for which Lewes will always be famous, Lewes Castle took no actual part and merely surrendered at discretion.
"The battle was fought on the hill where the races are held. Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, headed the Baronial army. The Royal forces were divided into three bodies; the right entrusted to Prince Edward; the left to Richard, Earl of Cornwall, King of the Romans; and the centre to Henry himself. Prince Edward attacked the Londoners under Nicholas Seagrave with such impetuosity that they immediately fled and were pursued with great slaughter. Montfort taking advantage of this separation, vigorously charged the remaining division of the Royalists, which he put to rout. The King and the Earl of Cornwall hastened to the town, where they took refuge in the Priory. Prince Edward, returning in triumph from the pursuit of the Londoners, learned with amazement the fate of his father and uncle. He resolved to make an effort to set them at liberty, but his followers were too timid to second his ardour, and he was finally compelled to submit to the conditions subscribed by his father, who agreed that the Prince and his cousin Henry, son of the Earl of Cornwall, should remain as hostages in the hands of the Barons till their differences were adjusted by Parliament. In this contest, 5,000 men were slain. The King, who had his horse slain under him, performed prodigies of valour. Richard, Earl of Cornwall, was taken prisoner."
By all accounts, it was a good fight, and the best men won. A touch of humour is added to one record wherein it is related that Richard, King of the Romans, took refuge in a windmill, wherein he was afterwards captured amid shouts of "Come out, thou bad miller." This mill stood near the old Black Horse Inn, but has long since been burnt down.
Accounts vary exceedingly as to the number of the slain, some authorities giving as many as 20,000, others no more than 2,700.
