Wearing wellies, I painted these hawthorns on a bend of Coxley Beck in April 1996. They were overhanging the deeper outside bank and since then the beck has undercut them and they ended up in the stream.
A Bend on the Beck
Author: Richard
Humboldt’s Penguins
We’d missed their feeding time at Sewerby Hall Zoo and this moulting Humboldt Penguin was lolling by the pool, soaking up the afternoon sun.
Over on the other side of the pool there was more action with one penguin seeing off a rival then duetting – braying loudly, bills pointed skyward – with its partner.
Jenny
Jenny, natural history illustrator, drawing by our pond. She recently completed a commission to illustrate an information board about the wildlife at a pond on a nature reserve in West Sussex.
She started on John Norris Wood’s natural history illustration course at the Royal College of Art a year after I left, in 1976 and graduated in 1979, focussing on the Chelsea Physic Garden, it’s history and plants.
Mosey Downgate
Mosey Downgate, RSPB Bempton Cliffs, 12.30 pm, Thursday 6 July, 69℉ 24℃: Most of the kittiwake chicks now have conspicuous black stripes along their forewings, although there are some downy chicks still around. One birdwatcher tells me that he was here a month ago and he estimates there are now three times as many nesting.
The warden suggests that this impression might be because a month ago many of the pairs were nest building and spending more time away from the cliffs. Kittiwake numbers are stable at Bempton but nationally the bird is in decline, so the wardens are keeping a close watch on numbers.
Squabs
Two young wood pigeons looking relaxed in our golden hornet crab apple.
The Old Gang
One last snapshot from our 16 July 1965 third form trip to Swaledale. Sorting through the old gang (‘gangue’ = waste) near Hurst, Swaledale are my two school friends Derek Stefaniw examining a chunk of mineral – perhaps fluorite or galena? – alongside cool dude Paul Copley.
Snack Safari
Happy birthday to Iris.
“How old is Iris?’ asked Barbara as she read my caption about ‘hyper-parabolic, pan dimensional alien visitors.”
“Old enough to understand ‘hyper-parabolic aliens’,” I reassured her.
Triumph Herald Coupé
Amongst my 1965 negatives, the shots that I took to start or finish off a film are often everyday scenes from home life that wouldn’t normally get recorded. This shot, which comes just before the Richmond Castle photographs, is my mum’s car, a Triumph Herald Coupé taken in our back yard.
We did once fit our family of five into mum’s coupé, even though there were no seats in the back. More comfortable was dad’s Standard Vanguard Estate, registration RHL 777, which he bought from our friend Jack Buckle’s garage.
The Covenanters
Happy birthday to Dave, who recently found himself at the sharp end of a charge by the Covenanters. Admittedly they were armed only with traditional muskets and pikes but still a formidable fighting force if they’re hurtling towards you.
Lunch by the Swale
My Letts School-Boys Diary, Friday, 16th July 1965:
Trip. Wore jeans and pullover. Set off 9.10 got to Richmond at 10.45. Had lunch over looking Swale. Went round castle. Guide (1/-) got postcard of Richard III. Trip in Dales made 3 miles longer (?) because of road blockage. Developed film
Perhaps after such a long day I should have left developing the film until later but despite the botched job, I’m pleased 58 years later, to have rescued some images from the negatives.
I haven’t visited the castle since, so I think that it’s time to re-read the guidebook and take another look.
My friend Stefaniw appears, slightly solarised, in one of the photographs. We were in the third form and my diary records that the previous day our O-level subjects were decided:
Am taking Art and Physics with Chemistry. I did seascape in art. Read Beowulf. Gave in Maths and Eng. books.
Stef persuaded Mr Axford to let him take all three sciences.
Did Triffids.
Watched Matterhorn Anniversary Climb, M. from U.N.C.L.E
Thursday 15th July 1965
