Photo Album-England
Trawden, Lancashire
I recently was very happy to receive an e-mail from an ex
resident of Trawden who now lives in Canada. He is Andrew Neil Shaw, and below
is part of his message.
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What a serendipitous stumble that I
made about an hour ago, this cold Canadian night ! For the past
hour spent looking over your magnificent presentation of dear old
Trawden, I thank you over and over. Yes, Trawden was my birthplace and
home 1930 through 1954. SO many happy memories, even in spite of
the war years. Indeed, I well remember your "landing on planet
earth" right next to dear old Bill Stevenson's home !
Even though the Zion was my chapel, I wish I could bring up a picture of
your early days therein. I guess since you are 14 years younger than I,
that by the time you were old enough to participate, I was off after
girls on my motor bike ! I even married a Colne / White moor
lass, whose uncle Arthur Calvert (and his father, Jimmy) was featured on
the late 40's Zion Choir photograph. I believe my dad and granddad
(Andrew and John William Shaw) are on the right back row, I could
be wrong as I have not yet closely analyzed the down loaded shots.
I can still hear them and a couple more bases singing the resounding
Halleluiah Chorus.
Have lots of "stuff" to share if you
wish. In 1990 I shot on film, a series of panoramic
exposures from our family front garden (Beau Vista) that cover about 200
degrees, East Boulsworth all the way round the village through to East
Colne on the extreme right. I managed to "stitch" them
together manually and they don't look too bad. The problem on the
computer screen, how do you do full justice to same, when you have an
aspect ratio of about 7 :1
I am sorry to hear about the pending demise of
the Zion. I believe the overall UK church scene is in rapid decline.
This strangely is somewhat in conflict with Canada and the USA. I
suppose this is fortunate for me since for the past 40 years I have a
small company that builds organs and solid state organ control systems
for pipe organs. In 1990 I brought over and installed a control
set up system for the organ in St. Bartholomew's church, Colne.
I donated it and it was dedicated in
memory of Andrew, John William, Andrew Shaw (Dad, Granddad, Great
grand dad) for their work in the field of music in many local churches.
I believe that dad was choir master at the Zion for some 38 years.
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| In August 2006, another instalment arrived... |
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A short update ?, I hope you are keeping
well. After I received my four new arteries plumbed in, I have never
felt better, it was a little tough mentally for the first little while,
apparently I am told that was normal, but the strange thing was that I
was not the least bit depressed, it was just that the old brain box
amplified events in the brain. I could not stand musical harmony ! The
organs that I had built over the past 30 some years, I could not stand
the sound quality of them. My eyes were so sensitive to certain colours
of light, that I could not stand those new discharge car lighting
systems. It was not the extreme brightness, it was the frequency
spectrum of the light. My hearing returned to that of a much younger
person, I was extremely sensitive to both the high and low frequency
spectrums. Low frequencies in the 10 hertz range drove me nuts. I could
hear the resonance of the heating furnace gas flame as it burnt somewhat
unevenly. To preserve my sanity therein I set up some of my ribbon
microphones and analysed the waveforms on an oscilloscope, indeed it
showed up in real time on the wave forms ! No, I was not imagining same.
Things have returned to normal now, it was a concern since audio and
photography was my work and live long loves. I don't know why I told you
all this, suppose its because that was your work too. The medical folks
thought I was crazy and wanted to put me on mind altering drugs such as
Zoloft, etc. No way.
The actual reason I am sending this at this
time, I thought you may be interested to see and maybe post a couple
photos of old Trawdeners ( I guess Winewall is in Trawden ) on your
very excellent web site. Tommy (Thomas) Alton was my wife's early boy
friend from the early 50's At the time I went into the RAF 1951 Tommy
chose to go back to the USA ( He was born there) Doreen and I knew he
was subsequently drafted into the US Air Force. For the last 50 year's
we have been trying to find him. Finally, via the internet, Doreen
located him and we got in touch. Indeed he had made a career in the US
Air Force and had retired as Colonel Thomas Alton...not bad for an old
Winewaller. So after a few false starts, we finally met. Doreen and I
drove down to Summerville, South Carolina in April and had a great week
with Colonel Tom ! The attached pictures are from those days. I checked
with Tom and told him my plan to send them to you. It was fine by him.
He still has sisters who live in the Colne area, I believe over the
years because of his rank in the air force he could fly wherever he
wished when planes were available. Not a bad perk. Of course he
hopelessly out ranked me as I came out of the RAF as a lowly one stripe
technician ! Please feel free to use the pictures any way you wish,
don't feel obliged to use them either.
I believe I asked you a while back, if at any
time in your BBC career you came in contact with either Dr. Arnold Loxam
or Carlo Curley ???
Carlo lived with us on and off over the
summers of 1972 &73 He did a few recitals for me on my organs. I still
have some interesting 1/4" ampex tape ( Now copied on to CD's) from that
era. Also Arnold Loxam did couple of concerts for me 2001. I talk to him
often, he does not cross the Atlantic any more, he's a great gentleman
in the true sense. He has some great tales to tell of his days with the
BBC Northern Region. He played often at the Tower, Blackpool, after
Reginald Dixon retired. I believe his son Keith is still a producer for
the BBC.
Carlo was and probably still is quite a
character, what a great organist and promoter he is. If you are at all
interested in organ music and you have a few extra MB of email space,
let me know and I will send you a little music from the past, that was
inspired by my early exposure to Walter Bracewell and the Zion Organ !
For what it's worth, Carlo's Web page is
www.carlo.com
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And now from John Rawnsley who has another story to tell
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Dear Mr Baker,
I have just come
across you web-site about Trawden Zion - the memories came flooding back!
I used to sing
regularly there with Colne Orpheus when my mentor Ronald Riley was
conducting the choir; Mr. Land usually played the organ for these 'Choir
Weekends'. One of my most treasured memories was the famous 'tea' or
'heavy refreshments' taken in the school room following the afternoon
concert and before the evening performance. I don't know how we managed to
sing afterwards - the tables always seemed to be 'groaning' with goodies!
And then there
was the the tea itself - always brewed to perfection by the legendary
Calvert, do you remember him?
Edris Bracewell
and his wife Margaret no doubt do - what lovely people! Edris's dad was a
good singer too..
Please pass on
my best wishes to them and also to David Gott .... ah what happy memories!
The lady
soloists for these concerts were usually Jean Eccles - soprano(she went
off to Australia) and Freda Hart, contralto, along with Roy Gibbons, bass
and John Burgess, tenor. Sometimes I was even allowed to sing the solo in
'Holy City' ... ah happy days!
I have quite a
lot of film taken outside the Chapel by my father during one of these
Weekends - along with some B&W photographs - in fact I am sure Edris has
film too, both he and my dad were always taking photos!
All best wishes
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John Rawnsley. |
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