Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

It is always interesting to listen to the evidence in a criminal court trial. People will describe the same event quite differently, with varying degrees of accuracy. All the magistrate or judge/ jury can do is form a mental picture out of the overlapping pieces after evaluating the likely validity of the information.

 

A lot of Peaky Blinders is shot at the Black Country Museum, I’ve just watched ‘Stan and Ollie’ I didn’t realise there’s a fair old bit of that filmed there too.

 

Doesn't Morewellham Quay do a lot of Victorian/Edwardian re-enactment type things? (It is the nearest version of the Black Country Museum that I can think of near to the L&B). Maybe they would be people to work with?

 

The Ffestiniog Railway does a Victorian Weekend in October which is worth going to see as they use the vintage rolling stock which isn't normally in service. A lot of people dress up in Victorian style clothing which adds to the period scene.

 

Especially when a 'nuke' does £30 million worth of improvements to a linear scrapyard.

 

" Cold war Gala" Well, If Ivan and 3000 of his friends want to visit the UK, I understand the FSB have a very good guide book with places of interest, , Radar sites, Porton Down, Logistic dumps, Box tunnel ( for the strategic reserve) the London offices of MI5 ,

 

There was a poster in The Needles Battery advertising something about The Isle of Wight in The Cold War

I assumed it meant that following the invasion, the Nomenklatura (Soviet Ruling Class) were going to retire to Ventnor

 

Every one seems to retire to Ventnor

 

As a seasoned re-enactor I completely disagree. Many, even the majority, of re-enactors seek to portray an accurate reflection of the past, including class, violence, sexism etc. As someone who, in his comparatively short life, has been a very ragged 17th century dragoon and a poor Viking roped into raiding, I can attest to the lengths that good re-enactors go to being accurate and reflective of the broad social history of the period they're trying to portray. This does get skewed, and I think WWII re-enactors particularly are guilty of show-boating rather then portraying accurate average soldiers on duty or on leave (the exception being the Homefront re-enactors who on the whole are excellent).

If anyone is interested in Victorian/19th century re-enactment on their railways, I heartily endorse the Ragged Victorians (www.raggedvictorians.co.uk), who are exceptionally skilled at portraying the 19th century in an accurate and highly effective way. I've seen them a few times at various events, and I think they put in a turn at Morwellham Quay most years

 

If we're recreating history the visitors perhaps should not be informed that the L & B was closed for 9 days in the strike in January 1924 and all 11 days of the General Strike just over two years later. Perhaps one of the reasons the residents of Lynton lost faith in the reliability of the railway and went to the buses. L & B staff had all joined the NUR (or ASLEF) during the War as the railway refused to pay the war bonus on top of wages to cope with skyrocketing prices. Until the NUR effectively forced the issue. So when 1924 came along they answered the Union's call.

 

Totally off-topic, but I went on a Festiniog Travel holiday to Poland in 1999 and we actually had the "pleasure" of a Communist era themed "happening" on one of the afternoons. Having actually been to Poland in the Communist era, I was a bit bemused to find them doing that only 9 years after the fall of Communism!
One bonus was an Ol49 with two 4-wheel coaches down part of a line that had been closed to regular traffic for years...



The flailing Vladimir Illych and his Comrade on the left were in charge of the "Party"......

 

Salisbury and the Ritz Hotel are two particular favourites. Just avoid the tea and check your pants before you get dressed next time.

Communist nostalgia is a big thing in the region, for tourists and for some people in the region. Although it amuses me that the really Communist stuff like the Children's railway in Budapest airbrushes its Communist heritage away.

And it isn't just limited to Communism. There is a Franz Josef restaurant in Krakow (and they can't get enough of him and Sisi in Vienna).

 

Penny Farthing

 

Not everything done under communism was bad. Most of it, but not all of it. And capitalism doesn't have a marvellous record either.

 

Well, apparently they like Salisbury Cathedral...

 

If we're going to descend into that argument, I suggest the difference between an ideology that has impoverished and destroyed everywhere that it's been granted power, against a process that has lifted more people out of poverty than any other is less equivocal than you suggest.

What this has to do with the L&B, except possibly the ability of capitalists like Sir George Newnes to start with large fortunes and end up with smaller ones in support of the development of poor economic prospects, I'm not so sure.

 

To be strictly accurate Sir George ended up with a minus fortune - his estate became insolvent after his death when it was found that several of his assets including plantations in South American proved to be next to worthless, and guarantees to Debenture holders in the loss-making Clifton Hydro (next to the Rocks Railway in Bristol) and other creditors came out of the woodwork, and his son Sir Frank had to sort it out and restore the fortunes of George Newnes Ltd which had descended into a poorly performing state. Coutts, the Bankers, seem to have been the chief losers. Reading the newspapers, you'd think Sir George was a man of property - owning much of Hollerday Hill, but except for a small piece behind the Town Hall it was leased. He even invested in a chap building an electric piano - another financial disaster. The estate was still going after WW1.

 

Hmmmmm.

I would simply suggest you look at where the Communist states were before Communism (pick any range of development indicators you wish) ie 1939 and then where they are when Communism falls ie 1989. Now, whether or not you think that the human and social costs incurred in achieving those changes are worth it is up to you. For many Communism produced step-changes in the quality of life - running water, health care, pensions, declining infant mortality, job security, social mobility, decriminalisation of homosexuality, legalisation of abortion (ironically before the UK in some parts of the Communist Europe). However, it was also at a cost. But I am not going to tell someone who went from being a the child of a peasant, whose parents were illiterate, subsistence farming and insecure, to getting an education, secure job, housing etc that Communism was a bad thing. Nor am I going to suggest to those who were imprisoned, banned, tortured or killed that Communism was a good thing. It is not a balance sheet where you count the positives and subtract the negatives and come up with a final score of good or bad but rather it was both depending on where, when and who was subject to it.

As a footnote, I would note that c1968, European Communist states were a lot closer to the Western states than they were in 1939 or in 1989. So although things did improve the political sclerosis in the 1970s meant that there was an inadequate response to the oil crisis. Why the system became sclerotic is another question for another day.

To take it back to the issue in hand, if Communist nostalgia brings in the punters and the money they so be it, likewise, if victorian weekends or peaky blinders weekends bring in the punters and the money then so be it.

 

Well, we may yet get to find out what communism is like, first-hand, if the current levels of state control on our lives continues at this rate. Particularly if the "Great Reset" goes ahead, we may just need to forget about organizing special events at the L&B, and buckle up...

 

It is of course worth pointing out that there is a growing 'anti democratic' sentiment amongst the 'super rich' also of course that living standards in the USA have flatlined since the 1970's and more recently here as well so we could be displaying som eof the signs of the sclerosis that led to the end of Communism