The Land Of Sea And Fog
Without Prejudice
Fog rolled onto the wet and lower grounds today, keeping things gloomy and hushed. The kitchen windows bloomed with condensation and I wrote my name on one of them before I took the boys to school. It's so much easier these days, thanks to Grace, the Families First worker, the boys have a week of the front seat in turn and that simple act makes everything so much easier and pleasant.
No more wounded feelings. No more fights, just blissful peace. The radio is silent too, "coded ", my fault, naturally. I say naturally as I just take the blame for most things. I'm not a wimp or masochist. It's just that The Pastor at Church said the other week,
" If you are accused of something, instead of letting your hackles rise up, rise up yourself and take the blame, as it usually is your fault." My bad, mea culpa, it saves time and let's face it time is of the essence, arguments are too tiring and emotional.
I used to fire up about everything, hating injustice, which I still do, but figure I can't solve all the problems in the World and need for now to focus on my own. The only way I can do that successfully is think " Kids come first " if I had a full time partner I would make sure he would come first but as I don't, I won't.
Without the radio going and blissful peace inside the cocoon of warmth that is my Mitzy, we traverse the triple lane newly widened road to school and talk of the fog and seas and the future. One day these boys of 13, 8 and 6 will be Men and due to a mainly female nurturing we are forced to speak of manly things, like growth and vehicles and sport. But today we talk of the Fog and God and Cats Eyes.
I tell them that the light of headlights reflect back in Fog so most cars have a fog light that points downwards and lights just the few metres ahead. So that the cats eyes can be seen, leading the way. I tell them of the Yorkshire Man that invented the cats eyes. And they love the story, every day a different story. Factual, well mostly. I am allowed some poetic licenc.
With thanks to Wiki.
Percy Shaw, the inventor of " Cats Eyes" hailed from Halifax in Yorkshire. He was Halifax through and through. He was born in Lee Mount and at the age of two his family moved to the house in Boothtown where he was to spend the rest of his life inventing and making things, and where, at the age of 86, he died.
He was obviously fond of Halifax and none too keen on places far away. London was bad enough. He told TV globetrotting interrogator Alan Whicker in a famous interview in 1968 that Halifax suited him fine. London was all rush, rush, rush and tip, tip, tip very boring.
When Whicker suggested that Halifax wasnt beautiful he told him:
" Well, you've been down Shibden Valley, haven't you.? Isn't that beautiful?
His great invention took him all over the world but he didn't reckon much to it.
He once said:
I?ve been to America and all over Europe, but there?s nothing in going abroad, I'd rather stay in Halifax.
Percy Shaw, born in 1890, long before there were cars on the roads, was one of Halifax's greatest sons, the man who created what was once described as the most brilliant invention ever produced in the interests of road safety, the catseye. But he'd been a useful member of a very large family long before the idea that brought him wealth and fame.
Percy' s father, Jimmy Shaw, a dyer's labourer, earned only a pound a week at a local mill. As one of 14 brothers, sisters, half brothers and sisters living in the enormous rooms of Boothtown Mansion, Percy had to help to supplement this meagre income, selling surplus fruit and veg from the garden.
He was always inventive. As a child he made up games. Later he invented a process to back carpets with rubber, though it was not marketed, and a petrol pump, which failed. After leaving school at 13 he worked in a blanket mill, then an office, started an apprenticeship in the wire trade, but gave it up
and went into welding, boiler making and machine tools. When his father lost his job they went into partnership, doing odd jobs.
During the first world war they made wire and later bought an old blacksmith's forge, making cartridge shell noses and cases for the Government.
By the 1930s, his father now dead, Percy had set up a business making and repairing roads and garden paths with tarmacadam and invented a mechanical pavement roller, using an old Ford engine, three solid-tyred wheels from an old lorry and other bits and pieces. How Percy hit on the idea of catseyes to light the way in the dark is the stuff of legend several in fact.
One has it simply that, in the era of the tram, motorists had come to rely on reflections of their headlights on the tramlines. As cars and buses made
the trams obsolete the tramlines were removed. According to this version Percy Shaw realised that this night-time guide to traffic must somehow be replaced by some other form of reflective device and the idea for the catseye was born.
A more romantic version of this story has it that one foggy night in 1933 Percy was driving home from Bradford to Boothtown along the road through Queensbury and Ambler Thorn. As the road approaches Boothtown it skirts the hillside with a huge drop on the right. The cobbled, unlit road was dangerous at the best of times and that night it was made worse by fog but Percy was used to finding his way by the light reflected on the tramlines.
Except that on this night the tramlines had been taken up for repair and the fog was dense. Only a fragrance the fence stood between Percy and the drop.
Then, in the glow of the headlights, two points of light suddenly appeared. A cat, sitting on the fence had possibly saved Percy from a fatal crash and in that instant, so the story goes, Percy had a vision of what were to be properly called roadstuds, strung out along the road instead of tramlines.
Percy Shaw himself gave a different story during the Alan Whicker interview. He said: I saw this reflecting road sign one foggy night at Queensbury when I was coming out of Rose Linda' s pub and I thought to myself:
" We want those things down on the road, not up there? So I pinched two or three of the reflectors and took them home and laiked ( played ) about with them. I must have mucked them about hundreds of times before I got them right, and saw what I could do with them.
Fog rolled onto the wet and lower grounds today, keeping things gloomy and hushed. The kitchen windows bloomed with condensation and I wrote my name on one of them before I took the boys to school. It's so much easier these days, thanks to Grace, the Families First worker, the boys have a week of the front seat in turn and that simple act makes everything so much easier and pleasant.
No more wounded feelings. No more fights, just blissful peace. The radio is silent too, "coded ", my fault, naturally. I say naturally as I just take the blame for most things. I'm not a wimp or masochist. It's just that The Pastor at Church said the other week,
" If you are accused of something, instead of letting your hackles rise up, rise up yourself and take the blame, as it usually is your fault." My bad, mea culpa, it saves time and let's face it time is of the essence, arguments are too tiring and emotional.
I used to fire up about everything, hating injustice, which I still do, but figure I can't solve all the problems in the World and need for now to focus on my own. The only way I can do that successfully is think " Kids come first " if I had a full time partner I would make sure he would come first but as I don't, I won't.
Without the radio going and blissful peace inside the cocoon of warmth that is my Mitzy, we traverse the triple lane newly widened road to school and talk of the fog and seas and the future. One day these boys of 13, 8 and 6 will be Men and due to a mainly female nurturing we are forced to speak of manly things, like growth and vehicles and sport. But today we talk of the Fog and God and Cats Eyes.
I tell them that the light of headlights reflect back in Fog so most cars have a fog light that points downwards and lights just the few metres ahead. So that the cats eyes can be seen, leading the way. I tell them of the Yorkshire Man that invented the cats eyes. And they love the story, every day a different story. Factual, well mostly. I am allowed some poetic licenc.
With thanks to Wiki.
Percy Shaw, the inventor of " Cats Eyes" hailed from Halifax in Yorkshire. He was Halifax through and through. He was born in Lee Mount and at the age of two his family moved to the house in Boothtown where he was to spend the rest of his life inventing and making things, and where, at the age of 86, he died.
He was obviously fond of Halifax and none too keen on places far away. London was bad enough. He told TV globetrotting interrogator Alan Whicker in a famous interview in 1968 that Halifax suited him fine. London was all rush, rush, rush and tip, tip, tip very boring.
When Whicker suggested that Halifax wasnt beautiful he told him:
" Well, you've been down Shibden Valley, haven't you.? Isn't that beautiful?
His great invention took him all over the world but he didn't reckon much to it.
He once said:
I?ve been to America and all over Europe, but there?s nothing in going abroad, I'd rather stay in Halifax.
Percy Shaw, born in 1890, long before there were cars on the roads, was one of Halifax's greatest sons, the man who created what was once described as the most brilliant invention ever produced in the interests of road safety, the catseye. But he'd been a useful member of a very large family long before the idea that brought him wealth and fame.
Percy' s father, Jimmy Shaw, a dyer's labourer, earned only a pound a week at a local mill. As one of 14 brothers, sisters, half brothers and sisters living in the enormous rooms of Boothtown Mansion, Percy had to help to supplement this meagre income, selling surplus fruit and veg from the garden.
He was always inventive. As a child he made up games. Later he invented a process to back carpets with rubber, though it was not marketed, and a petrol pump, which failed. After leaving school at 13 he worked in a blanket mill, then an office, started an apprenticeship in the wire trade, but gave it up
and went into welding, boiler making and machine tools. When his father lost his job they went into partnership, doing odd jobs.
During the first world war they made wire and later bought an old blacksmith's forge, making cartridge shell noses and cases for the Government.
By the 1930s, his father now dead, Percy had set up a business making and repairing roads and garden paths with tarmacadam and invented a mechanical pavement roller, using an old Ford engine, three solid-tyred wheels from an old lorry and other bits and pieces. How Percy hit on the idea of catseyes to light the way in the dark is the stuff of legend several in fact.
One has it simply that, in the era of the tram, motorists had come to rely on reflections of their headlights on the tramlines. As cars and buses made
the trams obsolete the tramlines were removed. According to this version Percy Shaw realised that this night-time guide to traffic must somehow be replaced by some other form of reflective device and the idea for the catseye was born.
A more romantic version of this story has it that one foggy night in 1933 Percy was driving home from Bradford to Boothtown along the road through Queensbury and Ambler Thorn. As the road approaches Boothtown it skirts the hillside with a huge drop on the right. The cobbled, unlit road was dangerous at the best of times and that night it was made worse by fog but Percy was used to finding his way by the light reflected on the tramlines.
Except that on this night the tramlines had been taken up for repair and the fog was dense. Only a fragrance the fence stood between Percy and the drop.
Then, in the glow of the headlights, two points of light suddenly appeared. A cat, sitting on the fence had possibly saved Percy from a fatal crash and in that instant, so the story goes, Percy had a vision of what were to be properly called roadstuds, strung out along the road instead of tramlines.
Percy Shaw himself gave a different story during the Alan Whicker interview. He said: I saw this reflecting road sign one foggy night at Queensbury when I was coming out of Rose Linda' s pub and I thought to myself:
" We want those things down on the road, not up there? So I pinched two or three of the reflectors and took them home and laiked ( played ) about with them. I must have mucked them about hundreds of times before I got them right, and saw what I could do with them.
