February 2022 - The MrT Podcast Studio

From Reading to Wantage Road UKRJ S1 Ep04

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:11 — 15.7MB)

From Reading to Wantage Road – Series 1 – Episode 4

In this episode we continue our journey travelling from Reading to Wantage Road. Our journey takes us west, through towns and the countryside, over bridges as we cross rivers.

Click on a ‘thumbnail’ to view the photographs that accompany this podcast:

The Sonning Cutting:

The cutting allows the railway to bypass Sonning. The cutting is over a mile long and, in places, 60 feet deep. Navvies dug the cutting and moved the spoil in wheelbarrows and horse drawn carts. It takes two years to complete and the line opens on 31 March 1840.

There is an accident 21 months after the cutting is completed. A mixed freight and passenger train runs into a landslide. Passengers travel in open top wagons and so many are thrown out. Nine die and sixteen are injured. This leads to the President of the Board of Trade, W E Gladstone, bringing in railway safety legislation.

Reading:

We pass over the River Kennet and soon see the tracks shared by the SWR route to Waterloo and the GWR route to Gatwick Airport.

We stop at the modernised station so that passengers can join the train. Reading is the 9th busiest UK station outside London and the second busiest interchange.

Queen Elizabeth II opened the rebuilt station on 17th July 2014.

Westwards:

We soon reach Tilehurst which opened in 1882. GWR operate local services from the station. Jerome K Jerome mentions the railway at Tilehurst in Three Men in a Boat. He says the railway soils the view!

We then pass through Pangbourne station which has been open since June 1840. Again GWR operate local services from the station.

Goring and Streatley soon follows. Our train is now travelling at speed as Mayflower powers westward. We cross the Moulsford Railway Bridge, actually two parallel bridges, across the Thames.

Next comes Cholsey Station where you can get local services to Didcot, Oxford, Reading and Paddington. The Cholsey and Wallingford Railway, a heritage line, uses Platform 5 at the station.

Didcot:

We pass Didcot Parkway a few minutes behind schedule. The current station buildings date from 1985 and the station offers ‘Park & Ride’. The station is a major junction. On the 7th December 1964 all local services between Didcot and Swindon were withdrawn and stations closed.

Closed stations west of Didcot:

We now pass a number of closed railway stations. The first is Steventon. Although the station has been demolished the Great Western Railways, Jacobean style house used as the company headquarters from July 1842 to January 1843, still exists.

Wantage Road, the end of this episode, dates from 1846 – 6 years after this section of line opened. In 1873 the Wantage Tramway opened joining the station with the town.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this podcast. If so, please join me in a couple of weeks time when we continue our journey, taking water at Challow, and proceeding to Swindon and beyond on the Welsh Dragon.

Links:

To visit the Steam Dreams website please follow this link.

This podcast is also available through Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Castbox , Deezer, Podchaser, Spotify, Stitcher and Vurbl and others.

Music:

AKM Music has licensed Steam Railway and Funny Corporate for use in this podcast.

The Mounties TH 2021 08

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:52 — 50.2MB)

Season 2021 – Talk 08 – The Mounties

In The Mounties Richard Thomas tells us about the history of the North West Mounted Police, their people, their legends and their myths. We learn of their important role in bringing law and order to Canada’s North West.

Click a thumbnail below to view the image gallery that accompanies the talk.

A ‘frontier force’ for the North West:

The Dominion of Canada is created in 1867. The majority of the population lives in the east of the country. The north west is an inhospitable territory with a few trappers and native Canadians.

The Hudson Bay Company is important as they buy the furs from the trappers and export them because they are the main business operation.

John A MacDonald, the first premier of Canada, forms the North West Mounted Police in 1873.

What are they?

They are an armed, mounted, para-military force. They control the native Canadians, traders and settlers over the vast Prairies. In the beginning they are a very small force!

They oversee the ‘porous’ border with the United States and their attitude towards the native populations is very different from that shown south of the border.

Their history includes:

The Great Trek of 1874 where 275 Mounties travel 800 miles to investigate killings. They take all their supplies and set up Fort McLeod and Fort Walsh.

Part of the contingent continue to Fort Whoop-Up to suppress the whiskey trade coming in from the northern US. When the Mounties find illegal whiskey they destroy it.

They achieve a working relationship with the plains ‘Indians’ and there is respect on both sides.

One of the fugitives is Chief Sitting Bull.

They look after may government activities when the settlers arrive in the 1880s.

A whiskey recipe:

‘A quart of whiskey, a pound of chewing tobacco, a handful of red pepper, one bottle of Jamaica ginger, a quart of molasses and a dash of red ink’.

Very healthy …….!

Listen to the podcast to hear Richard tell the story!

Please note:

This podcast is a recording of a talk on Zoom and, in places, there are a few extraneous noises and sound glitches.

For Copyright reasons it is not possible to publish all the illustrations from the original talk. I use alternatives where they exist.

About this podcast:

This podcast is an edited recording of a talk first given to the Farnham u3a World History Group.

The Farnham u3a site is found here.

This podcast is also available through Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Castbox , Deezer, Podchaser, Spotify, Stitcher and Vurbl and others.

AKM Music licenses Media Magazine for use as the theme music.

Across the London border and on towards Reading UKRJ S1 Ep 03

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:22 — 19.6MB)

Across the London border and on towards Reading – UK Rail Journeys – Series 1 – Episode 3

We continue our journey and go across the London border and on towards Reading. Our journey takes us west, first through the suburbs and then on towards the countryside, over famous bridges across rivers.

Click on a ‘thumbnail’ to view the photographs that accompany this podcast:

Hanwell to Langley:

As we continue our journey we pass Hanwell, once called Hanwell and Elthorne.

We then cross the River Brent, passing over the Wharncliffe Viaduct which Brunel built in 1836 / 1837. The viaduct has a Grade 1 listing and a number of firsts to it’s name:

It is Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s first major structural design,
It carries the first electric telegraph, first operating on 9th April 1839,
The police use a telegraph message in early 1845 to apprehend John Tawell for murder.

Apparently Queen Victoria liked the view so much that the Royal train always stopped on the viaduct! Today there is a bat colony in the supporting piers of the viaduct.

We soon pass the West Coast Trains depot outside Southall which is home to our train. Southall station follows with it’s bilingual signs.

Hayes and Harlington is soon followed by West Drayton as Mayflower powers our train westward.

We shake ourselves free of London when we cross the river Colne, the Greater London border, and then the M25.

Iver and Langley:

Iver is the first station we pass through outside Greater London. It is nearly 15 miles from Paddington. The station has no architectural merit!

Langley soon follows. The 1878 station building has character. There are plans for a link to Heathrow leaving the mainline just east of the station.

Slough:

The station is eighteen and a half miles from Paddington, halfway to Reading. The station is also at the end of the branch line to Windsor and Eton Central.

The Provost of Eton resisted having a railway station near Eton College. The original Act authorising the railway forbids a station within 3 miles of the college! The delays first proper station until 1840. For some years it is the station that Queen Victoria used when visiting Windsor.

Burnham to Twyford:

The next two stations, Burnham and Taplow, serve local trains with commuters travelling to London and Reading.

Next we reach one of Brunel’s masterpieces, the Maidenhead viaduct. There was a great deal of controversy about the very low arches when it was built. It was thought that the viaduct wouldn’t be strong enough for trains. Over 180 years later it stands as a masterpiece of engineering carrying many trains each day.

The next two stations are Maidenhead, 24 miles from London, and Twyford, 7 miles further on.

Next up:

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this podcast. If so, please join me in a couple of weeks time when we continue our journey west, stopping at Reading, on the Welsh Dragon.

Links:

To visit the Steam Dreams website please follow this link.

This podcast is also available through Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Castbox , Deezer, Podchaser, Spotify, Stitcher and Vurbl and others.

Music:

AKM Music has licensed Steam Railway and Blue Sky for use in this podcast.

Legends of the Four Nations TM 2022 01

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:43 — 51.9MB)

National Treasures – Legends of the Four Nations – u3a Theme meeting 2022 01

The talk Legends of the Four Nations by Lorna Thomas tells the stories of an Englishwoman, an Irishman, a Scotsman and a Welshman. A rebel, a Saint, a mercenary and a nobleman!

Listen to Lorna tell the full story!

Pictures and maps illustrate the talk. Please click on an icon below to open the gallery.

Boudicca

Boudicca is married to Prasutagus and they have two daughters. Prasutagus rules the Iceni tribe. Unfortunately he dies. He has left his kingdom jointly to his two daughters and the Roman Emperor.

The Romans ignore his will, annexe his kingdom and take his property. Tacitus tells us that the Romans flog Boudicca and abuse her daughters.

Boudicca leads the Iceni, Trinovantes and others in a revolt. They sack Colchester and many terrified Romans flee.

The rebels then burn London and St. Albans. Boudicca and her forces kill between 70 and 80 thousand people.

The Romans regroup and force a battle somewhere in the Midlands, near Watling Street. They have chosen well because the site of the battle restricts the effectiveness of the nimble Iceni chariots. The Romans win and crush the rebellion.

Saint Patrick

Saint Patrick is a fifth century Romano British Christian missionary and Bishop of Ireland.

It is possible that there are some Christians in Ireland before Patrick, however, the legend is that he founds Christianity in Ireland.

The legend says that when he is about sixteen, he is captured by Irish pirates and becomes a slave to Ireland. Patrick looks after animals for the next six years. He escapes and returns to his family.

Patrick becomes a cleric and returns to northern and western Ireland and then serves as a bishop.

William Wallace

The chronicler, Walter Bower, describes Wallace as ‘a tall man with the body of a giant …. with lengthy flanks ….. broad in the hips, with strong arms and legs ….. with all his limbs strong and firm‘.

This giant of a man, along with Andrew Moray, defeats the English army at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297. He serves at the ‘Guardian of Scotland’ until his defeat at the battle of Falkirk nine months later.

He evades capture until 1305. Edward I tries him in London and he is ‘hung, drawn and quartered‘.

Owain Glyndŵr

Owain is born in to a prosperous family in around 1359. He is part of the Anglo-Welsh gentry in the Welsh Marches (the border area between England and Wales) in northeast Wales.

The are a number of alternative stories about why Owain leads a revolt against the English.

Listen to the podcast for the full story.

About this podcast:

This podcast is an edited recording of a talk first given in the series National Treasures to the Farnham u3a.

The Farnham u3a site is found here.

This podcast is also available through podcast apps including Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Castbox , Deezer, Podchaser, Spotify, Stitcher and Vurbl.

AKM Music has licensed ‘See you as you are’ for use as the theme and incidental music for this podcast.