A projection of the past!

 

Great talk,very low interest

 [The low attendance at meetings has now become a great concern, Luckily, the last few speakers have spoken for free, otherwise we would be making a loss at every event. This is concerning and the future of the talks program is in danger!]

A Report on the March meeting of Resolven History Society

A rather disappointingly small audience came to hear this month’s speaker, Mr Steve Patterson, who spoke of his long career as a railway engineer. Originally from Hirwaun, Mr Patterson had a very unsuccessful school career and left to become a “greaser” as quickly as he was able on the railway. Yet despite, some fractious relations with management he rose to the very top of his profession both in charge of railway companies and as a consultant.

 

Mr Patterson spent the first half of his talk on his life within railways, which spanned the pre-nationalisation, nationalisation, privatisation and subsequent partial re-nationalisation. His explanation of the Byzantine complexity of the organisation and regulation of the industry was an education in itself to us who get on the train without realising how much organisation and activity is going on unseen. His role often meant travelling long distances and he regretted being away from home so much, especially when he had a young family.

 

The second half of the talk, involved a picture illustration of the machinery and vehicles used in track maintenance which was achieved with a mixture of experience and efficiency in getting the job done, especially within cramped conditions including the Severn Tunnel. Over the decades it was evident that there was a transition from the unsophisticated pre Health and Safety days, and the ultra-technological methods of today.

 

Mr Trefor Jones, thanked Mr Patterson for a fascinating insight into a hidden world.

 

Next month’s speaker, is Mr Ken Thomas, who will speak on Public Cinemas.

 

 

 

March meeting : My Railway life

 

We have already had a talk this year about Paddington station from Glyn Williams , this month returns to another railway theme. So, if you know of any railway buffs out there, please let them know!

Historical perspective on a changing climate?

 A Report on the February meeting of Resolven History Society

 

On a cold evening in the church hall, some global warming would have come in very handy, in order to infuse some warmth in the diminutive audience. Mr Trefor Jones had chosen to speak on the history of a warming climate, a topic with which he was very familiar as a former teacher and A level examiner of geography.

 

He began by discussing how climate has always changed over both geological and historical time. He spoke of the main features which caused this change including, the earth’s orbit, plate tectonics, volcanoes, atmosphere, ocean currents and the regular pattern of many ice ages over the last two million years known as the Pleistocene epoch. We are now living in an interstadial being the  warm period of between 12-15,000 years between ice ages, which includes all historical time.

 

Mr Then went on to describe how scientists became aware of the changes by comparing the landscape of the present day with that of areas still in the lock of ice. Folk references such as “Cantre’r Gwaelod “, in Wales were evidence of change and the land and sea were not constant entities. The Scilly Isles were one island during the Roman occupation of Britain owing to the existence of roads beneath the sea, and “Doggerland” in the North Sea has evidence of settlement. Samul Pepys recorded the weather of the so called little ice age in his diary, with snow falling in June in the 1650s and paintings of ice fairs on the Thames in the 1750s.

 

The means by which changes were measured firstly by thermometers from around 1850, to proxy data sources such as tree rings, ice cores, coral isotopes gave us a record in order to plot the temperature. One of the luminaries was Professor H.H. Lamb, a statistician who developed the dry as dust subject of climate science, by which you looked back at what had actually happened. He founded the Hadley Centre at the University of East Anglia.

                                                         Weather not climate?

Mr Jones then turned his attention to the Greenhouse effect, which everyone has heard of, but few actually understand that it refers to a spectrum of solar radiation intercepted on irradiation by certain gases. Carbon dioxide in the most well-known though the audience was surprised that it only amounted to 424 parts per million of atmospheric gases of which most was natural.The Mauna Loa observatory had noticed that this was increasing markedly through natural and anthropogenic effects recently and had warmed the climate since 1850, though this daye also marked the end of the little ice age. The largest proportion by far of greenhouse gases was water vapour, amounting to around 91%, and reference was mad to the huge explosion In the south Pacific in 2022, when billions of tonnes of water vapour reached the atmosphere. This may in time be an explanation of the recent warm, but gloomy summers recently?

 

In conclusion, Mr Jones turned his attention to the future. He noted that much forecasting was now based on models which needed solid data. The IPCC reports so vaunted by the political establishment often pointed towards adaptation to changes as against trying to stop something, and returning to a “normal” which is very difficult to measure, in a chaotic system which is constantly in a state of flux.

 

Following a question session, Mr David Woosnam, thanked Mr Jones for a thought provoking tal

Paddington and not the bear!

History Meeting January

On a cold January evening the attendance at the meeting was a little low, however those not present missed a very informative talk, by longstanding member of the Society and lifelong devotee of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Mr Glyn Williams. Mr Williams has given many talks over the years about the achievements of Brunel and this time he took the terminus at Paddington as his topic.

The lecture began with on the layout of the station which began with a small entity in 1833 between Bristol, Temple Meads and London. The new railways could not proceed into central London and following abandonment of an attempt at Lambeth since the population was north of the Thames, the GWR looked at Vauxhall, before linking with the line from Birmingham at the rural location of Paddington. A further attempt at Euston came to nothing because of a clash of broad and standard gauge lines.

The building of the line began in 1835, at Bishop Walk in a small valley of the Bourne or Serpentine, which is now underground. The cost was monumental for the time at £6,500,000. The initial terminus was made of wood , but by 1850 the present station was built accommodating 10 railway tracks with 3 for arrivals and two for departures, this was serviced by 62 “Firefly” locomotives, and passengers went between platforms via a “transverse”. Although Brunel gets most of the credit for the design, the decorations so associated with the arches was the work of architect, Matthew Digby Wyatt.The Great Western Royal Hotel was built and is now part of the Hilton chain, this was renovated in the 1930, and the work of Phillip Charles Hardwick.

Three underground railways emanate from Paddington, the first built shortly after Brunel’s death in 1859, by Fowler and Benjamin Baker, as the first “cut and cover” railway in the world. Baker was a genius and designed the Metropolitan Railway in New York, and he also built the original Aswan dam on the Nile. He was also instrumental in designing a ship to carry “Cleopatra’s Needle”, as a gift to the UK from Egypt. The ship was called unsurprisingly Cleopatra! Remarkably, Baker had trained at the Neath Abbey Works! Later a second station was built at Parade Road , which was not originally called Paddington.

Mr Williams concluded his talk with a discussion on the architectural wonders of the station including reference to a certain Michael Bond character whose statue is in the station and his fondness for marmalade sandwiches is well known.

Mr David Woosnam, thanked Mr Williams for a very memorable and informative talk.

Trefor Jones.

 

January meeting

 The Society will begin 2025 with a talk by Glyn Wiliams. Blwyddyn Newydd Dda / Happy NewYear, to everyone. 

Christmas Meeting

                                                             Triawd y Tabernacl

A report on the December meeting of Resolfen History Society

The notion of a members’ night was struck upon some years ago when it was decided not to have a speaker, since the Christmas period inevitably,meant a smaller audience. This year, however, Storm Darragh’s aftermath kept the attendance lower than normal though did not dampen the enthusiasm or enjoyment of the evening.

 

Mr David Woosnam started proceedings with an interesting discussion of how the internet allowed a person to inspect his own ancestry. By use of an algorithm he found that he was distantly related to several well-known figures including Marion Morrison (John Wayne), Charles Dickens and even (presumably through her mother) Queen Elizabeth the second!

 

Mr Colin Evans read a section of the Alun Evans and John Mc Mahon’s history of Resolven, involving the Marie Celeste of Wales, SS Resolven, a brig found abandoned off the coast of Newfoundland with the fire still alight in the grate. He has followed the story since 2010, but the story seems to have now run its course, and no new leads as to the origins of its name and the links with Aberaeron are appearing.

 

Mr Trefor Jones, then gave a short talk on the derivation of some Christmas traditions including Christmas cards. The Welsh Christmas and new year were then discussed, along with plygain, the Mari Lwyd , Hela’r Dryw and Calennig. This was illustrated with digital items of Triawd y Tabernacl, singing a plygain song and a live rendition of “Blwyddyn newydd dda i chi”.

 

The meeting concluded with a festive quiz and some mulled wine.

 

Nadolig Llawen from the History Society.