The Moonbase Missus and me have just got back from an overnight stay in our new fave town, Barton Upon Humber in North Lincolnshire. An hour away from Moonbase down the M62, its old and pretty enough to keep us both happy and enough charity shops and cafes to make a sound Saturday morning.
We also went to a Friday night gig, the main reason for going, to see one Nick Harper at the Ropery Hall.
Nick Harper is the son of folk rock legend Roy Harper, as in Hats off to .... by Led Zep. It can't have been easy forging a musical career in such a legendary shadow but Nick, who we only discovered last month, is enough of a songsmith and above all a guitar virtuoso to completely hold his own and being now 58 has done for decades.
Mind-blowingly original in both voice and guitar you can catch up with Nick Harper here. He's playing Birkenhead tonight!
Mr. Harper was ably supported by a fabulous warm-up act, Patrick Duff. Another fabulous singer-songwriter and guitarist, the small Barton crowd were definately blown away with his seasoned talent and incredible set of lungs! As a teenager he was the frontman of indie band Strangelove, compatriots of Britpop founders Suede and hailed as the next big thing before rock 'n' roll took its toll. You can read about Patrick's life here. We bought his biography for a friend.
After a decent kip overnight we hit Barton's church museum and shops this morning, fuelled by coffee and a Lincolnshire sausage butty.
St Peter's Church is a medieval structure now run as a museum by English Heritage. Full of preserved skeletons of dead residents, ample diseased bones, split skulls and burial artefacts from its hundreds of graves, its one of the most dug-up and researched places from the Middle Ages anywhere. Well worth a visit especially if you're a member of English Heritage, its a grounding pile with its many dark spaces like this, the bell tower.
The charity shops were reassuringly full of the living residents of Barton and proved bountiful too. Well at least I thought so. See what you think in the snap below.
The K-Tel 40 Supergreats double album, £1, is in near mint condition, a gift for a mate; the JLA novel collection I'd never seen before and in very good shape for £1 each too; the Dr. Who VHS tapes were a punt to be honest - being from the early 1990's they're not old enough for my own VHS collection but maybe of interest to a buyer on Ebay. £1 each, the double set £3.
There were lots more Dr. Who VHS tapes - should I have got them all? - and a huge collection of hardback books called the History of Dr. Who, each book sealed in plastic and unopened and probably a part-work. At £3 each they were too rich for my purse. What do you think?
I also snaffled this Dragon magazine from the hey-day of Kung Fu.
With the great Jimmy Wang Yu on the cover and also the centrefold, I so remember these mags and had them all as a youngster. I still have a quite a few now boxed up with my Inside Kung Fu pile in the attic. Did you have magazines like this as a kid?
I was also tempted by this Starline LP of TV Themes from the 1970's, which included the wonderful Catweazle [was it shown were you are?], the classic Please Sir and the Fenn Street Gang, which I think was a Please Sir spin-off, is that right?
Being by the Pandora Orchestra I didn't succumb as anything might happen once opened!
We then set off and toured down the Humber and its tributary the Trent on the eastern banks around Alkborough. Have you been there?
Alkborough Flats is an ethereal drenching of three rivers meeting in the mud. A primitive place complete with an ancient circular turf maze, Julians Bower.
The land and villages around Barton on the Humber and the Trent all seem ancient. Its like stepping back a few hundred years just being there. Flat vistas, distant rises, red brick hamlets, russet soil, wide long rivers, aged trees and empty lanes all give the area an other-worldly feel..
My final shot is a return to St. Peter's. As soon as aI saw the ladder propped up against a bare medieval wall I thought of that scene in the Stone Tape.
You know the one, where a young girl's ghost lets out a blood-curdling scream as she stands at the top of a set of stone steps next to an ancient bare wall!
BBC
Shown to a snug, festive but unwary British public on Christmas Night 1972, the BBC and Nigel Kneale created one of the scariest TV shows ever made. I had just turned 11 and it frightened the bejeebers out of me, as it did Jane Asher's character pictured below near the dreadful steps to nowhere. I hope the Beeb shows it again this Christmas, do you readers?
BBC