School’s out for
summer and, after the creative frenzy of recent months, I’m allowing myself a
little time to just freewheel and recharge my batteries. Creatively, I have an outside commission in
hand, but my own work is on the back burner while I give some
thought to what might come next. The
British weather’s hardly spectacular this year, but benign enough to allow a
few relatively spontaneous trips out, such as the one I undertook the other day
to Rempstone Steam & Country Show, in Nottinghamshire.
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| Foster Showman's Engine. Typical Of The Breed |
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| Foden Seven Ton Steam Truck. |
Such quaint,
family fun-type events have little connection with my artistic activities, and
are hardly part of my normal routine.
However, it’s no secret that I have a marginal enthusiasm for elderly or
unusual vehicles of various kinds, and that this is one way in which I can
connect with the memory of both my late Father and his Father before him.
For my Dad, vehicles of various kinds were pretty much what Art is for me. Indeed, some of my earliest memories are of him
identifying every car or lorry we passed en route to the sweet shop, or
watching him dismantle and rebuild one rusty Morris Minor after another on
rainy Sunday afternoons.
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| 1957 Ford Thunderbird |
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| Mk1 E-Type Jaguar. I'd still have one of these if anyone was giving it away. |
In fact, before I
got near the steam engines at Rempstone, there were various vintage cars,
motorcycles and commercial vehicles to peruse at Rempstone. Of particular interest was an immaculate 1957
Ford Thunderbird, which was incredibly stylish, and spoke to my interest in
classic American vehicles. I doubt there
is a cleaner example on either side of the Atlantic. It neighboured a stunning early E-Type Jaguar
which, if not so rare here, may still be the most beautiful example of sleek automotive
styling any company ever produced.
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| Velocette LE, With Interestingly Enclosed Flat-Twin Engine... |
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| …And An Equally Unusual Little Two-Stroke Sunn |
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| GMC Rat Rod Pickup Truck |
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Rare BSA Rocket 3 In The Car Park. A Machine That Symbolises The Early 1970s
Demise Of The British Motorcycle Industry. |
My eye was also
drawn to an unusual little Velocette LE motorbike, and an equally intriguingly
Sunn, with its aerodynamic rear fairing.
A General Motors pickup truck, corroding attractively in a patinated Rat
Rod style felt slightly out of context, but regular readers will know I have a
weakness for such conceits. Perhaps most
unusual was a beautifully restored ex-BBC outside broadcast van. Both it, and a splendid bright yellow AEC recovery
vehicle, felt like full-sized versions of the Dinky or Matchbox models of commercial
vehicles I once spent hours pushing around the living room floor.
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| 'Thumper' The Ex-BBC Austin Outside Broadcast Vehicle. |
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| AEC Recovery Vehicle... |
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| …And Another AEC Of Similar Vintage. |
However, as the
event’s name implies, the event’s main attraction was the array of even older
steam traction engines on display. In
their case, this was an opportunity to connect with the memory of my Grandfather. George Percy Marwood had been a contractor
who owned and worked with steam-powered agricultural machinery on the farms
around his home in the North Lincolnshire hamlet of Wickenby.
Yet more
childhood memories involved attending similar steam rallies with him and my
father in his later years, and he would occasionally reminisce about his
working life. One story recalled an
Italian wartime P.O.W. who, having been pressed into working on the land,
grabbed a threshing knife and tried to make a run for it – before being ‘persuaded’
to change his mind.
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| Lincoln-Built Engines... |
The city of
Lincoln, where I grew up, is both physically and psychologically divided into
‘Uphill’ and ‘Downhill’ districts. If
the twin edifices of cathedral and castle dominate the former, the latter was
once largely identified by a concentration of metal forging and heavy
engineering companies. Amongst these
were several manufacturers of steam traction engines, and my Grandfather once
told me he’d been invited at one time to relocate to Australia to represent one
of them. Although he declined, I
couldn’t help speculating just how differently things might have been for our
family, had he accepted. Either way, it was
pleasing to see numerous Lincoln-built machines at Rempstone, including several
Fosters, a Clayton, a Robey, and more than a few Marshalls from elsewhere in
Lincolnshire.
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| …And Another. |
I spent a happy afternoon
strolling amongst the engines, photographing the mechanical details of what now
feels like archaic technology. There’s a
specific and seductive aesthetic tied up with all those heavy castings,
multiple rivets, brass and copper embellishments and painted pin lines so
beloved of industrial archaeologists, amateur steam enthusiasts, and
alt-culture Victoriana buffs alike. It
fascinates me how easily an appreciation of machinery can slip from nuts-and-bolts
rationality into a ritualistic form of fetishism. The Steampunk movement is an obvious example
of this, in the context of steam engines, as is the Hot Rod/Drag Racing scene I sampled around this time last summer, in terms of the petrol engine.
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| Victorian (Aesthetic) Values |
Such associations
are probably magnified by my own interaction with all these machines being
largely aesthetically and sensually driven.
My mechanical prowess doesn’t actually extend much further than tinkering
with my bicycle, after all. Certainly, I’m
sure that most of the restorers, and operators of the traction engines would
regard such talk with distinct bemusement.
However, even they can’t be immune to the sounds and smells, or the
sheer physical presence of their lumbering machines. It’s a tired cliché to talk of steam engines
as being almost alive, but undeniable that there’s something deeply evocative
in all that crackling coal, hissing steam, clanking, dripping and sizzling. The aromas and impressions of heat are very
much part of the experience, as is the immense potential energy bound up in those
tons of far-from-inert metal.
In the end
though, it’s all too easy to over-romaticise all that age-of-steam stuff. That occurred to me as I watched the picturesque period-costume display of threshing, - a seasonal routine my Grandfather undertook
numerous times, and in possibly less quaint conditions. Slightly more chilling was a demonstration of
cutting logs on a huge, completely unguarded, circular saw, driven by an adjacent engine. It contrasted dramatically with
the numerous training courses and Risk Assessments I’ve participated in, in
order to legally operate similar modern tools a fraction of its size. Emergency stop buttons don’t come into it.
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| Threshing... |
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…And Sawing Logs. (Just to clarify, - that circular thing spinning next to the guy's ear
is a large, unguarded saw blade with a steam engine on the end of it). |
There are
insights into the harsher realities of the Agricultural Contracting life
amongst some research undertaken and written up by my cousin’s husband, Paul
Hickman. I read a copy of Paul’s ‘The Marwoods: Wickenby Machine Men’ [1.] last year, learning a lot
about the family, and the Marwood contracting concern, in the process. Despite operating
at the heart of one of Britain’s most productive agricultural counties, it
seems that making a living from the business was often far from easy. Local farmers could be particularly reluctant
to pay up for work carried out, and there was inevitably a lot of money tied up
in the sometimes temperamental and fuel-hungry equipment. Labouring in the fields was one thing, but
keeping the work flowing was something else altogether. It was often necessary to move the
slow-moving machines considerable distances at the end of a tiring day to be
ready to start over on another farm the following morning.
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| Large Fowler Agricultural Engine |
It seems that my
grandfather was forced into consequent awkward conversations with the bank
manager over the years. His reputation for
being a bit tight with money was a cause of some amusement in later years, - not
least, his seeming belief that any shopkeeper’s stated price was merely a
starting point for negotiation. However,
given his struggles to keep the business afloat in difficult times makes it all
pretty understandable. It’s possibly a
little ironic that, despite his lifetime love of all things mechanical, my
father actually made a career working for a bank.
That speaks
volumes about changing generational aspirations (and opportunities). My grandfather left school at the age of 14,
and walked across the fields to his first farmhand job, early the next morning. His first wages came in the form of a pair of
work boots. Seemingly, any prosperity he
subsequently gained was achieved through pretty relentless graft and always counting
the pennies. My father was a Grammar School boy, academic enough to qualify for
a career counting other people’s pennies, instead of one in the fields, (and a
pension that my mother still lives on quite comfortably). Perhaps, relegating his love of mechanics to
whatever leisure time remained was a deal he did with himself.
My perception is
that we never felt either particularly well off, or especially hard up, as I
grew up, but perhaps that luxury to not really have to think too much about
money was the point. In reality, there
was clearly no material impediment to my own choice to pursue something as idealistic
and impractical as an Art School education, (and a subsequent life of day-dreaming,
and making the best of whatever modestly-paid work I’ve been able to secure).
Looking at my
photos from Rempstone, my other main thoughts are fairly obvious ones about the
rapid march of technology. My
grandfather made a living, well into the mid twentieth century, using equipment
that Stephenson and Trevithic would have felt comfortable with, and that the
local blacksmith could repair. It was
essentially the same Victorian technology that powered the Industrial
Revolution and all the social and economic upheaval that accompanied it.
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| A Pair Of Fowler Agricultural Engines Filthing The Place Up |
I watched thick, black smoke belching from the engines as they winched each other across the parade ring, and reflected that the biggest challenge facing the next generations might be how to survive a physical environment altered irreversibly by all that routine burning of hydrocarbons and voracious consumption of resources. Perhaps most striking of all, is the technological journey, in three generations of one family, from cast-iron and shovelled coal, via internal combustion and mass-production, to the digital imaging and information technology I'm now using to relate my Sunny afternoon out.
[1.]: Paul Hickman, 'The Marwoods: Wickenby Machine Men', Branston, Lincolnshire, Private Publication, 2014
