Sitting in a backstreet in Florence ......... thinking of WLS radio station, Chicago

Florence, 2012

Now if you belong to that generation which was born just after the last world war, who grew up with the sound of Buddy Holly, and the Beatles, and trembled during the Missile Crisis of 1962 I expect Radio Luxemburg will stir memories.

In the absence of a dedicated British pop music radio station this was all there was till the “Pirates” arrived.

Of course it wasn’t perfect, it faded and returned and you had to put up with Horace Bachelor but it was still magic.*

And I was reminded of all that when my friend Susan from Canada told me of how “on clear nights throughout the 1960's, from my upstairs bedroom, close to the Manitoba/Ontario border, I could actually get WLS radio station in Chicago, almost a thousand miles away. They played songs I never heard anywhere else.”

Now my little transistor set bought for twenty-one shillings in Whitechapel hardly compared with Susan’s “purple and gold bakelite radio” but what they offered was something new, exciting and worlds away from our kitchen in Well Hall Road.

On the Highway Canada, 2011

All of which stirred the pot and made me begin to think of many things, but uppermost it was that idea of listening across the open lands of Canada to a radio station in Chicago and not for the first time I pondered on the vastness of Canada.

My cousins who live in Ontario will think nothing of a journey by car which will take them from their home to the small log cabin they built one summer.

It is a distance which if I replicated it here would pretty much take me from Manchester down across Europe to Vienna and would present me with a shed full of different European languages, histories and until recently even currencies.

The gas station, 2011

But for my cousin the journey would all be under a Canadian sun, with English spoken along the way and the sure knowledge that the petrol bought in Ingersol would come out of the same money as the payment for  the burger at the stop over half way and the groceries at the tiny supermarket close to their destination.

And if I push the idea, had my great uncle who was migrated to Canada by the Middlemore Homes acting for the Derby Union taken the Trans Canada Highway from St John’s in Newfoundland to Victoria in British Columbia he would have travelled 4,859 miles.

By comparison if I had continued on from Vienna to Istanbul I would only have clocked 2,108 miles from the suburbs of south Manchester to the Bosporus and the end of Europe.

That for me brings home the sheer size of Canada and of course also its southern neighbour but it also reinforces my fascination for my own Continent which offers tremendous diversity but also a sense of unity.

Rome, 2009

We may speak different languages, and some at least of us still carry our own national currency in our pockets instead of the Euro but there is much we have in common.

Sitting in a backstreet restaurant in Florence or in down town Naples with heaps of history and culture everywhere I am reminded that 2000 years ago my journey would have been one made across one empire with a single currency, and just two official languages and bits of the small town of Manchester would have been replicated in the grand cities of Rome and Byzantium.

Added to which much that followed the fall of the Roman Empire from the Middle Ages through to the Renaissance and the Age Enlightenment owed much to the Romans.

That said while sitting at that tiny restaurant in Florence the background music on the small portable CD player veered from a selection by the Three Tenors to that Harry Chapin song with the refrain “I am the morning D.J at W.O.L.D. .......... playing all the hits for you where ever you maybe...”

On the farm, 2011

And that is pretty much  where we came in, leaving me only to share the contrasting images from three of my favourite Italian cities with the stunning photographs of rural Canada by my friend Lori Oschefski and perhaps giving a plug to that endearing radio series on Lake Wobegon by Garrison Keillor "where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."

Now Lake Wobegon may have been an imaginary town set in the USA but it pretty much sums up what I think a small Canadian town out somewhere in the west of Alberta might be like and as such is miles away from those small Italian cities I know.

Alghero, 2013

The huge open landscape which just seems to go on forever runs counter to the close confines of those towns and cities where at the end of every street there is a piazza and  around every corner an ancient ruin.

That said there are plenty of ugly places where poor planning, low investment and shoddy development have created sink suburbs, dispiriting to live in and unremarkable to the eye.

Not so bits of Alghero which has it all, and may even have its own radio station dedicated to the music of the 60s.

Pictures; Florence 2012, Rome, 2009, and Alghero, Sardinia, 2013 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the Canadian heartlands, 2011, Lori Oschefski

* Horace Cyril Bachelor was as an advertiser on Radio Luxembourg. He advertised a way to win money by predicting the results of football matches, sponsoring programmes on Radio Luxembourg.

Doors I have known .............. now that’s a zippy title

Fairfield Street

Now there is nothing original in showing off a collection of doors.

But I was reminded of just how many pictures of doors I have taken over the years after talking to my cousin Marisa in Canada.

She was recently engaged in a project to photograph and record the stories of doors in her home town in Ontario

And as you do I went looking for some of the ones I have come across over the years.

Most are from cities and towns in Italy, Greece and a shed load here in Manchester

Some of them have appeared before along with the history of the people who lived or worked behind them.

So for now I shall just post the pictures of three I like.

Via Nationale

I  don’t pretend they are classic shots but just ones that I have come to know over the years with the promise of more to come.

The first is one of those most of us pass by without a second glance.

It is on that very busy and at times desolate stretch of Fairfield Street by Piccadilly Railway Station.*

And for a big chunk of the 1970s I often caught the 218 out to Grey Mare lane and then when we bought our first house all the way up to Ashton.

The second is on the Via Nationale in Rome and caught my fancy as I waited outside a clothes shop for what seemed a century.  We had done the sightseeing and now it was that other type of activity involving a series of shops which made even the most mundane Roman relic a thing of beauty and fascination.

And that just leaves me with the entrance to J & J Shaw on New Wakefield Street.

New Wakefield Street

I long ago delved into the history of the company and acknowledge others have taken better pictures of the door and tiled surround, but then this at least is mine and not snatched from the internet.

So there you have it ...... three doors three places and I bet lots of stories, as yet untold.

Locations, Fairfield Street, Manchester, Via Nationale, Rome, and New Wakefield Street Manchester





Pictures; different doors, different places 2002-2010, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Alas it has gone

Marcus et Flavia ....... amor verus in aeternum …………*

So, what is it about the need some people have to write on walls?

Bits that escaped the scribblers, Rome, 2007

Now I am not thinking about the spray can artists who emblazon their name, tag or other bewildering message across buildings, buses, and urinals, although they do puzzle me.

No, it’s those who feel the need to carve their name, or initials on an ancient monument, as if that somehow enhances this relic of the past or ensures the scribbler some eternal longevity.

Bits that might yet attract scribblers, 2007

All of which has been prompted by those stories of a British and Swiss tourist who did just that on the Colosseum in Rome.

They won’t have been the first nor the last, but what marks them out is that they were caught in the act and were filmed by angry fellow tourists.

The response of the two when caught were different.  According to reports I have read the British defacer claimed he didn’t know the history or the significance of the Colosseum while the Swiss girl just shrugged, and her parents appeared to think there was nothing wrong.

I guess some will mutter “so what, get a grip, it’s no big deal”, and it is true that leaving a message is not new.

Roman soldiers carved their name on bits of the Sphinx in Egypt only to be followed by French and British soldiers during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and no doubt there will be a broken-down monument in Iraq that bears an inscription from members of the Coalition forces.

The historian in me can even see how some of those ancient acts of vandalism are now themselves part of the historic story. 

Replica statue of Emperor Augustus, 2007

The poignant carved messages by prisoners in the Tower of London offer an insight into the plight of the innocent and not so innocent who fell foul of a change in dynasty or official religious policy.

While the political slogans and obscene suggestions left on the walls of Pompeii reminds us that electioneering promises are not new, and the humour and ingenuity of some scribblers can be as funny now as they were in 79 AD.

Prisoners inscriptions Beauchamp Tower 1553-1622**

Leaving me I suppose to ask who am I to deny the historians and social observers of the future the pleasure, and opportunities for PhD’s devoted to the graffiti of the 21st century?

But maybe just maybe that’s hogwash, and really writing your name on an ancient monument is just vanity and an act of vandalism ranking alongside the lopping off of bits of Greek and Roman statues.

Rant over.

Location; Rome and London

And the replica of Emperor Nervae who didn't escape the scribbler, 2007

Pictures; bits of Rome that have survived and a few new bits, 2007-2010 from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Prisoners inscriptions Beauchamp Tower, 1553-1622, from The Tower of London HMSO, 1967

*Marcus and Flavia ....... true love forever

**Prisoners inscriptions on the walls of the Beauchamp Tower, left T Salmon, 1622, centre the Dudley Brothers, 1553, right, G. Gifford, 1586

Knocking Rome about a bit ...... the sack of the City in 1527 ... on the wireless today

 Now this is one I found fascinating.

It is the story of The Sack of Rome in 1527 from the series In Our Time.

"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the infamous assault of an army of the Holy Roman Emperor on the city of Rome in 1527. 

The troops soon broke through the walls of this holy city and, with their leader shot dead early on, they brought death and destruction to the city on an epic scale. 

Later writers compared it to the fall of Carthage or Jerusalem and soon the mass murder, torture, rape and looting were followed by disease which was worsened by starvation and opened graves. 

It has been called the end of the High Renaissance, a conflict between north and south, between Lutherans and Catholics, and a fulfilment of prophecy of divine vengeance and, perhaps more persuasively, a consequence of military leaders not feeding or paying their soldiers other than by looting.

With Stephen Bowd, Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Edinburgh, Jessica Goethals, Associate Professor of Italian at the University of Alabama and Catherine Fletcher, Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University

Producer: Simon Tillotson"

Pictures; Rome, 2009 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Sack of Rome 1527, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001whfr

This is Rome .......... from 1960

I have never lost my fascination for Rome.

I have friends who long ago fell in love with Venice, others who keep going back to Florence and yet more who never cease talking about Paris, but for me it is Rome.

It started with an all consuming interest in Roman history and has been cemented over the years by visits to the Eternal City.

The place always amazes me and you never quite get away from that feeling that down every street there is a ruin, and around every corner a piazza.

And despite its magnificent buildings, wide avenues and frenetic pace it remains on a human scale.

Over the years I have invested in guide books, scholarly accounts of the city and picked up those free little maps full of adverts for pizzerias, car hire firms and taxis and recently I added This is Rome to the collection and it is one of my favourites.

Unlike the others it is aimed at children, was first published in 1960 and comes from a series written and illustrated by Miroslav Sasek.

Now I am a great fan of the books of Mr Sasek, partly because they are informative and written with a degree of wit but also because of the illustrations which are bold bright and imaginative.

So on one page there is a fine picture of the Pantheon with a bit of history, while on another a mix of motorbikes with the caption, “Rome is full of statues, but full of motorcycles too.  We prefer the statues, they are so much quieter.”

And it is those illustrations which do it for me.

The style is one you saw a lot of in the 1950s and 60s, which still look fresh today.

In the same series are books on Venice, London, New York, Paris and Edinburgh as well as Hong Kong San Francisco and Texas.

In time I think I will collect the lot after all if the ones on Rome and London are representative of the rest they will not only be fun to read, very informative but will provide me with some excellent pictures to look at.

Picture; Rome, 2009 from the collection of Andrew Simpson, remaining images from This is Italy, Miroslav Sasek, 1960, reprinted 2007

Down on the Corso Garibaldi in Naples waiting for the tram

Now, if you know where to look you can find a tram in Naples.  

On the Corso Garibaldi, 2006

This one runs to the Corso Garibaldi and is one of the  three services which are routes 1, 2 and 4.

I have no idea what happened to route 3, but given that this is Naples there can be any one of a number of explanations.

The most likely is that it was lost once when the tram network was more extensive.

The good news is that trams are on the increase again in the city and that has to be good.

They first began running a service in 1875 which was two years before Rome and at present there are 11.8 km of track.

I wish we could have caught one last month when were there but next time I shall.

Near the Porta Maggiore 2010

And in the same way when we return to Rome I will board one of their green ones.

My preferred choice would be one of  these older ones, but I am guessing it will have been replaced by the new sleeker models.

Well, we shall see.

Location; Naples & Rome

Pictures; Napoli, line of trams in Corso Garibaldi. At the head of the line is Peter Witt-type tram no. 975, ©grahamec, permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 and Roma, Older tram near Porta Maggiore 2010, © Luca F, who as the copyright holder (Luca F.) of this file allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed.

You never know who you will bump into ……..

It was my first time in Rome and as you do we wandered down to the heart of ancient Rome.

The Emperor Augustus ….. or to be strictly accurate, the replica, on the Via Fori Imperiali

Picture; Emperor Augustus, Rome, 2008, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Lost in Rome

Now don’t you just hate it when on a cold grey wet day here in Manchester someone parades holiday pictures.

Worse still if they are of place where the sun is currently cracking the paving stones and it is 32̀⁰ with an option of getting hotter.

But if there is a consolation we are still here watching the rain come down like stair rods and the photo is a few years old.

It is another of those ones of Rome but a part of the city tourist don’t often see.  Well we do which is more to do with our ability to get lost and miss the big things like the Colosseum, Circus Maximus, and Vatican.

But then there are the rewards which consist of empty little streets and little shops like this one, which specialized in anything and everything to do with birthdays.  And had we wanted a novelty gift here was where we could have got it.

Location; Rome

Picture; Rome 2010, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Little bits of history through the post …… the parcel and the international federation

The parcel arrived this week, and was meant to be here for Christmas.

But I suppose  given the inevitable Christmas “rush” and the pandemic, a delay was to be expected, and I won’t short change the Italian postal system when we were still getting Christmas cards from Stockport and Tameseide on New Year’s Eve.

None of which is a criticism of either postal service or the family in Italy and our friends across Greater Manchester.

Added to which the stamps on the envelop were a delight, especially as I have never lost my love of Rome or Roman history.

And they reference the International Philatalia Festival which in turn is linked to "The International Federation of Philately , (Fédération internationale de philatélie , FIP ) was founded in Paris on July 16, 1926 by the numerous national philatelic federations to protect the interests of collectors and promote the spread of philately . The Federation's headquarters are located in Zurich , Switzerland .

The federation carries out the task of sponsoring the international exhibitions of philately that take place in different countries every year (in Italy, the Genoa '92 Exposition had considerable importance ). During the international exhibitions, collections divided into competition classes, established by FIP regulations, are exhibited, which are evaluated and awarded with medals”.

So that is it.

Leaving me just to add one of the stamps that came from Christmas cards that arrived from Italy on time.

Location;Varese and Chorlton

Picture, envelope celebrating Festival Internazionale Della Filatalia, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The International Federation of Philately. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federazione_internazionale_di_filatelia

 

More on the ruins of Rome

Down every street another ruin, and around every corner another piazza
















Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Other people’s pictures ...... Rome ..... no.4 .... across the roof tops

Now I remain fascinated by other people’s pictures.

It is partly because the pictures are often of places, I have never been, but also because it is an insight into how other people see the world.

So, here just a year or so after they were taken are some from our Saul.

Location; Rome

Pictures; Rome, 2020, from the collection of Saul Simpson

Other people’s pictures ...... Rome ..... no.2 .... the statue

Now I remain fascinated by other people’s pictures.

It is partly because the pictures are often of places, I have never been, but also because it is an insight into how other people see the world.


So, here just a year or so after they were taken are some from our Saul.


Location; Rome

Pictures; Rome, 2020, from the collection of Saul Simpson

When in Rome part 5

It was another one of those days when we got lost in Rome.

Now I know how pretentious that sounds but it was true, and it was hot, getting hotter and there seemed no end to the little back alleys we encountered.

So when we came across this fruit and wine shop I think we were all happy.  It was no different from one of our corner shops, although it was set into a building and what you see was pretty much all there was.  But it did the business, and like our corner shops was aimed mainly at the local trade.

So our lady with the shopping trolley bought a bottle of wine some fruit and some cheese.

Now I do like shopping for food in Italy and when we are in Varese we always go to the local supermarket which is just a tad more exciting than the ones at home.  Ah I hear you mutter he’s being pretentious again.  But there is something about the food that they sell.

For a start there is a greater variety of cheese, fruit and vegetables, and they don’t all come in regular shapes and sizes.  They look like they have been grown and not produced to a format and some still have the earth from the land clinging to them.  Is this good?  Well I think so.  It reminds you of where they have come from and some of the effort that went into bringing them to the shop.

And it being Italy there seems to be no end to the type, shape and size of the pasta.  One of my favourites is mist corto which is mix of different small shapes and ends up in one of Rosa’s soups.

Location; Rome


Picture; Rome, 2010, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Holiday snaps ....... I keep coming back to nu 4 ... beside the Pantheon

We were looking for somewhere to eat and found the Pantheon.

Nothing to say really.

Location: Rome










Picture, Rome, 2011, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

When in Rome Part 4

Now we had gone looking for that floating dance floor, the one Gregory Peck took Audrey Hepburn to in Roman Holiday.

I was determined to find it having just seen another Italian movie with an equally implausible plot which featured the same floating dance floor.

And I guess it appeared in plenty more light comedy films made about life in Rome in the 50s.

I was convinced it was near the Ponte Sant’Angelo and was all for walking back and forth beside the Tiber till I located its remains.  But it was a hot day and we had already done the Vatican so we settled for a meal in a small restaurant close to the river.

I have tried finding it again but with no luck but it was just what we wanted situated by a small park.  I had mushrooms and pasta and Tina I think had seafood after which we gave up on the dance floor.

I didn’t mind. The following day we stumbled in to the Campo de’ Fiori, a wonderful mix of market stalls young men and women posing next to motor bikes and policemen.

We were assured that the evening was the best time to see the place when it became a lively meeting place for young Romans.

But we had a date with another restaurant on the Via Castelfidardo and so we left the square to the young.

I rather think we had the better night,

Location; Rome

Pictures; Ponte Sant’Angelo and the Campo de’ Fiori, 2010, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Posters from the Past ........... no 18 ......... Rome The Eternal City

Now the project is simple, take an image of a building we all love and turn it into the style of poster which was popular in the middle decades of the last century.*

And today  we are in Rome, one of my favourite cities, wondering how the Tourist Office might have marketed the Eternal City.

Location; Rome

Painting; Rome, © 2018 Peter Topping,  Paintings from Pictures, from a photograph by Andrew Simpson, 2008

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk 

*Posters from the Past, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Posters%20from%20the%20Past

When in Rome part 2

Now when in Rome I do the ruins, like any tourist, after all if you have had a love affair with Roman history since you were seven it is obligatory.

Left to myself I can get lost at the Forum, and despite the crowds will still find something personal when standing at the Colosseum or gazing over the expanse of the Circus Maximus.

But there is that other Rome where tourists and sunlight rarely penetrate. Here in the back streets you can still come across hidden little churches, the odd pile of ancient masonry and around the corner a piazza.

It always amazes me how in these working parts of the city businesses cling to every available space, like the bar and restaurant whose tables and chairs spilled out from the small entrance or the even smaller shop which was really no more than a hole in the wall.

Location Rome











Pictures; Rome, 2010, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Six ways to leave a story about Ancient Rome ……. Edward Gibbon on the wireless

Now, I am looking forward to listening to the story of Edward Gibbon from the series In Our Time on Radio 4.

A bit of Rome a bit knocked about

I missed it yesterday when it was broadcast and will catch up with it today.

Mr. Gibbon is of course best known for his account of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

To my shame I have yet to read the six volumes of how work which mother bought for me back in 1961.

To be fair I was 11, and despite being fascinated by the Romans I was daunted by the expanse of reading.

So I will start with the wireless programme. 

"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of one of the great historians, best known for his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (published 1776-89). 

According to Gibbon (1737-94), the idea for this work came to him on 15th of October 1764 as he sat musing amidst the ruins of Rome, while barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter. Decline and Fall covers thirteen centuries and is an enormous intellectual undertaking and, on publication, it became a phenomenal success across Europe.

Edward Gibbon, 1779

With David Womersley, The Thomas Wharton Professor of English Literature at St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford, Charlotte Roberts, Lecturer in English at University College London, and Karen O’Brien, Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson”

Pictures; a bit of Rome from after the Fall of the Empire, 2010, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and Portrait of Edward Gibbon, 1779, Joshua Reynolds

*Edward Gibbon, In Our Time, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000x0v2

Other people’s pictures ...... Rome ..... no.3 .... looking for a bargain

Now I remain fascinated by other people’s pictures.

It is partly because the pictures are often of places, I have never been, but also because it is an insight into how other people see the world.

So, here just a year or so after they were taken are some from our Saul.

Location; Rome

Pictures; Rome, 2020, from the collection of Saul Simpson

Railway stations I have known ...... no. 2 Roma Termini

Now I am the first to admit that these pictures do not do justice to the main railway station in Rome.

But there you are, they are mine and we are stuck with them.

We didn’t actually either arrive or leave by train but used the station to eat, which may seem daft but the chain of restaurants called Ciao were second to none, serving up a variety of fresh and interesting food and were always well patronised.

Sadly the chain is no more and a place where you could eat excellent food at a decent prices across Italy is no more.

The railway station is big.  It replaced an earlier one built in 1868, and opened in 1950.  It has 33 platforms, 150 million passengers pass through each year and there are daily international services to Munich, Geneva and Vienna.

And there are lots of shops.

All in all it’s got the lot.

Location; Rome






Picture; Roma Termini, 2009, from the collection of Andrew Simpson