Nancy's Logbooks (1 Viewer)

[Lee Evans]

Talking of Deputy Dawg, does anyone know how he is at the moment? The last time I saw John Wright he said that he was in a very poor state of health - and his sight was extremely impaired. I have not seen him for over ten years now - again very depressing, I used to see him almost daily.

 

[Bismarck Honeyeater]

Nancy, bless her heart, would have none of it, we got a twin room for the night, big pot of piping hot tea with two house brick size lumps of Bread pudding, all for a fiver! Will never for get it.

I only stayed at Nancy's once, with Norfolk really being in striking distance of London it never really seemed very necessary, though the trip is now taking nearly as long as it did in the sixties with traffic as it is.

She even offered to send one of the girls up later, I politely declined. I'm sure she was joking, never really saw Nancy as a madam!

It was fun being at the hub of the nations grapevine and I often dropped in when working in the area just to work the phone for a bit (perhaps I should get a job at RBA - Dick?)

GH

 

[Gavin Haig]

Paul Sampson and his sidekick who we used to refer to as....

The perils of cut & paste! Absolute classic faux pas! Had me in stitches! :t:

And then there was 'The Werewolf'. As youngsters we really weren't very kind were we...

 

[Bismarck Honeyeater]

Just a kid

Tsk! Nineteen EIGHTY-five, you senile old goat

Excellent story though! When I think of some of the flimsy gen that got us haring off without a second thought....

Flimsy Gen, how is she doing nowadays?

I remember the three day bumpy stagecoach ride up the east coast in 1888 to see the breeding Pallass's Sandgrouse in Morayshire, happy days.

Best not to mention our ill-fated dip in 1841 for Great Auk on St. Kilda, if only the news had got out a year earlier.

GH

 

[Larry Sweetland]

And then there was 'The Werewolf'.

who was regularly in the same car as K..."Banana Hands" W... as I recall :-O

 

[Bismarck Honeyeater]

Old Gen

A close relative perhaps of Flimsy Gen must be Old Gen. We often worked off that too.

I twitched Staines Res. a year after reading 'A Twitchers Diary' by Richard Millington where he had had Black-necked Grebes the previous autumn (1980), I got them too. In fact I think they are still there.

I also twitched Horsey for Cranes and Stodmarsh for Glossy Ibis nearly on nearly two year old gen (or is that toddler gen?) from the same book and scored.

I have just remembered that we actually twitched the 1984 Pied-billed Grebe in North Wales with news that had come via the mail. I think the story was that a birder visiting his family, from Africa, had found it and didn't know who to tell and that when he got back to Africa had written a letter to some bidring friend and somehow we got the news. May have not got that all correct but it was something like that.

Oh how excited we got when we heard the telegram boy whistling his way along the lane on his bicycle. The fumbling around for a shilling, the hurried tearing open of the buff envelope to read of a Pomatahorine Skua or Bartrams Sandpiper in some far flung corner of England.

Then the long journey, often by omnibus, steam engine and horse back till our target was safely blasted out of the skies. The distinct smell of the taxidermy shop and then the happy moment we were able to scratch the tick with our quill into the parchment logbook. The bird itself sitting glassy eyed on the overmantle.

And you tell the punks that today and they don't believe you?

GH

 

[POP]

A close relative perhaps of Flimsy Gen must be Old Gen. We often worked off that too.

I twitched Staines Res. a year after reading 'A Twitchers Diary' by Richard Millington where he had had Black-necked Grebes the previous autumn (1980), I got them too. In fact I think they are still there.

I also twitched Horsey for Cranes and Stodmarsh for Glossy Ibis nearly on nearly two year old gen (or is that toddler gen?) from the same book and scored.

I have just remembered that we actually twitched the 1984 Pied-billed Grebe in North Wales with news that had come via the mail. I think the story was that a birder visiting his family, from Africa, had found it and didn't know who to tell and that when he got back to Africa had written a letter to some bidring friend and somehow we got the news. May have not got that all correct but it was something like that.

Oh how excited we got when we heard the telegram boy whistling his way along the lane on his bicycle. The fumbling around for a shilling, the hurried tearing open of the buff envelope to read of a Pomatahorine Skua or Bartrams Sandpiper in some far flung corner of England.

Then the long journey, often by omnibus, steam engine and horse back till our target was safely blasted out of the skies. The distinct smell of the taxidermy shop and then the happy moment we were able to scratch the tick with our quill into the parchment logbook. The bird itself sitting glassy eyed on the overmantle.

And you tell the punks that today and they don't believe you?

GH

I still have my jodhpurs and "double barrelled" thing about the "old puff puffs" and standing room only,they were always on time.Pass along the bus please.

POP

 

[MalR]

Although I was never a part of the twitching scene, I am thoroughly enjoying this thread. However, I was wondering if, when Nancy's finally closed, the lady herself was ever given any sort of thanks/presentation for all her efforts over the years.

I know she was running a business and making money from birders, but by the sound of it she went above and beyond the call of duty. Reading what's been written, it feels as if she deserved something (apart from a kind of immortality, which she now has in the birding world).

Malcolm

 

[Andy Benson]

Lee, re- Deputy Dawg, my Dad last heard about him still being with us 12 months ago, but as you stated in a very poor state of health. Apparently he had to be physically carried by his associates to the Minsmere 'Curlew'. Sad.
John Wright and 'Galeforce' Griggs are still pounding the Southend area.

 

[Gavin Haig]

who was regularly in the same car as K..."Banana Hands" W... as I recall :-O

KW - Banana Hands, aka the Football Hooligan! Vivid memories of KW and his mob running up and down the rides of Slufter's Inclosure chasing Crossbill flocks - footie scarf trailing in the slipstream. |=)|

It occurs to me that this thread may come across as an old farts' love-in, but I haven't had so many chuckles in a long time!

 

[halftwo]

Crackin' thread; brings some hazy memories trickling back (all too long ago now!) of hair-raising car-chases cross country and near misses trying to overtake dawdling traffic. (I remember seeing a twitcher's car upside down on top of a hedge near Fakenham once.)
A classic from the early days: I had a car full of birders in Eire (American coot) when I spotted a hump-back bridge ahead. Floored the accelerator and we took off over the brow. Then saw that the road turned abruptly left fifty yards ahead. Turning the steering wheel while in mid-air to land a couple of yards from the bend, landing with a suspension-boinging wrench and somehow making the turn! That car had its own atmosphere - the heater used to make clouds of steam in the car which made it difficult to see through and which poured boiling water on the clutch-foot!

Before that it was hitch-hiking: dozens of us making our various ways for days across the land! I remember catching a lift back from Nancy's after a wekend in Norfolk and watching some grubby youth flat on his back in the middle of a grassy roundabout with his thumb in the air! Another time I hitched from Stockport to Cornwall to Suffolk to Norfolk and back home. I was once hitching in a car on the Snake Pass which decided to overtake a right-turning lorry. After the write-off I got out to continue to hitch while the driver got a verbal beating from the lorry driver!

And that bread pudding was a life-saver - essential on a budget of near nowt. I remember too phoning Nancy's and shoveling dwindling change into the phone slot while someone tried to hear you at the other end!

Halcyon days!

 

[rockfowl]

However, I was wondering if, when Nancy's finally closed, the lady herself was ever given any sort of thanks/presentation for all her efforts over the years.

There was certainly an extended collection for her. I think from memory, one of the thankyou gifts was a new colour tv, so she could sit down and relax for once.

 

[Jonathan Williams]

All just before my time, but I was birding then and desperate to go twitching but none of the miserable gits from my YOC group at Eastwood reserve in Stalybridge would ever take me. I think my only blocker would be seeing Nightjars on Chat Moss in Greater Manchester in about 1983!! I remember my first ever YOC trip to Leighton Moss in September 81 when I was just 7 years old, where we all started cheering when a Bittern flew out of the reeds, and then booed the Heron that flushed it 10 seconds later!

I can also remember as an 8yr old crying as a choice between a YOC trip one late summer to a Swallow roost and staying in to watch Star Wars on the tv was just too much!

When I move into my new house soon, I will have to dig out my old YOC Bird Life magazines to read the Young Explorers section again, I used to think they were cutting edge birders who used to get taken out by Peter Holden. I am sure I have still got copies with sections written by Hugh Harrop on his local patch in Cardiff, and photos of Rob Fray as the Young Ornithologist of the year.

Was there any truth in the legends of the "Skin tester" who used to give birders lifts in the south west and invite them back to his house to test their skin tones for his photography whilst rubbing his hand up and down their legs?

Also, any truth in the stories that the guy who used to fly the plane to the Scillies was an ex Iranian fighter pilot?

 

[Parker]

Talking about characters from the past anybody know what happened to Jim Buttie?

On the subject of hitching I was picked up by a guy who wanted to get a bit to friendly while I was on the A12 at Ipswich, on my way to Sizewell for a White Tailed Eagle. I managed to escape & continue & by 0300hrs had made it to Saxmundham where I decided to get some kip in a bus shelter. I'd only been asleep for about an hour when I was awoke by a shadowy figure standing in the doorway. Was I relieved when I realised it was another birder I knew from Nottingham. He then started to tell me about how he'd been picked up at Ipswich by the same guy that had picked me up, but 3 hours later. Looking back now I do feel a bit sorry for this guy who had to resort to cruising the A12 for hours picking up hitchers to get some action.

 

[Parker]

QUOTE=Jonathan Williams;1989067]

Was there any truth in the legends of the "Skin tester" who used to give birders lifts in the south west and invite them back to his house to test their skin tones for his photography whilst rubbing his hand up and down their legs?


Yes it is true, though we called him the "Skin Texture" man. He used to operate in the Redruth & Camborne area of Cornwall.

 

[Jonathan Williams]

QUOTE=Jonathan Williams;1989067]

Was there any truth in the legends of the "Skin tester" who used to give birders lifts in the south west and invite them back to his house to test their skin tones for his photography whilst rubbing his hand up and down their legs?


Yes it is true, though we called him the "Skin Texture" man. He used to operate in the Redruth & Camborne area of Cornwall.

That would be him as the stories I heard were always in Cornwall somewhere, he picked my mate up once and started rubbing his leg so he grabbed the handbrake on the car (at least he thinks it was the handbrake) and jumped out in the middle of nowhere.

 

[Andy Benson]

FRANCO! (Were all those stories really true?!!!)

 

[rockfowl]

FRANCO! (Were all those stories really true?!!!)

There might have been an inch of truth in them

Top man!

 

[Farnboro John]

Paul

The undoubted peak of Scilly, in terms of numbers of visiting birders, was 1985 to 1994, when over 4,000 comrades invaded during each October. I did a lot of wardening/managing of birds then and the numbers queuing for such birds was frightening. For example, over 1,400 people queued patiently to see an exhausted Corncrake within yards of a Philadelphia Vireo, and similar numbers also queued for Sora Crake, Little Bunting and a Solitary Sandpiper.

I was forced to watch that Corncrake for longer than I intended because Guy Langan and I got there almost as it was found, and the crowd that grew as people had their fill of Philly Lite stood and knelt on my legs where I was lying to look under the bushes at the Corncrake leaning on the fence. I was well and truly pinned down.

John

 

[daviddixon]

All this nostalgia, if I had a record player I'd put on my copy of 'Big Jake Calls the Waders', a Haven Audioguide production with a intro from Cley's finest, Mr Bland himself.

I think you are right Mark about the colour TV, I recall there was an organised presentation of some kind, pretty sure skinny Del attended... well he said he did!