Snapper

Thanks chums.

It's been a funny time. Here and not here. Doing stuff elsewhere - in a sort of haze. I was at the two A & Es and spent a bit of time in.... A & E! well, that's life. When your brain decides to cave in you just have to wait for the thing to stop messing about and get the glue out. Job done...sort of. There are bits missing - of brain and time and I can't really make sense of some things - but is that news?

You'll find me on FB using my actual name and I'm on there with a battlefields history pix page called For Your Tomorrow which is staggering on to a slow and dignified end - much like me. I hope.

M

The sad day I was there the stuff I saw being loaded was ALL going to Donington. Anything on show elsewhere is on loan from NAM. I'd love to see a book from Wally on the history of it all - but presumably that would have to wait until the bulk of the collection finds a settled home on display, if likely? It is an interesting subject. The politics of museums is a tangled web best avoided on forums as anywhere else. I would just like to see the stuff on display again reflecting the hard work that went into to getting it all together.

MB

Interesting to see the background to where these images come from. Will have a look at this one. There have been a number of books recently from Pen & Sword on the Germans in WW1 and the well known Jack Sheldon is out there producing works still. I haven't had any time to see the sources for these images - which is what I do professionally - so it's interesting how Mail Online grabbed this one, but the internet version of papers pick up a lot the print editions ignore.

Something to look out for. There are so many great image pages on the Great War on FB.

MB

How wonderful is that? Fantastic bit of work. I am a sucker for models, although I stopped making them a long time ago, I love to see them in this way, showing all the phases and the effort in design and construction. Congratulations. Outstanding.

MB

Pat Ware sent me to cover the closure of the museum and I turned up on the day the army came to take everything away and photographed them taking the vehicles out on transporters. It was a surreal experience. There were brand new massive tank transporters = the big OSHKOSH things and the smaller Atkinsons METs and a gaggle of Fodens and other stuff. I snapped the lot. I remember these blokes pushing the Gutty into a container using a big bar on the front of a DAF truck and some planks. I saw it a couple of weeks ago at Gaydon. I got a ride in the Scammell Commander which they used to pull a few things around with. The driver was a bloke they called Corporal Jones... nice bloke. There were sad sights at Beverley. Rooms of scattered bits and piles of spares and all kinds of rubbish out the back. It was depressing. I wonder where it all went? Memories....... MB

I had this in an email from my colleague Simon Thomson regarding a stolen jeep. I place it here in good faith.

MB

ATTENTION...............

STOLEN JEEP - Calling all M/V IMPS - MVT - MVPA - detectives - Spread the word -

STOLEN JEEP (95% restored)

Willys - Nov 1944 - Chassis No. 390342, Body/tub No.152906

Had set of modern rear springs - sat inches higher -

Split rims with radial tyres - set of Hotchkiss wheels with bar grips also stolen -

bumperets had numerous holes drilled in - bonnet had reinforced strips added.

Stolen from north Kent area. No canvas or bows.

Its out there guys - lets find it - it must be offered for sale somewhere -

Any info to - Fred Astbury - 07789173823, or Nick Cowles - (Weald Area) or call 999.

PLEASE forward to others in the M/V Jeep world.

Not good news -

Thanks.

Nick

Great to see everyone else's pix. I still work on the event on the Photography Team and it can be chaotic. It IS. I won't comment on how it works or on anything in house here. I spoke to quite a lot of people who had to pay for their tickets and tried to help a number of them sort out a good angle for snaps in the arena and so on. It wasn't easy for any of us. I wasn't allowed to do half the things I used to do and I have no criticisms for the people running things in the arena. Things change it was all new and stuff happens. So we got on with what we have. It was very disappointing, but you can't change things by expanding space or moving buildings. Get over it. So in the end I got some interesting snaps, especially of Neil's Mates during the Chechnya battle and of some of the WW2 battle moments, but nothing like we used to get at Beltring. Photographing the armour was problematic - the dust, the position of the sun, the angles of all the background clutter etc. It was a challenge. I have deleted hundreds and hundreds of images. My main Nikon is ruined, temporarily, and needs cleaning big time. I had it with my in the US last week and it was effed. You lose some, you lose some more. So, I'd love to hear what you all think of the arena as snappers. Seriously. I thought it was too narrow and too cluttered. But that was me. I'm only one. I thought a great deal else was superb. Some of the LH displays were fantastic. I promise I will put my pix up here. I've got some on FB already - so I'll do some repeats - I'll have to skim them because i've deleted the low res already. This will take time. Watch this space. MB

Roxette - I've just got up to drinking lemonade...

TB - you're still at it, then? What can I say? I might let you express yourself without interfering.

Olaf, I don't drink coke, mate.

Thank you Men.

pass the custard creams.

M

I've done this before and I'm trying again. No warning to the other Mods. No crud - straight in. I've been away quite some time for reasons some people know - not in prison - but something like it - LOL - health problems. Anyway - I am attempting to get myself back to how I used to be and playing again. I was at War & Peace Revival. I swore I'd never be at Beltring again, and I was right; and here I am some weeks later, still cleaning the muck out of my life and getting on my feet again. I saw a lot of friends at WP and it had me thinking I can't quite walk away from all this nonsense. I still have the MUTT and the brain thing and all the shizzle, but life proceeds. Lee and the chaps, Olaf and too many more to mention who I don't keep in touch with on FB were grand to see again. It has been a long year...two, more even. I'm in touch with Jack and Joris all the time due to stuff I do for War History Online. That has been fun..but I won't deny things have not been a nightmare but I've been cheered on by chums from HMVF and elsewhere either directly or in their own way and it is much appreciated.

I can't promise ultra-regular attendance. I will try and do some work here. I used to do quite a lot in my own way and was active. Then it all went pear shaped. Very. I have a few things I need advice on and the cynics will assume that is why I am back, but actually, I was prompted by the implosion of another forum I know of and a mate was saying about it and I was telling him about this place and it made me think what I had missed. Some people still call me Snapper - it applies to photographers in "Fleet Street" where I still work despite all the arrests and mess - but you can ignore it if you like

Mark

Bride and jeep connected! Thanks to Gary and David. The bride is an RAF nurse and the groom is a serving soldier. Hopefully this will all work out well and be another success for HMVF and our friends in the MV world. My mate John will be at the wedding, so I hope to get a snap I can post sooner or later, he is a long standing friend of the groom's family. I also know the father of the groom who has been on one of our battlefield trips. They're all bonkers. It should be perfect.

MB

Cheers Gary..

MB

Hi folks,

I haven't been around for a bit, but I am in need of assistance for a friend of a friend in the Inverness area. A young lady would dearly love to be taken to the church on her wedding day in a nice tidy WW2 jeep. This is Saturday August 3rd. I know the location is five miles from Inverness and that is the limit of the gen I have at present. This is a genuine request and I am sure expenses would be covered. If any of you folks are able to assist I can do the contacts thing ASAP and get it sorted and make someone happy - another success for HMVF - a forum I have been proud to have been part of for many years but quiet on for some time. Anyway - look forward to hearing from you.

MB

My colleague at work dug up the nose cone off a Zepp bomb while tidying his garden in Walthamstow - it was compacted with earth and looked lethal so he dialled the three digits and the cops got in the RLC chaps. They had a wonderful photo guide of world war bomb types to identify the thing from. Hence why we know what it is. I was subsequently able to tell me colleague the date of the raid, who the Zepp commander was and pretty much what his cat had eaten for breakfast on that sunny morning in 1915. For this my colleague hoped to sell me the thing for the price of, I dunno, four nights playing dominoes with Katherine Jenkins, whatever floats your boat; I declined. His arse is tighter than any duck I know of. But that's Evertonians for you.

We'll have enough of you lot here soon to get our own Tim's franchise. Count me in. Welcome to the Friendly Forum!

Looks like a lot of fun.

I'm clueless...just throwing a small spanner in..thanks for the feedback! :-D

The Postal jeeps were right hand drive I believe, this one is left hand as normal, I have seen the spanish army ones with willys on the side of the bonnet.......................maybe one of those

Looks like a fantastic authentic truck to me. Lovely snap, too. You must be pleased. :-D

If you do the Batterie Todt Museum then make sure you visit the the other three casemates which are open to the public but are not museums. One is a bat sanctuary but is intact, one is completely destroyed and one is stunning because inside the lower galleries there is a lot of original German artwork - but you will need boots and headtorches. Go after the summer when the flora has cut back. There are some really good CWGC cemeteries between Audinghen and Calais. I can't remember the big one off hand, but it is near Sangatte. It has a WW2 plot but the majority are WW1 and include all the colonial Labour Corps varieties we Brits lured out to clear up the battlefield. Between Calais and Boulogne is a Canadian WW2 cemetery, only small, but is for the men who died during the siege of Calais in 1944. RIP.

Eperlecques is good fun, totally random, but has to be seen. I have been to Mimoyecques in winter and sneaked in. It is a bit odd. I haven't been to La Cupole.

If you choose to go to Ypres, the vista changes completely. It can be done in a day. But, if you decide to stay the night there are a couple of decent hotels which my ailing brain refuses to let me remember. One begins with A - really good and caters for big parties. (Sorry, but this thing is taking this important stuff away and dropping it back at odd times.) Anyway - I think you might be better to organise yourself round Calais. If you aren't too big a group, the little café/restaurant next to the Batterie Todt (in a wooden building) does a mean steak or a moules frites for a very fair price and will do a group. Call in before you do the museum and sort a time with the guy. He is cool. Or do the Café de Paris in Calais by the old lighthouse. If you haven't had a Flammekeuche you haven't lived, with frites of course and beer etc etc etc etc etc...get fat.

Shoot me down but didn't the US Mail use a lot of jeeps post war production down the years? Could this be a repainted one of those? I dunno - just fencing...

Good point....I'll have to check the other useless frames. I assumed someone would bite before now regardless....

I might have to start charging...

Welcome to the Friendly Forum. You appear to have us hooked. So, please don't leave us hanging too long! :-D

Wasn't there Mark, but glad to see you're all Ok, which is more important than metal. Scary, but one to add to your legend. Don't do it again please

MB

Great snaps, Andy - nice to see a different perspective. You snapped some vehicles I didn't even see. Thank you very much!

MB