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Guy Martin - Mk IV Female Tank replica


simon king

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On 04/11/2017 at 3:00 PM, flandersflyer said:

Be careful... 

Local authorities are pass masters at making unpopular decisions appear to be someone else's doing....

They are full of completely hopeless and useless shysters, charlatans and chancers... devious and sly...

I just wanted to quote the third sentence.

I felt it was a very accurate description of our 'betters' ?

Well said 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Richard Farrant said:

Adrian,

I have known the Ashford MkIV tank for nearly 60 years, and as locals we are proud to have the only remaining WW1 tank still standing in the same position as when it was driven there in 1919. It is now considered as a war memorial. The inside was gutted to fit an electricity sub-station in the 1920's, bottom was cut out and rear of hull altered to double doors for access. The tank is listed as an historic monument and I doubt very much that the council "were all for it" regarding restoration. I went inside a few years ago when the council wanted to recreate the rear end to look more authentic. A local fabricator asked me to go with him to assess the job for a quote. In the end another local welding business did the job. It would be criminal to restore it as it would end up a reconstruction as so many of the hull plates are cracked under the stress of rust between riveted joints. So much new metal would have go into it, then all the drive train would have to be constructed. I think the Tank Museum made a wise move of buying the film prop tank, rather than stress out their original one. Since the shelter was erected the tank has kept much drier.

One thing I found interesting was that both drive chains are still fitted, it has been said that these chains were removed on parking the presentation tanks so that they could not be driven again.

Richard, I was inside it at the end of last year to assess it for use in the program with two council officials and they told me the council was in favour. We all agreed it was not practical but they were not against it at all.

Although the chains are there, one sprocket is missing and the track is just wrapped round iirc. I think the disabling varied from tank to tank.

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2 hours ago, flandersflyer said:

Do you work for a local authority...?

No, I don't.

I do however know a few people who do, and surprisingly they're just normal folks doing their best to get by under very trying circumstances, rather than some new incarnation of either the Gestapo or the Anti-Christ as some would appear to suggest...

I also work alongside construction and demolition companies, and have worked on & off in Lincoln for 30 years, so I like to think I know a bit about manoeuvering heavy machinery in & out of congested sites in the middle of this particular town centre - more than Channel 4 & some others seem to, at least.

I also saw Guy Martin & his assorted bunch of whatever-the-hell-they-were mooching about town at the last minute trying to work out if they could actually fit a bloody great big tank down the street after all - they obviously decided they couldn't, but of course it's better if they make out that it's all the council's or 'Elf & Safety's' fault, eh?

As you originally said, "everything is possible" - it's just that some things are so bloody stupid that you'd have to be an attention-seeking fool to consider them in the first place (in my most humble opinion, of course...). I'm reminded that this is the same fella whose 'world record attempt' in a human-powered hydrofoil on Lincoln's Brayford Pool was curtailed because he hadn't considered that the weeds might foul his pedalo... And he wants to drive a Tank through crowds of shoppers?

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3 minutes ago, 11th Armoured said:

No, I don't.

I do however know a few people who do, and surprisingly they're just normal folks doing their best to get by under very trying circumstances, rather than some new incarnation of either the Gestapo or the Anti-Christ as some would appear to suggest...

I also work alongside construction and demolition companies, and have worked on & off in Lincoln for 30 years, so I like to think I know a bit about manoeuvering heavy machinery in & out of congested sites in the middle of this particular town centre - more than Channel 4 & some others seem to, at least.

I also saw Guy Martin & his assorted bunch of whatever-the-hell-they-were mooching about town at the last minute trying to work out if they could actually fit a bloody great big tank down the street after all - they obviously decided they couldn't, but of course it's better if they make out that it's all the council's or 'Elf & Safety's' fault, eh?

As you originally said, "everything is possible" - it's just that some things are so bloody stupid that you'd have to be an attention-seeking fool to consider them in the first place (in my most humble opinion, of course...). I'm reminded that this is the same fella whose 'world record attempt' in a human-powered hydrofoil on Lincoln's Brayford Pool was curtailed because he hadn't considered that the weeds might foul his pedalo... And he wants to drive a Tank through crowds of shoppers?

I don't have Guy Martin down as anything other than a passenger...he rides the back of the late great Mr. Dibnah...rather than getting his own act... 

 

In regards to my question as to if you worked for a local authority...you seemed defensive...i thought it was a familiar old pattern developing... 

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29 minutes ago, Adrian Barrell said:

Richard, I was inside it at the end of last year to assess it for use in the program with two council officials and they told me the council was in favour. We all agreed it was not practical but they were not against it at all.

Although the chains are there, one sprocket is missing and the track is just wrapped round iirc. I think the disabling varied from tank to tank.

Thanks Adrian,

Many years ago, when the tank was basically in a square with traffic driving around it, there was talk of repositioning it. At that time I was at the nearby REME workshops and the council would come to them for advise, and even then they were told it would not be an easy task without damaging it as the hull had lost its integrity, so it was left alone. 

I saw both chains there but obviously did not notice the sprocket being missing.

cheers Richard

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42 minutes ago, flandersflyer said:

In regards to my question as to if you worked for a local authority...you seemed defensive...i thought it was a familiar old pattern developing... 

Not at all, I just can't abide misinformation being presented as fact, especially in the present 'post-truth' world.

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I hope that I can get to see the documentary here in Poland. As it is, these days I am probably physically closer to the memorial tanks in Ukraine than the the one in Ashford, if they are still in position. Maybe one day I will get to see them.

trevor

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6 hours ago, Richard Farrant said:

Mention has been made of our town's MkIV Tank, you might be interested to see this:

https://www.ashford.gov.uk/whats-on/news/ashford-commemorates-the-centenary-of-the-battle-of-cambrai-9th-oct/

Cllr Mike Bennett of Ashford Borough Council states'......those who bravely gave their lives during the First World War'. Let's be clear on this as it is mentioned by others in authority and the media, that they did NOT give their lives...........They were taken from them, a big difference.

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13 hours ago, Bob Grundy said:

Cllr Mike Bennett of Ashford Borough Council states'......those who bravely gave their lives during the First World War'. Let's be clear on this as it is mentioned by others in authority and the media, that they did NOT give their lives...........They were taken from them, a big difference.

Wondering how you mean that?

Certainly, if unarmed people are rounded up by armed men, lined up in front of a wall and shot... those lives have been taken! 

A soldier who volunteers is essentially "giving" his life, at least potentially. If he doesn't understand that, he probably isn't intelligent enough to be a soldier.

Conscripted soldiers are admittedly a grey area. In one sense, being a voluntary citizen of a country (when you are allowed to leave your country in protest of it) knowing your country conscripts troops, you are a defacto "volunteer" if you chose to continue to live there. After all, most people in free countries are allowed to determine their country's direction and policies with their vote. If they don't take that responsibility seriously, well.....

I guess my point is that if you look at this in the noblest possible way, as a volunteer you are essentially signing a blank check (or cheque to some of you) made payable to your country for an amount up to and including your life. 

Given the way WWI was fought, and how frivolously it started, we could debate how "noble" any of it was, but often the motivations of the individual people were noble. That's why I don't often mind the high road being taken with regards to speeches and such because it honors those people's intent and their sacrifice. Often the nobility is found in the bonds between soldiers

One can argue that not "telling it like it was" furthers needless war. Maybe that's true. It doesn't seem to matter, though. The human race will find ways make war on each other and most of us are powerless to stop it. Even if a country or a group of people are totally in the right and trying to avoid war, war often finds them.

Forgive me this post. As an old soldier from a family of soldiers, I often get reflective as Veterans Day approaches.  

 

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1 hour ago, 4x4Founder said:

Conscripted soldiers are admittedly a grey area. In one sense, being a voluntary citizen of a country (when you are allowed to leave your country in protest of it) knowing your country conscripts troops...

 

The slight problem there is that no-one in the UK had experienced conscription in the modern sense until it was introduced in 1916 (or probably ever expected it, given the contemporary propaganda that we were still 'sticking it to the Hun'). It's reckoned that well over 2.5 million men were conscripted in the UK by the end of the war.

This quote is interesting when one is considering the response to conscription, "...compulsion did not go smoothly. By July 1916 93,000 (30%) of those called had failed to appear, that summer and autumn likely-looking men in public places were rounded up." When you think that a large proportion of the conscripts were fed into the meat-grinder of the Western Front, Bob's comment is perhaps sadly quite apt.

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Sadly my grandfather was one of those conscripted, when he was the only bread winner for a home full of kids. He lasted 6 months in the Wilts Regt, and was shot in the neck in 1917 on the Western Front. He lingered on for another 19 years and died in 1936 of his war related injuries aged 45. His widow my grandmother was told she wasn't entitled to a war widows pension! 

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Whether you volunteer or get conscripted a soldiers life isállmost  allways taken, even if they know the risk.

Some DO give their lives, for instance by throwing theirselves on a grenade to save the lives of their buddys.

 

Here a pic from the Cambrai tank taken by me;

 

IMG_0352 (Small).JPG

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On 08/11/2017 at 5:24 PM, Richard Farrant said:

Mention has been made of our town's MkIV Tank, you might be interested to see this:

https://www.ashford.gov.uk/whats-on/news/ashford-commemorates-the-centenary-of-the-battle-of-cambrai-9th-oct/

Hi Richard,

It's fantastic to know the last remaining presentation tank is so close to home. I've often visited it over the years. And now it's so significant that it would be amiss not to attend this Friday's remembrance service.  

I hope to get to he service at the tank on Friday. See you there. 

All the best, Tim

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13 minutes ago, Timbo3945 said:

Hi Richard,

It's fantastic to know the last remaining presentation tank is so close to home. I've often visited it over the years. And now it's so significant that it would be amiss not to attend this Friday's remembrance service.  

I hope to get to he service at the tank on Friday. See you there. 

All the best, Tim

Hi Tim,

I am planning to be there, so might catch up with you.

regards, Richard

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