Ghost signs

Back in the day, if you wanted some eye-grabbing advertising, there was only one way to do it – get a sign-writer to paint your advert on a big wall. The sign-writers were busy back then, with no computers it was all done by hand, with pots of paint and lots of brushes. Everything from shop names, window lettering, vehicle logos to big brand advertising was all done by hand. This art sadly has pretty much died out, with only a handful of people still able to do the craft.

Ghost signs are a fascinating window into a lost time, they are advertisements painted onto buildings that have somehow managed to survive all the marketing people’s new fangled ideas and the developers ‘tear it down and build a new one’ culture. They are surprisingly common once you start keeping an eye out for them, in the older parts of town all you normally have to do is look up higher than normal…

National Motor Museum, Beaulieu

If you’re at all interested in classic cars then the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu is a great day out. It’s located in the New Forest and pretty Beaulieu village is also worth a visit. There are some seriously rare cars here, from some of the early land speed record cars such as bluebird, the golden arrow, the Sunbeam and Babs. The driver of Babs was John Parry-Thomas who was killed in his attempt for the land speed record in 1927 and the car was buried in the Sand at Pendine where it crashed. The car was dug up some 40 years later and put through a painstaking restoration.

Another notable car in the collection is a Blower Bentley, named after the supercharger that is visible out the front of the car. Beaulieu also has some great Automobilia in its collection, from old signs to fantastic old petrol pumps.

“Sally B” B-17 Flying Fortress

Following the recent fire that swept through the “Liberty Belle” B-17 in the states, the UK based “Sally B” is now the last remaining flying B-17 in Europe. Based at Duxford near Cambridge, the plane was used in the film “Memphis Belle” and still carries the Memphis Belle nose art on one side of its body. The last ‘flying’ flying fortress is kept in the air by volunteers and donations from fans, but it’s a tough job that is getting tougher with rising fuel costs and rising insurance costs. “Sally B” takes part in as many WW2 memorial flights as possible, regularly flying over the US army cemetery in Madingley, near Cambridge.

These photos were taken in September 2010 at the Duxford Battle of Britain airship. If you’re interested in supporting “Sally B”, take a look at their website here.

GoodYear Blimp Crashes In Germany

Sad news indeed. The ‘Spirit Of Safety’ Goodyear blimp has crashed in Germany killing the pilot Mike Nerandzic.

Early reports are that the blimp was flying with 3 journalists on board when an engine caught fire, the pilot brought the blimp down and managed to get the passengers off. Then the lack of ballast took the airship back up and the pilot was caught in the fire.

Thoughts are with the family of the pilot and also the crew.

The first I heard of the news was via a comment on my youTube video in German, I translated it to hear the sad news – a quick Google and twitter search threw up nothing though, so I was worried it might just be a cruel joke (youTube isn’t known for it’s quality comments!). Another search this morning though confirmed the worst.

This movie was taken back in April aboard the Spirit of Safety blimp:

Darrel Higham and the Enforcers, 2006

Darrel & I grew up in the same little village, he used to come over to my house and we’d play Elvis records when we were both really young. He’s the kind of friend I always got on really well with because we always had a lot to talk about (we both love the same music, cars, etc.) but we were never best buds I think mainly due to him being a few years younger than me, so we were in different years/classes in school.

Quite a few years later I was waiting for a bus when this old Ford Consol pulled over with Darrel at the wheel, he offered me a lift and I jumped in. It was like stepping into a time machine and immediatley I was back in the 50′s. The car was a little rattly and showing its age, Darrel was dressed in 50′s gear and rock n roll was blazing out of the tinny 8 track radio.

Fast forward a few more years, I was invited over to Darrel’s house with my guitar – Darrel had just started learning and I’d been playing for some time. We played Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues with me playing most of the guitar and Darrel singing with a few guitar bits thrown in as well – I remember it being pretty good considering it was just the two of us and it was all acoustic. I then went off to college and didn’t hear from him again for quite a few years, until I read about how he’d become an incredibly well respected rockabilly guitarist who had toured the world and played alongside loads of great musicians.

These photos are from 2006 while Darrel was fronting the Enforcers, it was great catching up with him again then. He’s now playing guitar and touring the world with his wife Imelda May, I really look forward to catching up with him again soon!

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Flying on the Goodyear Blimp

Seems like the Goodyear Blimp has been taking over the blog recently!!

I’ve been interested in the Cardington Hangars for a while now (where the huge R101 was built) so when I heard that Goodyear were building a new airship there I thought that could make for some cool photos – you know – the old next to the new, the kind of juxtaposition that they were always trying to drum into me at Art College. So I took some photos, then some more – each time blogging & tweeting about them in the hopes that Goodyear would notice. And they did! So when they offered me a ride on the famous blimp of course I jumped at the chance…

Rides on the blimp are strictly limited, some press folk got to ride, some celebrity types and a few bloggers/photogs. The aim is to spread road safety awareness with the press encouraged to write about the highway code and the importance of correct tyres etc. So the blimp is appropriately named “Spirit of Safety 1″ (although it was Spirit of Safety 2 – they swapped names when the original 1 went to France leaving the blimp that didn’t match their marketing collateral).

I must give a huge thank you to everyone involved on the day for making us feel so welcome, they even put the blimp on the mast for us to make it easier getting my daughter on board with a broken foot!

I should also mention that it was awesome… So if anyone from Goodyear is reading this and would like any more aerial photography from the blimp, I’m your man!!

I also took some stills from the day that are viewable on flickr.com:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16526999@N03/sets/72157626527591570/

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Goodyear Blimp at Cardington

Spirit of Safety 2 having a little fly around Cardington Hangars (the home of the British airship industry).

Update 7th April: Added some more photos

Cardington Hangars & Goodyear Blimp

Cardington Hangars are where the ill fated R101 was built, I pass these nearly every day on the way to work – I decided to take my camera to take some photos of the sheds and also the Goodyear Blimp before it departed on its travels. As luck would have it, as I drove into Cardington village there was a group of old army vehicles parked up so I grabbed some photos of those as well!

R101 Airship

The huge R101 airship was built in the hangers at Cardington Bedford, it crashed on 5 October 1930 in France during its maiden overseas voyage, killing 48 people. The R101 was 777 feet long – roughly the length of 22 London buses, included a dining room that could seat 60 people and also a smoking room which could seat 20.

I’ve been working on this little movie for a while now, with the airship itself created in Blender mixed with live action in After Effects.

Volkswagen Stiftung AutoMuseum, Wolfsburg

Video of the VW Stiftung Museum in Wolfsburg Germany