Gertie Gitana - in Stoke

Talking of Gertie Gitana (see posting a few days ago), I realised that - apart from the spot in the photo above - I couldn't think of anywhere in Staffordshire that our local superstar of the past is remembered.

This poster is found in Gitana Street in Hanley near the Stage Door pub, though, curiously, it is unlabelled (with only the name of the Theakston beer company over it) so, if you weren't aware, you'd never know that it was Gertie. It's fading too.
The council renamed the street as Gitana Street because her family once lived in it.

There used also to be a pub in Hartshill called 'Gitana's' but I think it is now an Indian restaurant.

Link: Life of Gertie Gitana

Rag & bone man returns

The rag & bone man was a common sight years and years ago... cruising up and down residential streets in a battered old pick-up, collecting scrap metal, junk etc - and doing it all with a rasping street-cry which would alert householders that he was around.
Well - I heard that cry again the other day (though, I couldn't really distinguish what the actual words were - can anyone???) . And there was the type of pick-up, and its back full of junk...

What has caused the return of the rag & bone man?

Bottle ovens... still

I hear that there are only thirty or so bottle ovens still standing in Stoke-on-Trent, and - since the one at the Gladstone Museum stopped doing any firing - none working for a living.
Still, it's good to see that the last remaining icons of the area's pottery industry are mostly listed, like these two on the fringe of Longton town centre. They haven't been used here that creatively; but, elsewhere in the city, they've been incorporated into offices or made into a feature.

Another hot one today.

Jay at Lichfield Jazz & Blues fest

The three-day jazz festival at Lichfield takes place every year at the town's rugby club. This year the Jay Phelps Quintet was one of the headliners on the Saturday night - you can see Jay himself in the grey jacket in this photo getting ready for the band's spot. I have to say that the quintet do the lot, from standards to experimental (the experimental stuff was dizzyingly good).

I hadn't realised that there was a real ale fest in the club at the same time, otherwise I would have been tempted to take advantage of the camping, which was on the adjacent practice pitches...

Link: Lichfield Jazz & Blues festival

Fulford Fete

The weather was too unpredictable for Fulford Village Fete to be held outdoors - so it was held in the village hall.
But everything - the tombola, cake stall, raffle, everything - came to a halt as the children from the primary school did their songs.

Tamworth Castle flies flag

Tamworth Castle flies the fleur-de-lys flag (as here), as well as a number of other flags, including the Cross of St Alban's - the flag of the Saxon king Offa, who ruled this part of the world - and the checked flag of the Marmion family, which held Tamworth and surroundings after the Conquest.
Not sure what the fleur-de-lys represents here in its Tamworth instance. I will find out.

The sun emerged rather unsteadily today. Is the run of rainy days over?

Refugee Week celebration

It's Refugee Week, and in Shelton (in the city of Stoke-on-Trent), The Shelton Women’s Drop In Group were celebrating it with a tea-and-scones morning. Some forty or so people - some of them refugees or asylum-seekers themselves, some of them supporters - turned up for the event in the meeting-room at St John's. A clown was on hand to entertain.

Funding cuts mean that the support-group for refugees at St John's is now run on a string and a prayer, by volunteers - but they seem strong.

Links: Refugee Week

Jesus and cake

Just laughed my socks off at this poster I saw in Hanley. It shows the famous Leonardo da Vinci painting of The Last Supper (the one that Jesus held with his disciples), but with a big fruit cake superimposed on it, in front of Jesus; and the words 'People - Jesus - Cake' underneath.

It's irreverent I suppose but, after all, Christians will have created it themselves, as it's for the Christian young people's meeting room in central Hanley - so that's okay I presume...
I think 'Church Without Walls' youth workers work from there with clubbers late into Saturday nights too (that's why it is called a 'chill out lounge' I think)..

The poster strikes the right tone all round I think, making both Christians and non-Christians laugh. Quite an achievement!

The Dovedale Twelve

Can you see the 'twelve apostles' in this photo? The guides I had with me assured me that, at this part of the River Dove (in the Staffordshire Peak District), the rocks that rise steeply from the water are known as the 'Twelve Apostles' - aka the dozen saints (except Judas of course) who followed Jesus around as he preached during his lifetime.
Er, perhaps.
I stared for quite a time, but couldn't make out 12 distinctly individual rocks, let alone a formation.
Was I at the right place even?

Surreal hay bales...

Whether in tubes of black plastic wrapping randomly sited across recently-mown meadows, or piled in symmetric pyramids at the farm, hay bales in the countryside always have a slightly surreal - even sinister - air for me. Don't know why.
And when they glow in the setting sun, as in this photo taken near Newborough (nr Abbots Bromley), they have it even more.

Maybe it's just me.