We are the World Blogfest # 48 … how Sewage has the Power to help …

We have upped the ante on waste – yes, human waste – I watched a wonderful programme on the Beeb about a month ago on the Secret Science of Sewage …

 

I know – who would have thought pee and poo would provide entertainment … but us humans are extraordinarily clever little beings …

 

 

The programme was on the very advanced Minworth sewage treatment plant in the west Midlands – part of the Severn-Trent catchment area.

 

Minworth Sewage Treatment Plant

The Rivers Severn to the west coast, Trent to the east coast … have always been conduits of sewage … but now 21^st century science is opening new doors to assist with our ‘human gunge’ problem … that seems to cause the western world any number of problems.

 

 

Out of the sludge and dirty water comes brightness … and relief as we go about our daily business.  How about:

 

pee powering mobile phones ….

 

poo running cars using bio-gas …

 

finding life-saving medicinal treatments … as tiny life-forms are flushed down the loo every day …

 

… there’s a treasure trove in every sewage plant – believe it or not.

 

Minworth village flag

Scientists are investigating these potential areas – Minworth researchers working with Warwick University and Monash University, Melbourne, Australia … are concentrating on phages …

 

Phages could treat pneumonia, bloodstream infections and inflammatory bowel disease … formore info check here …

 

 

Bacteriophage - (atomic
structural model)

As with every human operation … the sludge and rubbish needs to be cleared out first … so one thing that would be really helpful in this modern world – is if we all thought about our rubbish and put it, used it in the right place – saving pounds, dollars et al – saving time, and energy in clearing up … so that important scientific work could proceed apace.

 

 

Our waste is not waste … it contains half of the energy and half of the food value that was eaten – so it’s an incredible resource …

 

… our scientists reckon that the key to understanding our life is to understand its waste … so it makes sense to research our human waste – so we waste not, and then want not …

 

Monash University - Coat of
Arms ... "I am still learning"

We’re always checking out and learning from dung found in the eras before this anthropological age … now’s our chance to change our own world by looking at our own pre-fossilized dung!

 

 

We are the World Blogfest

In Darkness, be Light 

A pdf aboutMinworth Sewage Treatment Works  …  

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Write … Edit … Publish … Bloghop / ISWG hop: Freedom Morning …

Freedom Morning, echoed by Freedom Morning … both boys’ chortling together …

 

Claude Clark painted 1941 
(1915 - 2001)

… wonderful the day had dawned … the house awakened to scampering feet … two boys downstairs laying out breakfast …

 

 

Anonymous boys

… chattering away to themselves about the day ahead … all had been arranged, their Dad was home – the family were off to the seaside …

 

Mining Landscape by Lamorna Birch 
(1869 - 1955)

Time to get away from the grey, grubby mining town their life revolved around … a bus ride to the beach … out of the dirt and smoke filled air …

 

Picnic packed … their favourite sandwiches, extra tomatoes, cucumber, hard boiled eggs, crisps, apples, jammy dodger biscuits, some sweets … a thermos of coffee, a few soft drinks … other things could be bought near the beach.

 

Perranporth Beach from the west

They’d decided on Perranporth beach on the north coast – a long beach of sand, plenty of room to get away from the crowds and surfers … the boys could build a sand-castle fortress – something they’d been talking about for ages …

 

 

Off they went to the bus stop … the double decker duly arrived … the boys rushed up the stairs to see if the front seats were free … shouts of ‘come on Mum, come on Dad’ …

 

 

Harold Harvey (1874 - 1941)
'Study for the Top of the Bus'

The bus bumped along the coast road … but from high up they all had the most wonderful views stretching out across the tiny fields, yellow gorse covered granite, greeny-grey lichen bouldered rough borders , scrubby trees battered by the winds …

...  down to the rocky coast – they could only just see … but then the sea spread out to the sky above … shimmering in the sunlight …

 

 

Seagulls wheeling free ... 

It was bliss – just to get away from village, small town life, out into the sea air … their imaginations could wander … the family could interact and just have fun together without the hustle and bustle, or needs, of daily life.

 

 

The boys built their castle-fort – only to watch the tide roll in and breach the walls … inexorably they tried to patch it up and keep the invading waters out … like King Cnut (c 980 - 1085 AD) to no avail …

 

Depiction of boys
building sand castles

… but they watched to see which part would last the longest … then they buried their Dad up to his neck in wet, tidal sand … and laughed as he scrambled out just as the next wave marched seamlessly inwards …

 

Waves there for the 'sandy wash off' 

… seeking revenge … he gathered his sons up … and ran into the sea – making sure they had a good soaking, while he doused the sand off.

 

Freedom Morning Day ‘finito’ … but what a magnificent experience they’d all had … sand, sea, time to read, time for fun … the general exhausted agreement was – that they needed to do this again soon.

Very early morning in Namibia!

 Freedom Morning – a success to be remembered …

 

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Treasure those Memories … part 11 … North coast road to Perranporth Gliding Club …

 

Back in the day early 1960s … my grandfather and ‘Muddy’ of Muddy Label (Mary – who used pre-War to work as a retainer for my grandfather’s family) would go up to the Gliding Club – that he’d been a founding member of in the 1950s.

 

Some of my booklets ... 

Mary loved life, she with the one eye, … now when I started gliding she was looking after my grandparents in Carbis Bay – they’d built a bungalow for her in the grounds … she was delighted and so pleased to be included … and loved seeing any of us family from up-country …

 

 My first course, aged 15 – my parents, that year had rented a cottage near Falmouth so the family could learn to sail – not me, I was not at all keen … I preferred being up in the air, dropped me off in Perranporth – where I stayed at a B+B for the week – and people looked after me …

 

 

Copy taken from their site

… a chap, on the course, had a motorbike drove me up and down every day, another couple took pity on me one evening and fed me too many Cointreaus … I slept well – actually I flew all night too!!   

 

 

My second course – I could drive, but not legally on the roads – so my parents drove over and I had a car for the week … and they’d come back and pick me up … the logistics seem a bit strange – so not exactly sure – except I had a car at the gliding club – and as it was a privately owned … I could practise … so perhaps I had another B+B … but I enjoyed the freedom of driving around the airfield between flights.

 

 

Perranporth - the Gliding Club
is up the hill behind here!

Finally I could drive up from Carbis Bay – a beautiful route on the back roads – i.e. the minor coast road … through the Cornish fields – wonderful memories … the English countryside is just beautiful – sun out … long evenings … counting the magpies …

 

We used to fly up over these ... to ridge
soar ... and then back to land!

… then drive back to waiting family and ‘Muddy’ – who knowing the girl would be exhausted – from the fresh air – 10 hours+ of it … is wearying … especially with all the other things going on … flying, interacting, collecting the gliders as they landed – it was hands-on ‘work’ … push them back … find the cable … and bring that back – by truck or car …

 

 

It was basic – we were towed up by a truck or car at that stage – no aero-flights or winching launches … straight up over those cliffs – unless the cable broke when a rapid adjustment was made – to preferably land back at the launch point …

 

 

T 31 Glider (1961)

… if not … make any necessary ‘S’ bends and land back before the end of the runway!! to be towed back … the wings always needed to be held up, when transporting or launching … it was hands on.  We couldn’t use the fields: they were farmed – we had to land on the runways …

 

 

I am hungry now!

One memorable day – I came home … what would I like to eat … complete blank! … but then ‘Muddy’ (bless her) suggested an omelette … making me a wonderful fluffy omelette – not something we tended to do … so I’ll always remember her herby pluffed up omelette – delicious.  Funny how we remember somethings …

 

 

I had to get up early for another day’s gliding – so I was very happy for an earlyish night with a full tummy … after lots of chat in the kitchen, while it was being made and I happily ate it all up …

 

Converted Wheal
House into a B+B
Porthtowan

A friend here was going down last year – before the lockout completely kicked in – but they managed a week and I think were staying in this Wheal Engine House … and she’s now able to relive her visit – enjoyed through my posts …

 

 

The gliding club closed down, but has been revived as a Flying Club …

 

 

Looking down at the runways

Most of the flights were 2 – 6 minutes … two were very short … I had a few longer ones … maximum 40 minutes … most were adrenalin rushes …

 

 

One page of my log book entries

… I did manage to go solo at 16, the earliest age, it was a bit of ‘touch wood’ as the weather wasn’t very kind – and we had to wait for it to be kind enough for me!  The first three flights had to be with both a right and a left turn … I forgot – so had two right turns marked up – to be reprimanded that next time I needed to turn left!

 

 

Cornish Fields - wonderful to drive through

Happy days … a rush post – so a bit gabby … I’ve been interested and intrigued with the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral … I do love our historical heritage and seeing our understated ways …

 

Another map of West Penwith
St Ives ... up the coast to just about
where the map stops is Perranporth

 

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Treasure those Memories … part 10 … Seaweed mulch, St Michael’s Mount with its Mythical Giants …

 

What you’d expect … we have giants in Cornwall … particularly in the Penwith peninsula area … that’s fine … but b’gorra … they be complicated to work their story out …

Jack the Giant Killer -
his history in a chapbook

 So we’ll go and collect seaweed instead – essential for the health of the grandparents' garden … it’s an amazing resource from the sea – we humans eat it … and before it was commercially available … it was assiduously collected by the farmers for spreading on their fields.

 

 

Carbis Bay - before development c 1920

We’d be piled into grandpa’s car and either go down to Carbis Bay beach below the house, or across the peninsula to St Michael’s Mount … to rake up fronds of kelp after a storm …

Collecting seaweed for the fields of
daffodils, vegetables - c 1900

Two giants – possibly brothers – one held St Michael’s Mount … while the other lived at Trencrom – the high point between St Ives and Penzance.   It’s odd one brother’s name is known – Cormoran of Trencrom … the other is just ‘the brother’ … but the myth remains.

 

This woodcut illustration c 1820
was used in a variety of chapbooks

“Jack the Giant Killer” is a Cornish fairy tale and legend about Jack, who slays a number of giants … based on these giants of St Michael’s Mount and Trencrom.

 

 

The barren granite of Trencrom

They had sibling rivalries … and used to throw granite boulders at each other – now found at the top of these two ‘granite outcrops’ … we’ll go to Trencrom (a Neolithic hill fort) for a picnic in a later post.

 

 

Tinted postcard from c 1900
photographed from Marazion village

St Michael’s Mount is believed to have been a famous mart – trading place – between the Cornish and the Orient (Phoenicia).

 

 

 

Postcard of Penzance waterfront -
the storm battered prom

This area has an incredible history … the Romans were here, earlier the Neolithic peoples populated this wild, forested, storm battered part of England …

 

 

St Michael's Mount from Trencrom

… where tin could be surface mined (an ancient bronze furnace was found just outside Marazion village) traded with the Orient (the Phoenicians) – and where, after great storms, tree trunks, now under the waters of Penzance Bay, are cast up on the shore …

 

Ictis is described as a tin-trading island in the Bibliotheca historica of the Sicilian-Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, writing in the first century BC – it is thought St Michael’s Mount wasIctis as mentioned by Diodorus.

 

 

Map of west Penwith

Folklore, ancient history and remembrances from over 2,000 years remain, to be melded as time goes by with our more modern history … seaweed for our gardens and our kitchens.

 

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories

Treasure those Memories … part 9 … Grandparents' garden and wind-up gramophone ...

 

This was one year … when we, as kids, were in Carbis Bay at my grandparents’ house … I don’t remember my brother pestering me, but he must have been there … and it was almost certainly the year of 'stepping on a snake' ... 

 

My grandparents' house ... that tree is still
there - well it was in 2010

I must have been very young ... as I remember the milk being delivered in churns ... we put out whatever size we needed ... smaller than these shown below ... 

 

The churns were put out for
filling by the tanker - before
milk bottles were the norm ...
Cornwall would have been
behind the rest of the country

… but it must have been one year when the journey was split and we were ‘dumped’ off in Exeter – half-way between Woking (near London Heathrow) and Carbis Bay … to journey the rest of the way with the grand-parents!

 

 

The upshot being … there was room for more luggage – and that year … my father’s sister and her husband (the uncle I looked after in recent years) had given me a wind-up gramophone …

 

 

It wasn't this one ...
but it so reminds me
of mine!

 … my pride and joy – my aunt had covered it with red sticky kitchen-drawer paper – it was just the best thing to be given.  Down it went, with extra needles, to Cornwall …

 

 

… I only remember two records … there was no volume switch … partly overcome by stuffing socks into the hole under the needle arm – it did do some good, but not much … it blared …

 

… heaven knows what my grandparents, neighbours and ancillary visitors thought … as these two records blasted their way out of the house around Carbis Bay … and they were continuously played!

 

Nothing like the Laughing Policeman …

I know a fat old policeman,

he's always on our street,

a fat and jolly red faced man

he really is a treat.

He's too kind to be a policeman,

he's never known to frown,

and everybody says he's the happiest man in town.

 

Chorus

(Ha ha ha ha ha,

Woo ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,

Woo ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,

Ha ha ha .)

 

 

Or The Dambusters’ March by Eric Coates – so rousing …

 

 

Auckland Symphony Orchestra playing
The Dambusters' March

The bedroom was over the sitting room and had a south facing window – with a window seat … so there rested the magnificent red noise-box … only quiet when its youthful owner wasn’t nearby.  Oh I had fun with it …

 

 

My grandparents didn’t use the sitting room during the day – it was the kitchen, dining room, the study and the garden that were in full use.

 

 

Old-fashioned Roses from a card
by Parastoo Ganjei

They loved gardening … my grandmother had the front part of the garden with all the roses, border, cottage plants … while grandpa had the back, where the vegetables were grown … along with sweet peas clambering up the bean poles …

 

Fuchsias ... I used to pop the sepals

… lined with fuchsia hedges – popping the ‘pod’ before the sepals opened … I still love fuchsia … the memories of fuchsia hedges remind me of youth and Cornwall days …

 

Leonhart Fuchs
(1501 - 1566)

The front garden had a potting shed for Grandma – covered with prize certificates from the St Ives gardening shows … where they’d entered their best entries … plants, flowers or vegetables …

 

Happy Days - and I hope you all had peaceful Easters ...

The Dambusters’ March (by Eric Coates) – performed here by the Auckland Symphony Orchestra 

 

The LaughingPoliceman – a music hall song by Charles Penrose (1922)

 

Hilary Melton-Butcher

Positive Letters Inspirational Stories