Nigel Lucas

Almshouse Charity CEO and homeless charity board member. All views my own, retweets doesn't mean I agree.

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

I had endless fun with Meccano.

[ℝ𝕚𝕡𝕡𝕖𝕣 @The_East_End]

This was often your first foray into engineering- I absolutely loved my kit (not a massive set by the way - they cost a fortune) as they allowed your imagination to be almost limitless... #eastend #MemoryLane

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

I was there.

[A London Inheritance @VanishedLondon]

On the 5th June 1983, 43 years ago today, the Space Shuttle landed at Stansted Airport. I went along to take a look and a few photos, from my post on the visit at https://t.co/lPyGE6GeX5

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

I think I might have been there.

[Lost London @Lost___London]

Steam Traction Engine at the Windmill pub, Clapham Common - 1975 @Britains___Pubs

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

Lovely picture!

[Chris Bolton @CcibChris]

English Electric Lightning F.3s, XP702 and XP751, of No. 74 Squadron in flight over St Andrews, Fife, shortly after the squadron moved to RAF Leuchars in 1964. The aircraft are armed with two Firestreak missiles.
credit Jets n Props

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

I never particularly warmed to them but I miss them now.

[Joe Brown @JoeBrownLondon]

#OnThisDay 12 years ago the last C Stock ran in regular passenger service on the District Line, seen here at East Putney on the last day (Jack Gordon). Not universally popular, these were my favourite trains to drive... I was always happy on the Wimbleware service.

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

That's wonderful!

[BabelColour @StuartHumphryes]

A window into the past can sometimes look just like a window into the present - this photo being a prime example of the centuries compressing before our eyes. I have cleaned-up this Autochrome plate by Auguste Léon, taken in the English county of Cornwall 113 years ago. The country cottage with tarmac road and telephone pole behind the house give it every appearance of being taken today, rather than pre-World War I. It's what I love about doing this work - it brings such immediacy to the world of our forebears .
It was taken using an early colour glass-plate process and isn't colourised.

[Vinnie Sullivan @VinnieSull1van]

Ladies and gentlemen, X/Twitter has recently reduced the reach of its users. If you wouldn't mind, kindly help me by sharing my upcoming tour to help those who may be interested in finding this tour and my upcoming walks. Thank you for the support. 🤝

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

I love Fred Ivey films.

[Joe Brown @JoeBrownLondon]

#OnThisDay 33 years ago the Waterloo & City Line's 1940 stock (Class 487) ran for the last time. The curious trains replaced the original 1898 fleet and were superseded by Class 482 (1992 Stock). Great footage from the final day by Fred Ivey, full video: https://t.co/i4RfikOE9K

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

Who needs guard rails?

[ℝ𝕚𝕡𝕡𝕖𝕣 @The_East_End]

My obsession with working at height pictures continues - here are a couple taken during the construction of the Eiffel Tower…

#eastend #history #eiffeltower

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

The Hill.

[The League Against Globalism @LAGlobalism]

OK, you philistines: (L-R) Ian Bannen, Harry Andrews and Ian Hendry. Which brilliant film?

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

Tea and that's final.

[ClarksonsFarm @ClarksonsFarm1]

Settle a debate for us -

Tea or Coffee?

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

Fantastic picture. Those uniforms, so impractical for modern warfare but it is all they had in the early years of the war.

[BabelColour @StuartHumphryes]

The winter of late 1914/early 1915, and a candid shot of French soldiers eating their rations by a fire close to the Battle of the Marne. I have cleaned-up this fascinating Autochrome, which was taken in colour around 112 years ago by Jules Gervais-Courtellemont. It is particularly interesting as it shows the period of transition with the French uniform: from their traditional navy blue blazers & scarlet trousers, to their new cornflower blue coats. It was taken using an early colour glass-plate process and isn't colourised.

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

That hat!

[Lost London @Lost___London]

Denmark Street, with Foyles in the distance, 1972.

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

Daft!

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

A solar farm just opened where a beef farm used to be.

This is a real sentence about a real place. In Lincolnshire, near Glentworth, on land that grew British food for six hundred years. 1,214 hectares of grazing pasture and cropland, the size of Heathrow Airport, now under panels for the next forty years.

It is called Tillbridge Solar. It was approved in October 2025. The locals were against it. The local council was overruled by central government. The farmer who used to graze cattle on that land will not be grazing cattle on that land in your lifetime.

Down the road, Springwell Solar got the nod the same month. 1,280 hectares. The largest in the country. Same story. Beef and arable, gone.

This is happening everywhere. CPRE found that 59% of England's biggest solar farms are on productive farmland. In one Lincolnshire district, 7% of the land is now solar panels. Three solar farms, Sutton Bridge, Goosehall, and Black Peak, are built entirely on the highest grade of agricultural land we have.

Now here is the part nobody mentions at the dinner party.

The roofs of the warehouses on the A1 are empty. The supermarket distribution centres are empty. The Amazon sheds, the MoD car parks, the industrial estates outside every town in England, all empty. CPRE's own numbers show that putting panels on the roofs we already have would meet the entire 2035 solar target on its own.

The panels are not going on the roofs.

The panels are going on Lincolnshire because leasing one field from one farmer is easy, and leasing a thousand roofs from a thousand owners is hard. The shortcut is the pasture.

You will not be told to stop eating beef.

You will simply find that the farm that produced it is now a power station, and the beef in the supermarket has come from Kansas, and it costs more, and the cow is no longer in the field, because the field is no longer a field.

Cover the roofs. Leave the pasture.

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

Bring me my time machine!

[Simon Harley @simonharley]

A photo this evocative shouldn’t exist. Kings Cross, December 1956 by G. F. Heiron.

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

I remember seeing them. I didn't ride on them however and had no idea they had a central locking system.

[Joe Brown @JoeBrownLondon]

#OnThisDay 16 years ago the two 3-CIG units on the quasi-heritage Lymington service retired marking the end of Slammers. They had been modified with centrally locked doors to comply with regulations that caused the demise of slam door stock. Geof Sheppard https://t.co/LD8sCWmtuc

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

@Clinnick1 @SouthernRailUK It's all personal preference. I prefer one colour and a logo, probably because I'm old and remember green (mostly) and red trains with the lion and wheel crest.

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

I loved London on Sundays. Nothing was open but somehow we survived.

[ℝ𝕚𝕡𝕡𝕖𝕣 @The_East_End]

How many of you good folk remember when everything was closed on Sunday (and in many cases early closing for some shops one day in the week)?

How times have changed - everything is now instant and accessible 24/7…

#eastend #history

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

What a great picture that is.

[Ron Eisele @ron_eisele]

15 May 1982. A new world distance record for an operational reconnaissance mission was set by a British Aerospace Nimrod MR.2 of 201 Squadron from Ascension, which covered a distance of 8,300 miles over the South Atlantic in 19 hours 5 minutes.

[Nigel Lucas @NigelLucas3]

I remember that. I think they closed the revolving restaurant after the bombing, but I might be wrong.

[ℝ𝕚𝕡𝕡𝕖𝕣 @The_East_End]

31st October 1971. A reminder for those who were around (and an introduction to those yet to be born) - a terrorist bomb rips through the iconic Post Office Tower (as it was). Responsibility was claimed by members of the Angry Brigade, a far-left group… #london #history #bomb