conal o'donnell

Retired BBC hack

[conal o'donnell @conalabu]

@nickowentv Glad to see you well on the mend!

[Derek Webster @DerekWebster]

Farewell to late night local radio .. Night time is when listeners need radio the most, especially when they can hear familiar voices from presenters who really understand what’s going on in their area.
Now the lights have gone out at your BBC local after years of mismanagement.

[Simon Knott @SimoninSuffolk]

The chancel with its reredos at Tottington, Norfolk. The church was abandoned in 1942, an event remembered in the poem 'Tottington: Reredos' by Andrea Holland:

'Of stone, in St Andrew’s church; a Baronet’s row of thanks
in the lifting of the weight of typhoid from a young son,
the ornamental retable a gift left behind in a vacant church
for God to look over the empty aisle.

The bells will go to Seasalter. The rood screen remains,
a stained glass plump with angels, hums ecce, sanctus, filius.
The pulpit, hassocks and dog-headed pews full of worm
are also lifted out and left leaning in pieces.

The piscina is in hiding and the corbels are minus their heads.
Lucilla polishes the plaque for Frederick Worby, killed in France
in 1917. She watches the church be taken down, stacked against
the damp walls, in the way of the cleaners. The firm horsehair broom

before the woman’s feet swishes away nibs of mud
from army boots and brushes at dead flies; as the sturdy
horse once lifted its tail and shook his head at the scimitar
mandible, the persistent bite of the Brown Edged Emperor,

the Cleg and Soldier flies.'

The poem appears in 'Before the Dreadful Daylight Starts', an anthology of Norfolk poetry, available from Waterland Books: https://t.co/mqwLYUOveP

Tottington was one of six Norfolk villages cleared in 1942 so that the area could be used for training for the D-Day Landings and the subsequent land war in Europe. The thousand or so inhabitants of the villages were promised that they would be able to return to their homes at the end of the war, but this never happened.

More about Tottington church and the Battle Training Area: https://t.co/sFMnT0egrs

[Simon Knott @SimoninSuffolk]

The Tottington chancel.

[Simon Knott @SimoninSuffolk]

And so to Tottington, my favourite of the Norfolk battle training area churches.

[Richard Morris @ahistoryinart]

'Kitchen Range.' (1984) As artists grow older, they can fall from fashion, but age also brings gravitas if we have the imagination to see it. Anthony Eyton turned 100 earlier this year, and still, he paints compositions, which flood scenes with light and atmosphere.

[Simon Knott @SimoninSuffolk]

Next stop in this Norfolk church-exploring trip, West Tofts.

[Simon Knott @SimoninSuffolk]

Langford is our next stop. What a lovely little church!

[conal o'donnell @conalabu]

@last_of_england From inside the protective wire?

[conal o'donnell @conalabu]

@RoryStewartUK @RestIsPolitics I never realised Suella Braverman had an affair with David Beckham You learn something everyday.

[Simon Knott @SimoninSuffolk]

I'm out in deepest, darkest Norfolk with Cam Self, and our first stop is this tiny 19th Century Catholic church, lost in the woods at Lynford.

[conal o'donnell @conalabu]

@Sylvia70485099 Its the one you don't see that gets you!

[conal o'donnell @conalabu]

Tory party headlines Mrs Sunak the new Jackie O?Britain from ruling a 1/4 of the globe to can't finish a railway in a century!And Shipley gets a by pass!(Where is Shipley?)

[conal o'donnell @conalabu]

@jonathancoe De Gaulle waited for his political return in the rural elegance of Colomby les deux eglise,Churchill at Chartwell and then there is David in a siomple Farrow & Ball decorated hut in the Cotswolds-how long oh lord how long?

[conal o'donnell @conalabu]

@Sylvia70485099 ?

[conal o'donnell @conalabu]

@CWGC @AusHouseLondon why is the grave of Australian RAF pilot F/O William Kinane at Cranfield Church Beds in such a delapidated condition when the other RAF war graves behind are clearly well looked after?F/O Kinane was killed when his Fairey Battle crashed in Aug 1939 .

[conal o'donnell @conalabu]

@BhamCityCouncil @bhamleaders my garage incurs a congestion charge taking my car to an MOT.U threaten me with £180 charge despite t fact I'm not t driver.U make no effort to check with t garage just threaten me with county court .When I produced Ed Doolan u wd have cringed.

[conal o'donnell @conalabu]

@zubeidamalik How ridiculous ...but unpleasant & tricky for him.

[conal o'donnell @conalabu]

The X resembles a piece of Eric Gill style calligraphy sadly reminding me of a sort of fascist symbolism of some description.I much preferred the blue bird that SOMETIMES tweeted good sense and bonhomie-alas no more.

[Chris Bolton @CcibChris]

Elf n Safety! Guiding the Gannet to the catapult with engines running. Be very careful.