Peter Haining [ed.] - The Traction Engine Companion

[dem bones]

come to me, oh grail of all grails ....

Peter Haining [ed.] - The Traction Engine Companion (Robert Hale, 1983)

Jacket photograph: 1910 Marshall ‘Elizabeth’, courtesy of I. J. Belcher.

Peter Haining - Introduction

Part One: The History and Development of the Traction Engine

John Haining - Early Steam in Agriculture
G. W. Dixon - Threashing Days
L. T. C. Rolt - Ploughing Days at Pitchill
William McAdam - On a Road Train to London
Anonymous - Rallying to Stafford
R. E. Crompton - A Pioneer’s Work in Road Transport
Marcus Tindal - The Traction Engine Brigade
Anonymous - The Case of the Showman’s Engine
Peter Haining - When Steam Provided the Pictures
Joseph Stanton - A Nightmare Ride
Ronald H. Clark - I Used Traction Engines
William Fletcher - Traction Engines Around the World

Part Two: Traction Engines Today — Their Appeal and Preservation

Peter Haining - New Life for Old Engines
Peter Haining - How to Drive a Traction Engine
Peter Haining - The ‘Sport’ of Rallying
Peter Haining - A Who’s Who of Traction Engine Manufacturers
Peter Haining - Traction Engine Societies
Peter Haining - Traction Engine Museums

Part Three: The Traction Engine in Literature

Jules Verne - The Iron Giant
Thomas Hardy - The Engineman
Fryn Tennyson Jesse - Threshing
Georges Renard - Jacques Brulefert’s Death
Sidney Keyes - The Famous Race Between the Hearse and the Steamroller
Ronald H. Clark - Steam on Road and Rail

Bibliography

Blurb:

In recent years enthusiasm for and appreciation of traction engines has rapidly increased - enthusiasm for the many beautifully restored ‘iron giants‘ seen at today's rallies, and appreciation of the considerable craft and skill that went into their production and of the men who daily used them.

Peter Haining's highly entertaining book, replete with articles and stories by commentators with first-hand experience of the engines down the years, is illustrated with contemporary line illustrations and photographs. Its theme traces the development and manufacture of traction engines from the 1850s, surveys the various types of engine produced, and details the many diverse tasks they were put to in the fields, on the roads, in fairgrounds, and even abroad at war.

Alongside the history, there is essential information for the active enthusiast with details of rallies, clubs and museums to visit, plus chapters on restoring and driving the engines today.

[andydecker]

I am still debating if I shall buy Haining's Spitfire Summer or The Graveyard Wit. I am really intrigued how one can write a book about tombstones. Or whatever this is about.

[dem bones]

Jan 6, 2021 17:14:18 GMT andydecker said:

I am still debating if I shall buy Haining's Spitfire Summer or The Graveyard Wit. I am really intrigued how one can write a book about tombstones. Or whatever this is about.

Think I have a few around here. Compilations of "amusing epitaphs." Will try post a few examples tomorrow. Should imagine the Spitfire book would be a better bet. He's on good form with this celebration of Traction Engines, which, like Scarecrows, seems to have been among his passions.

[Shrink Proof]

Jan 7, 2021 22:34:14 GMT dem bones said:

He's on good form with this celebration of Traction Engines, which, like Scarecrows, seems to have been among his passions.

Interesting to see that Haining's traction engine book contains a chapter by L T C Rolt, written wearing his other hat - author of pieces about heritage transport and industry (canals, steam railways, that sort of stuff).

[dem bones]

Jan 8, 2021 9:23:54 GMT Shrink Proof said:

Interesting to see that Haining's traction engine book contains a chapter by L T C Rolt, written wearing his other hat - author of pieces about heritage transport and industry (canals, steam railways, that sort of stuff).

Can confirm that its condensed from the chapter Steam at Pitchill in Rolt's Landscape with Machines: An Autobiography. There's a stand-alone Rolt essay, The Swan Song of Steam, in John Hadfield's The Saturday Book # 15 (Hutchinson, 1955).

One for the Vault World of the Uncanny files

".... It's only about two miles down the lane, just past the haunted wood. White Lady Wood, they calls it, because she walks there, or is supposed to. The Home Farm is about a hundred yards past a white stile, on the left, leading to the ghost walk”.
The boss looked at me. “Well, Joe”, he said, “off you go”, and off I went, down through the gloomy lanes and tree shaped paths. The owls were hooting, and the bats squeaking, and as I approached what must have been the White Lady Walk, I got very nervous. I saw the stile and the long path beyond it, and then I stood transfixed for, coming along the path was a white object. I stood rooted to the spot. Nearer and nearer it came, and then as it reached the stile it put its head over it and gave a loud MOO. The white lady — and I speak with respect — was a COW.
Reassured I hurried on, and reached the farm. I knocked on the door. The farmer's head appeared from the window, and I explained my errand. “All right”, said he, good naturedly, ”I’ll be down in a minute”. Soon we were on our way back on his engine.
He got to work and soon had our engine out of the ditch, and in an hour we were on the road again. Strange to say the engine had suffered very little damage. Charlie got up steam and again we set out, but our misfortunes had not yet ceased ...."

from Joseph Stanton's A Nightmare Ride, which Haining dates as 1967 (he doesn't provide a source).

Spellbound #33, 7 May 1977.

[dem bones]

Jan 6, 2021 17:14:18 GMT andydecker said:

I am still debating if I shall buy Haining's Spitfire Summer or The Graveyard Wit. I am really intrigued how one can write a book about tombstones. Or whatever this is about.

Don't have a copy of The Graveyard Wit: The Humour Of The Tombstone (1973) so can't say for sure, but the subtitle suggests something similar to these.

Samuel Klinger - Graveyard Laughter (Futura, 1980)

Blurb:
GRAVEYARD LAUGHTER
The fruit of 30 years of labour in the graveyards of the world. A unique collection of humourous epitaphs inscribed on gravestones in fond - or not so fond — memory of the dear departed.
Inscriptions like this dreadful warning . . .

'HERE I LIE WITH MY THREE DAUGHTERS
WHO DIED DRINKING CHELTENHAM WATERS.
IF WE HAD STUCK TO EPSOM SALT,
WE SHOULD NOT SLEEP IN THIS COLD VAULT.'

Or in relieved memory (and dread) of a fearsome wife . . .
‘HERE LIES, THANK GOD, A WOMAN WHO
QUARRELLED AND STORMED HER WHOLE LIFE THROUGH
TREAD GENTLY O'ER HER MOULDERING FORM.
OR ELSE YOU'LL CAUSE ANOTHER STORM.'

A fascinating and hilarious compilation of laughter from the grave.

Fritz Spiegl (ed. )- A Small Book of Grave Humour (Pan, 1971)

Blurb:

Erected to the Memory of
John McFarlane
Drown'd in the Water of Leith
By a few affectionate friends

The object of the epitaph is to identify the resting place of the mortal remains of a dead person. It should therefore record only such information as is reasonably necessary for that purpose - The Churchyards Handbook

Fritz Spiegl (ed. )- Dead Funny: Another Book of Grave Humour (Pan, 1982)

Blurb:
Fritz Spiegl's first collection of the funnier side of tombstones - A Small Book of Grave Humour - has been a remarkably successful paperback over a number of years. Since then the ever-watchful Spiegl has continued to collect mirthful mementos mori and the long-awaited second collection promises to be every bit as popular as the first.

[andydecker]

Unbelievable! I think such inscriptions are prohibited on German cemeterys. At least I have never seen them.

[dem bones]

From the introduction;

"This book also fulfills a long-standing ambition of mine. When I tell you that the very first words I had published as a professional writer (an embryonic newspaper reporter, in fact) some twenty-five years ago were about tractor engines I had seen at work ploughing fields in Essex, you will realize that now - several million words and more than fifty books later - I feel as if I am almost returning to my origins! I have long wanted to create this book - in particular as a tribute to the man who first introduced me to the fascinating world of traction engines, the Reverend Philip Wright, then the chairman of the National Traction Engine Club, and still today someone I deeply admire. And also because I think there is a need for a handbook of this kind aimed much more at the general reader than most other books I have come across on the subject."


Sidney Keyes - The Famous Race Between the Hearse and the Steamroller: (Minos of Crete: Plays and Stories, Routledge, 1948). Saturday night at The Sad Man's Rest, Denge. A frank exchange of opinion between Sam Mort, engine driver, and staunch traditionalist Dan Wormold, the undertaker. Mort, full of la di da progressive ideas, insists the old ways are redundant, his steamroller can outrace Wormold's rattling old horse-drawn hearse any old day. Wormold challenges him to prove it the following morning. "Bitterly shall ye repent the desecration of the Sabbath," warns Old Man Miller, but no-one is listening.