A quick update on the Story Telling front. I have been making some recordings for our Two Severn Bores podcast. My “exercise” yesterday saw me cycle to the River Severn to make an outside recording wanted to make it sound more interesting with bird song etc. I had a dose of double luck-first of all I saw four Whimbrel (a Curlew like migrant that passes through on their way North. I also saw the Severn Bore was moving towards me a truly wonderful spectacle- I ended up doing 6 takes for the recording as I kept tripping over my words! Today observing physical distancing Dan and I recorded on his super duper microphones and other stuff-it went well so watch this space!

Today is a short piece on St Helena (poem possibly tomorrow).

You may remember from previous photos that Jamestown is in a valley between two imposing towering barren hillsides. At the seaward end is Jacob’s Ladder (two pictures below) that lead up to the cliff-top fortifications. Below is my account written on the island about my first climb up it! First picture is from the fort.

“What an impressive feat of engineering to construct the ladder up a sheer  cliff face to the fort above! From the bottom it looks vertical-from the top you suffer from vertigo! 699 steps, each step seems to be fractionally deeper than your average steps that we are used to  (were they giants in Napoleon’s time?) So for each step you feel like you are stretching more than is comfortable.

As a piece of bravado I tried to run/jog up the ladder. At my age it could be a risky business especially with more limited medical services ton the island than we have at home. It feels like an eternity to get up to the escape path and it is still not halfway! The views are stunning, the ship is still in the harbour preparing to leave for Cape Town. Breath is getting shorter and is definitely laboured. Sweat begins to run down my face stinging my eyes. Plod, plod, plod, gasp, gasp, gasp…………………….-pace has stalled significantly! At last puffing and panting like an old man I am there. I think of the poor bastards that built this-it must of been hell! The fortifications all over the island are built in many precarious positions surely that must of taken it’s toll on the labourers. However, it is well worth it-with a feeling of triumph and exhilaration I wave at Louisa a mere speck down below. This feeling is tempered with the realisation I’ve got to go back down. Boy it is steep and dangerous looking! Legs find it so much harder and with every step my knees cry out for mercy. My calves tighten -please don’t get cramp halfway down!……….

I didn’t get cramp-makes me laugh now when I mention it is risky at my age!

Yesterdays Castle Quiz answers

a) Leeds Castle is in Kent   b) Corfe Castle is on the Isle of Purbeck   c) Berkeley Castle is where Edward 11 met a painful end!   d) Dover Castle is the largest in Britain  e) Monty Python and the Holy Grail was the film with the castle of AAAARRRGGGGHHH!

Today’s question are all on records to go with today’s title

a) What was the first record played on Radio 1  b)  The first record on Top of the Pops? c) the first recording ever?   d) First Beatles Number 1 single?   e) Biggest UK album of all time that is not a Greatest Hits (Queen and Abba are those)?