Lord Bonkers on the by-election for a Lib Dem hereditary peer

The sad death of Eric Avebury means there has to be a by-election to choose a new Liberal Democrat hereditary peer.

A BBC News report suggests there will be two candidates: John Russell (the current Earl Russell and the son of the much-missed Conrad Russell) and John Thurso (former member of the Lords and former MP for Caithness and Sutherland).

But then the electorate is barely larger than the number of candidates:

Three current Lib Dem hereditaries are entitled to vote: Lord Addington, the descendent of a Conservative MP from the 1880s; the Earl of Glasgow, the descendent of one of the Scottish Commissioners who negotiated the 1703 Union of the kingdoms of Scotland and England; and the Earl of Oxford and Asquith, who is directly descended from the Liberal Prime Minister H H Asquith.

Or should that be four current Lib Dem hereditaries?

Lord Bonkers holds a Rutland peerage, which means he is sometimes overlooked by the pundits, but he is determined to vote in this election.

I don't know which way he will vote, but he did remark at dinner the other night that "the Russells always come good in the end" and that "this Thurso fella needs to make up his mind which House he wants to sit in".

He also said that a donation to the Bonkers' Home for Well-Behaved Orphans before the votes are cast on 19 April would be "a Terribly Nice Gesture".

Thanks to Mark Pack.

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Leicester's Great Central wagon repair works revived

The former Great Central wagon repair works on Upperton Road, which I went to photograph in 2011 when they were threatened with demolition, have won an award from Leicester Civic Society.

The Mercury quotes the society's chairman Stuart Bailey:

"Despite being locally listed in 2011 the wagon works was subjected to severe criminal damage, clearly aimed at hastening its loss to allow redevelopment of a valuable site. 

"It was at this point that it was acquired by Jamie Lewis Residential Lettings and work commenced on rescue and reuse. 

"There are retail units, including a Starbucks at the lower level and facilities in support of nearby student accommodation above, including meeting rooms, reading rooms and a gymnasium. 

He added: "This is an outstanding example of heritage led regeneration and a worthy win of the 2015 Restoration Award for this building, a part of the city's history that was very nearly lost.

So I went back to Upperton Road on Saturday for a coffee.

The wagon works are now rather sanitised, but if they can't be a picturesque ruin then I would much rather have them like this than demolished.

Around them the Lego-fashioned student accommodation dominates the area even more than it did five years ago as you will see if you compare the first photograph above (taken on Saturday) with the first one below (taken five years ago).

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The Saddleworth air disaster and Michael Prestwich

St Giles, Uley © David Purchase

The identity of the man who travelled from Ealing Broadway to the moors above Saddleworth to die remains a mystery.

When I wrote about the case at the end of January it was because police were pursuing the theory that he was one of the child survivors of an air crash that took place there in 1949.

That turned out not to be the case:

The boy survivors were Stephen Evans (5) and Michael Prestwich (2). 

Michael, the 2016 press agrees, died at the age of 12 in a railway accident. It sounds as though he did not have the misfortune to be caught up in two disasters but was hit by a train on the way home from school ... 

But could the body be Stephen Evans? 

No. Because, as Newsnight revealed, he is now a distinguished professor and lives on the south coast.

Since writing that I have come across a page on the 1949 disaster with some informative comments below.

I have also become interested in the fate of Michael Prestwich.

After seeing my original post John Dedman (one of the commenters on the page) emailed to tell me that he died at Birmingham New Street, and I have since discovered that there are two memorials to him.

One is in the church at Uley in Gloucestershire, where is one of three pupils of Stouts Hill prep school remembered on a plaque. It says he was on his way back to the school when he died.

The second is in the church at Swettenham in Cheshire where the entire Bryce Prestwich family is remembered.

Later. John Dedman tells me the Greater Manchester Police have given him the story of Michael's death on 24 September 1959 - a relative had kept the Daily Mail report of it.

He died trying to board a moving train, which was something we all did occasionally in the days before doors were centrally locked.

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The Line That Never Paid: Memories of the Bishop's Castle Railway

This treasure found on YouTube this evening combines footage of the remains of the Bishop's Castle Railway with the memories of people who remembered it in operation. It closed in 1935.

When was this film shot?

The 'Craven Arms and Stokesay' running in board at the end dates it to before 1974 and the first photo of the station without any buildings, as it appears here, dates from 1972 - see the Disused Stations site.

However, the start of the film shows the Six Bells in the town and it is a Wrekin Brewery pub. A story on the revival of the name says that brewery closed in the early 1960s.

I suspect that that early footage of the town is some years earlier than the footage of Craven Arms station at the end.

Whatever the truth of this, it is a wonderful find.

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