From Horse n Carriage to Dog n Track

It's official! I have the best job in the world!

Where else can someone say that their working day was spent riding on a horse drawn carriage ride around a 'magnificently timbered park and woodland'? 

Basil (left) and Arnie, two dapple grey carriage horses pulling a modern replica of an 18th C German picnic coach around Cassiobury Park and Whippendell Woods.

Last weekend I hosted our first, heritage, horse drawn carriage rides around the park. Stopping at regular intervals I pointed out the park's interesting history including the mansion that was once the central hub of the grounds and revealing the juicy gossip and bloody endings of some of the Essex Earls who lived there.

One of the children enjoying riding up front with Lynne and Tim

 

       Basil and Arnie, the two dapple grey 17 hand, carriage horses enjoying a well deserved rest

Seeing the park from this perspective gave the public riding with us, the sense of how it must of felt arriving in these 'pleasure grounds' down the same carriage drive as the generations of Earls and their guests did in past centuries. These 'pleasure grounds' as they were known, were landscaped by the fashionable designers of their day, starting with Moses Cook, employed by the first Earl, Arthur Capel, in the 16th C and including many others who contributed over time, such as Humphrey Repton (where didn't Humphrey Repton leave his imprint!) and George London who in 1720, designed the Lime Avenue in Whippendell Woods.

Of course the grounds and estate didn't start with the first Earl. The land was first recorded in the Doomesday book of 1086 under the guardianship of the Abbey of St Albans and given to Richard Morrison, by King Henry V111, during the dissolution of the monasteries for his loyal support and friendship. Richard Morrison was then also knighted by the King and befitting of his new status decided to;
 'build a large house on a dry hill near a fair and pleasant river'. (now the River Gade)

Emma who runs the Cha Cha Cha tea pavilion enjoying having her photo taken with the delightful and beautiful stars of the day, the dapple grey carriage horses, Basil (left)and Arnie.

One of the highlights of the day was surprising Emma (above) who runs the Cha Cha Cha tea pavillion in the park. In the next few weeks, she is getting married and I decided to surprise her and her staff with a carriage ride around the park at the end of the day. And judging by the squeals of delight that came from behind the counter  when I told her and her staff, I can safely say that they were all delighted, especially Emma. But she deserves it as I'm always having meetings in the café and dragging her away from her duties to discuss events and activities for the HLF project. Emma and her staff are always so accommodating and more than once has let me off paying for the odd cappuccino and piece of cake!

Emma and staff enjoying their carriage ride

 

                                carriage ride in the park

                                 on tip toe

And on a wet and windy night on recent staff social evening  about twenty of us boarded a different horse powered carriage -  a modern petrol driven coach to Wimbledon Dog Track!

our usual starting place and how we meant to carry on - the local watering hole.

We all decamped from the coach and reverting to type, we all headed straight to the bar to claim our free cheese 1/4 pounders and drinks that were part of the evenings package. Oh yes! we did see the dogs too;  Helen winning-(3 times) again! (she's has a habit of winning Honest Dave's staff Lottery  at work, (twice ) while all of the rest of us drowned our sorrows in beer.

My HLF project officer, Matt with other colleagues, Hayley and Helen  (she, of the wide scary eyes)with Rona in the background. The evening starts off quite sedately and then...  

But its the first time I've been to the dog track so it was an exciting night. Sadly I didn't bet because I was so busy taking photos! But they do show the madcap, friendly and slightly wild bunch I work with in my daily life.

         it all gets a bit merrier (with some dissenters) as Helen 'loadsamoney' Smith starts winning.

                                  while others are grateful for just getting their betting money back,  to..

                       others furiously studying the form to catch up with Helen 'loadsamoney' to...

 

the 'usual suspects'  interested only in propping up the bar,   to....

 

the staff displaying their dignified, sedate and impeccable decorum, to.

..

being more like their true selves  - letting rip!!

 

and that was all before the dogs had even started.

 

And still, we eat and drink...

 

at our regular Friday Lunch club

 

So many wonderful things have happened to me in the past 6 months; winning the Imagine Watford photo competition, to being given a photo commission for three books, to enjoying every minute of my wonderful and varied job, to now receiving a letter from the MD to tell me that I have been nominated to the final round of the SEA (Staff Excellence Awards) awards for my contribution to the community and staff I work with. It all feels a bit surreal. It seems that with every week that goes by my life gets better and better.
 

And so to top and tail a wonderful few weeks, (darts and indoor bowls next) I spent a great Sunday with my work colleague Rona, watching Saracens winning at the rugby.
 

                                Saracens win line out ball won against Bath

                                   Saracens warm up

 

                           Premiership rugby at Saracens Allianz Park

 cheers !

Deborah

(c) copyright: Deborah Anne Brady

A Season for all Festivals

As we all know there was a significant event in July involving one particular new born. Now as a former photojournalist, I wasn't surprised by the amount of newsprint that made up the reporting of this event. But even I was fed up with half the content of every newspaper being taken up with the birth of this royal baby.

I felt sorry for seasoned, professional reporters suddenly put on the spot during the main tv news programmes, struggling desperately to fill a few minutes of prime time telly, to tell the world exciting news that - nothing had happened yet. Meanwhile the public vox pops abounded. The general public guessing on the gender with one interviewee confidently stating that it would be a boy;   'coz I was late like that when I had my Jack'.

But my prize for the best coverage (or lack of it) would go to the Independent, whose columnist brilliantly highlighted that amongst all the hysteria, what really happened was this..... 

 ' .. a young couple were waiting for the birth of their first born. They went to hospital; a baby boy was born. They stood on the hospital steps; they got in a car; they went home.'    (The Independent )

That's the way to do it..  And talking of prizes.....

One of my highlights last month was that I won the Imagine Watford photographic competition (featured in my last blog). I was very chuffed about it as there were some really good photos from other photographers including quite a few professionals.

the winning photo - Imagine Watford 

My prize - £100 worth of Watford Palace theatre tickets. It's a great prize as I love the theatre and film and the Palace put on some really good plays.

 We've been busy in Watford with festivals over the last few weeks as Cassiobury Park hosted the Inland Waterways canal festival for three days. It involved a minor military operation to set up and about 15,000 visitors came along.

Colourful and flagged bedecked narrow boats, moored two abreast, lined the canal and a tented-city of stalls covered nearly half of Cassiobury Park. 

where would any festival be without its Morris dancers

 

could this be Morris?    

    

My role at the canal festival was to consult with the public on our latest designs for our Heritage Lottery Funding bid to restore and improve the park.

We had a good response but the stifling heat in the main marquee meant  frequent visits to the ice cream stall.   

 

 canal boats at the Inland Waterways festival in Cassiobury Park

 

This month I also managed to see the draft copy of my front cover photograph for my boss's book on London's royal parks. They also chose eight other pictures of mine taken that day to compliment the rest of the book.













a hat, a hat, my dog kennel for a hat. Inland Waterways Festival

this hat stall did a roaring trade at the Inland Waterways Festival on one of the hottest days of the year.

back in time with the boat people.

More photographic commissions came my way with our publicity department at the council asking me to do a photocall of the Mayor with the Friends of Cheslyn Gardens, for a front cover of  About Watford magazine. It's the third year in a row these colourful and delightful gardens have obtained Green Flag status.

In between I've been busy organising events such as the national linked, Our Big Gig, a celebration of community involvement in music and to promote the use of bandstands with events taking place all over the country.

Hartbeats - African drums at the Our Big Gig in Cassiobury Park

 

This allowed us to use the occasion to link in to one of our major restoration projects under our Heritage Lottery Funded bid, which is to restore our very own Victorian bandstand back to its original location in the  in the park. Parks all over the country have for many years suffered a lack of funding and when that happens, heritage items like a bandstand can lie unused and open to vandalism in a park. Many years ago, our own bandstand was dismantled and re situated outside the library and town hall in Watford's High Street where its use and location has never attracted well

attended musical events. So when we get round 2 stage funding, in June of next year (we hope) one of the first things we will be doing, by popular demand, is re-locating the bandstand back in its natural and original location in the park.

 

dancing in the park

 

One of my jobs after much consultation with the public will be to create a year round series of activities and eclectic musical events at the newly installed bandstand.  For now though, we have to make do with a stage and a high top marquee instead. Cassiobury Park is not used to regular smaller events and despite extensive publicity for the Our Big Gig there were not the audience numbers we expected. But as Spielberg once wrote for that famous film, The Field,  'if we build it, they will come'

musical activity returns to the park bandstand site - the local kids enjoying beating out a rhythm

 

 

Jive Swing dancers

 

Jive Swing dancers

 

 Jive Swing dance troupe

and on a completely different subject....

a friendly squirrel in St James Park on a recent trip to London

 

Cassiobury Park

 

In between all this photography, I'm busy organising a heritage tour around  Cassiobury Park in September. But with a difference. It will be a white Shire horse and carriage tour, stopping off at points of historic interest in the park and finishing with coffee and cake in our delightfully

named, Cha Cha Cha tea pavilion. Somehow I can feel some more photos coming on...

 

 

 

Deborah

 copyright (c) Deborah Anne Brady

                       

Dinosaurs, Dervishes and Divas - two weeks in Watford

One of the highlights of my recent nights out was an evening at my favourite night club, Ronnie Scott's jazz club in Soho.

I was there to see a famous son- Kyle Eastwood - son of that famous cowboy, Clint Eastwood, perform with his band. Now lets lets face it, if we're honest, most of us who had never heard of him, or his music, only really wanted to see him in concert due to the curiosity of who he was and therefore proving that living off a famous name does indeed work! But being a tadge sceptical about his musical abilities and suspicious of him hanging on the coat tails of that famous name, that initial scepticism was totally shot to pieces when I heard him play.

Never mind that he did look like a young, (but softer), version of his father; handsome, over 6ft tall, slim and with a head of thick blond hair,(mmmm.. I digress), I was astounded and surprised by Kyle's, songwriting abilities and superbly dexterous, double and electric bass playing, backed by a formidable quartet of quality jazz musicians. He's earned his musical spurs on his own merit, writing, composing and playing with a surprising variety and depth, using an eclectic sound of fusion jazz mixed with upbeat  jazz r&b and atmospherics -a good example was the mesmerising and haunting 'Marrakech'.

A great evening, and I'm relieved to say there was not a splat of chewed tobacci' spitooned onto the floor, and neither during the interval did the band sit in circle round the piano player eating beans, though he did play one number where he whistled effortlessly through his teeth at the begining of one song and just for a nano second showed a glimmer of his ancestry - a hint of being a chip off the old block and just as I thought I was about to hear the first strains of  'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly', the song mercifully evolved into a wonderful jazz ensemble.

But I was so spell bound that evening that the very next morning, I impulsively went out and bought two of his CD's, scanning meticulously to make sure Marrakech was listed on one of them. I haven't stopped playing it since and with every listening I'm transported back to images of exotic Kasbars, minarets and Whirling Dervishes.

And talking of mystical, frenzied, dances, the annual, open-air arts fesitival of the weird, and wonderful took place in the more prosaic Watford recently, called Imagine Watford, complete with its own, mesmerising, live, Whirling Dervish.

a whirling dervish closes a great two week open air arts festival in Watford High Street

 

Rehearsing his moves before the main act.

 

spinning to the end in the much longed for sunshine

 

 

Imagine Watford allows you to use your imagination. It included the weird, wonderful and downright bizarre.

 

 an act called 'trolleys' - I wonder why?
 

Its amzing what you can do with a standard shopping trolley

 

trolleys, dance and gymnastics

 

Trolleys was a great act but I will never be able to shop in Sainsburys in the same way again. I have to say that at no point were these trolleys taken from the Sainsburys supermarket, just round the corner!

 

But the two weeks was full of strange, weird as well as some very funny acts. There were life size dinosaurs,  a comedy act with all the performers wearing striped pyjams and using metal beds as props, with striped matching mattresses.

 

a comedy with the equally weird performance name of , 'Expedition Paddock'

 

the singing Expedition Paddocks.

 

And then there was 'Saurus' who roamed the High Street mixing in with the crowds and enthralling the kids.

 

Saurus - and their Saurus 'catcher'

 

and the kids loved them! what is it about dinosaurs and kids!

 

they just wanted to touch and meet these scary/lovable monsters.

 

Saurus trainer and child catcher !

 

more scary for the adults !

 

although not every one was too sure about them

 

you need long legs to keep control of the Saurus'

 

friend or foe? a truly international flavour to the festival. Saurus was a Dutch arts act

 

A Saurus catcher

 

Glissssendo Opus II - a Hungarian musical ensemble with a twist

 

One of the weirdest but somehow beautiful acts was Glissssendo Opus II (yes that is the correct spelling) Transporting themselves on coasters through the High Street, playing as they went on weird musical instruments with plumes of smoke eminating from conical cones on their backs.

 

they played really well- man, they were on fire!

 

bringing some colour to Watford's High Street

 

the magificent 'gliding', Glisssssendos'

 

.....bringing colour to the High Street

 

strange shaped trumpets for Glissssendo

 

there were acts with umbrellas - Splash - about climate change

 

and the crowd looked on...

 

strange banana shaped colourful balloons

 

which some loved and enjoyed...

 

and some didn't care too much for it at all.

 

and some had fun ....

 

but there were always the Imagine Watford volunteers in their distinctive orange t shirts to help and inform - seeing double!

 

and if all that was just too much to handle.........

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



just stay calm and chill out...!!

 

I've taken a lot of snaps these last two weeks and looks to continue that way when I recently got offered a great bit of news. It started with my regular bi monthly update meeting at work the other week. I went into my boss' office to talk all things Heritage and came out with a commission to do a photo front cover for a book!

 

Let me explain.. my boss is a part time author and has written several series books his present one is on London's Royal Parks. He's completed it but his publishers want a front cover photo. So.. he came to me. On completion, he's going to give me a whole book to illustrate - one that he's working on for the future. In addition we are both going to work on a book (complete with photos of course) on the heritage of Cassiobury Park, that the council can sell in the new hub building planned as part of the park's Heritage Lottery funded improvements. How good is that!

 

Deborah

 

(c) copyright: words and photographs on this blog are copyright to Deborah Anne Brady- 2013