When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.
Lao Tzu
18 Comments CherryPie on Sep 20th 2009
I am having a few days off to relax and chill out. You are welcome to sit with me and enjoy the view 
20 Comments CherryPie on Sep 19th 2009
This statue is situated at the entrance of Abbey House Gardens and is the work of Ian Rank-Broadley, the same sculptor that produced the statues in a previous PhotoHunt post. I must admit I had not heard of him until I saw the sculptures at Abbey House Gardens, but it seems I should have done:
Ian Rank-Broadley is one of the foremost sculptors working today. His effigy of H.M. Queen Elizabeth II appears on all UK and Commonwealth coinage since 1998. He has recently completed work on one of the most important war memorials since WWII, the Armed Forces Memorial.
On his website Ian explains why he chose the male nude as a dominant motif:
The choice of the male figure/ nude as a dominant motif was made quite early when I realised that the female nude had, to a large extent, been robbed of its power by the commercial world of advertising, whereas the the male nude still retained a power that could excite, grab attention and shock. The reaction of the spectator to the male figure was stronger, whether out of competition, fear or embarrassment. It proved to be a potent image. For me, the sculptor, this fact reinforced the work with a greater resonance and meaning.
For more of this weeks PhotoHunt pictures check out tnchick.
38 Comments CherryPie on Sep 18th 2009
A recent study into Civil Service pay by Income Data Services (IDS) further exposes the myth that civil servants are paid more than their counterparts in the private sector. The study reveals that there are gaps of more than £5000 between the Civil Service and the private sector.
The report compares the median salaries of four key grades in the Civil Service against their counterparts in other areas in the private sector. The PCS website reports on some key findings from the report:
- Administrative officers across the civil service delivering a range of services such as getting people back into work, tax credits and passports are paid £4,608 (21%) less than their colleagues doing comparable jobs in the private sector. Compared to the rest of the public sector the gap is £4,045 (19%) and for the financial sector the figure is £3,330 (16%).
- Executive officers who typically work in a supervisory role or a job which requires a vocational qualification are paid £4,783 (18%) less than the private sector and £3,945 (15%) less than the financial sector. Compared to rest of the public sector the gap is £4,503 (17%).
- Higher executive officers who manage teams of people are paid £5,338 (16%) less than their counterparts in the financial sector and £4,305 (13%) less than those working in the private sector. Compared to rest of the public sector the gap is £1,873 (6%).
- Administrative assistants who typically undertake clerical duties such as processing benefit claims, tax credits and self assessment forms earn £979 (6.5%) less than the private sector and £572 (3.6%) less than the rest of the public sector.
The IDS findings on the eve of this year’s TUC conference come as employer led organisations attempt to portray civil and public servants as ‘having it easy’ compared to the private sector.
The myth is far from the reality with the average pension for civil servants amounting to £6,500 and dropping to £4,200 once high earners are excluded.
Nearly 100,000 civil and public service jobs have gone over the last 5 years and more than half of the civil service earn less than the UK national wage.
Commenting, Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, said: “These findings expose the myth that civil servants enjoy better rates of pay than the private sector.
“The notion that dedicated civil servants who do everything from helping people back to work, to tax credits and passports have it easy is false. Civil service pay has increased at a slower rate than the private sector.
“Over 100,000 civil servants earn less than £15,000 with 40% of jobcentre workers getting no pay rise at all last year. PCS members like other low paid workers continue to bear the brunt of the recession in terms of pay.
“Divisive myths about pay, pensions and job security should not be used as a pretext to freeze pay, cut pensions and lay waste to civil and public services.
“Job cuts, low pay and an average pension of £4,200 are the realities for the people who keep this country running. The government needs to see through the divisive myths about civil and public servants and to recognise the important role they play in delivering vital services.”
Media myths about the civil and public services:
- Myth 1: Civil and public servants are well paid
- Myth 2: Civil servant pensions are gold plated
- Myth 3: Civil and public servants are secure in their jobs
- Myth 4: Privatisation
- Myths: Part 5
16 Comments CherryPie on Sep 17th 2009
The Black Country Museum gives a great insight into the social history of the Black Country. Old buildings have been moved and authentically rebuilt within the museum to recreate a village that is centred round a canal. The museum is a living history of the traditional skills of the area where skilled craftsmen and costumed demonstrators bring history alive.
The area around the canal was quite photogenic and I couldn’t resist taking some photographs of it, when I was at the museum on Saturday. The picture below depicts a set of limekilns that were originally built in 1842. The small building with the sign over the top is a glass cutters workshop.
Quarried extensively in Sedgley, Dudley and Walsall, limestone was one of the great wealth of raw materials that contributed to the successful industrial development of the Black Country. It was used in iron making as a flux in the furnaces but could also be converted to lime by burning.
‘Quicklime’ was used to make mortar and plaster for the building trade, in agriculture as a fertiliser and as ’slaked’ lime for making whitewash.
The large set of kilns overlooking the village were built in 1842 and were in use until about 1926, burning limestone excavated from nearby Castle Hill and Wren’s Nest. Twenty-eight feet high chimneys topped the shafts of the kilns and belched out smoke and fumes continuously.
The lime works and canal basin were once at the hub of industrial activity within the Black Country.
The canal arm was built from the main Wolverhampton-Birmingham line especially to serve these kilns.
Earlier ‘horseshoe’ and ’shaft’ kilns were built near the entrance to Dudley Canal Tunnel.
The underground canals were built in the late eighteenth century to carry stone from the mines and were linked into the Midlands canal network.
The two most prominent buildings in the following picture are the rolling mill to the left of the picture.
The rolling mill depicts a typical Black Country hand rolling mill in which iron and later, steel bars were reduced in size or changed in section.
The iron bars are heated up in the cast iron furnace and then passed through the mill stands several times to reduce the size of the section.
It was installed at Birchley Rolling Mills, Oldbury in 1923 using second hand parts and has been reconstructed at the Museum as it would have appeared around 1900.
When in operation the mill is now driven by a modern electrical motor.
And the anchor forge to the right of the picture.
The open-sided shed standing in the middle of the ironworks is the anchor forge which was rescued from Isiah Preston’s in Cradley Heath.
The steam-hammer was installed second hand in the 1920s to forge parts for ships’ anchors and the other equipment including furnace and boiler also came from Prestons.
The building was saved from Johnson’s Rolling Mill site in West Bromwich.
The iron billets are heated in the furnace and suspended from a crane in order that they can be manipulated beneath the steam powered hammer.
The heat from the furnace also raises steam in the boiler between the furnace and the chimney and this steam powers the hammer which reduces the size of the iron and forges it into the shape required.
18 Comments CherryPie on Sep 16th 2009
On Saturday 12th September I attended the 5th Women’s Chainmakers Festival with friends. The event took place at the Black Country Living Museum, Dudley and is held annually to commemorate the struggle of the women chainmakers to earn a decent living wage. This year’s festival celebrated the 99th anniversary of their success.
In 1910 the women chainmakers of Cradley Heath fought a successful 10 week dispute to establish a minimum wage for their labour. The dispute was led by union organiser and campaigner Mary MacArthur. By the end of the dispute the women chainmakers had managed to increase their earnings from 5 shillings (25p) to 11 shillings (55p). The victory helped to make the possibility of a national minimum wage a reality.
Women chainmakers were a good example of ’sweated labour’ meaning hours of toil for minimum wages. The women chainmakers’ pamphlet, which gives extensive information about the dispute, quotes the following about the working conditions of chainmakers:
Author Robert Harborough Sherard visited Cradley Heath to collect evidence for one of a series of articles, later published as a book ‘The White Slaves of England’ (1898), on the sweated trades of the land. He was taken by James Smith, secretary of the Chainmakers’ Union, to a place called Anvil Yard. Sherard Wrote:
“Two of the girls working in the shed were suckling babes and could work but slowly. Those who could work at their best being unencumbered could make a hundredweight of chain in two and a half days. Their owner walked serene and grey-haired among them, checking conversation, and being, at times, abusive. She was but one of a numerous class of human leeches fast to a gangrened sore.
Of Anvil Yard, with its open sewers and filth and shame, one would rather not write, nor of the haggard tatterdermalions* who groaned and jumped. In fact I hardly saw them, the name ‘Anvil Yard’ had set me thinking of some lines of Goethe, in which he deplores the condition of the people – ‘zwischen dem Amboss und Hammer’ – between the anvil and the hammer.
And as these lines went through my head, whilst before my spiritual eyes there passed the pale procession of the White Slaves of England, I could see nothing but sorrow and hunger and grime, rags, foul food, open sores and movements incessant, instinctive yet laborious – and anvil and a hammer ever descending – all vague, and in a mist as yet untinged with red, a spectacle so hideous that I gladly shut it out, wondering for my part, what in these things is right.”
*tatterdermalion – a poor and ragged person
The PCS Midlands office had a stall in the Leftfield tent, so there was a chance for me to meet up with friends old and new. It was also a great opportunity to explore the museum and give my camera an airing.
Throughout the day re-enactments of the struggle and dispute took place in the reconstructed town at the museum. These were followed by a march through the museum streets which was accompanied by marching bands and led by the costumed theatre group. This gave my friends and other trade unionists that were attending the event, the opportunity to join the march and display their branch and regional banners. At the end of the march a member of the theatre group read one of Mary MacArthur’s speeches to the crowd that had congregated during the march.
This was originally posted over at Nourishing Obscurity, the eagle eyed might notice that I have altered this version slightly to add a personal flavour. I will be posting more pictures of the day on my blog in due course, but if you want a sneaky preview of them all you can check here.
13 Comments CherryPie on Sep 15th 2009
…500 – Internal server error.
There is a problem with the resource you are looking for, and it cannot be displayed.
For some reason the server where my blog is hosted decided to stop working on Friday for the second time in 6 weeks! My service provider advise that they provide 24/7 customer support, but I have noticed a pattern. Everything goes quiet at the weekend, so it is really only 24/5 support.
Well fingers crossed, they sorted it this morning and I seem to be up and running again now…
Sorry to everyone (including me) who had the irritation of seeing this message over and over again.
My delayed weekend posts can be seen below.
14 Comments CherryPie on Sep 14th 2009
