One Sketch #174) Manchester Metrolink Tram

I'm sorry, but it's just the guy I am
Gimme the choice, I'll choose
To sketch a tram.

This week I've been formulating a plan. I've read a rather lovely little book called "Pier Review", about two  guys, Danny Smith and Jon Bounds, and how they carried out a sudden plan to visit every seaside pier listed by the Pier Society in England and Wales. They didn't even like piers that much. So what I was thinking was - how about making a trip, the purpose of which would be to ride on every town/city tram system in Great Britain? I reckoned that there's only six of them, so even though they are spread as far apart as London and Edinburgh, you should do it quite comfortably in five days. In fact, so easy would it be, I thought, that you could even up the ante a little bit by including rides on each of Great Britain's 3 underground railways, and 2 light railways as well as the 6 tram systems. So why have I plumped to include a picture of a Manchester tram? Well, I may be wrong, but I believe that Manchester was the first city to bring  trams back - although Blackpool, to be fair, had the great good sense never to get rid of them in the first place. As for the trip - well, probably it will never happen, but you never know. Watch this space.

One Sketch #173) Moise Kisling

He's been reading this book

Since 1910

He must be wondering

Where will it end.

Prompt from Sketching Every Day today - something inspired by artist Moise Kisling. So I copied this from his 1910 work, Young Boy Reading. Not brilliant, is it? Sorry Moise. 

One Sketch #172) Briton Ferry Library.

A treasure house
Beyond all value
Tresor dyn y ddawn

L is for. . . Llansawel. This is a rather personal one. Llansawel is the Welsh name for Briton Ferry, which is a part of the town of Neath, in the County Borough of Neath and Port Talbot in South Wales. And it’s a place which is a bit special to me, since I worked in Briton Ferry for 29 years, as a teacher in the local school for 11 – 16 year olds. It was my first ever teaching post, and for the most part a very happy time in my life. I’d come to the stage where I was teaching children, whose parents I had taught many years before, and it wouldn’t have been long before I was teaching grandchildren as well. The school was amalgamated with two others , and I teach in the amalgamated school a couple of miles away now. This building, probably the finest left in Briton Ferry, is the library. I don’t know for certain if it is one of the libraries built by Scottish American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie – my own local library is - but I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s run by dedicated local volunteers, which tells you all you need to know about the Briton Ferry community.

One Sketch #171) Swansea Grand Hotel

I wonder if it does that well
To call itself such a grand hotel?

This is right next to the railway station in Swansea, and it's art deco appearance suggests it was probably built at around the same time as well. I did use another sketch today for sketching every day, but it's nice to keep my eye and hand in with the urban sketching every now and again.

One Sketch #170) Sir Tom (Tuesday 11th September)

In the land of song
You gotta be something special
For other people to call you
The Voice.

Stuck for ideas I followed the prompt from Sketching Every Day. In September 6 days are consecutive letters of the alphabet with every seventh day being a specific artist. I decided at the start that each of my letters was going to pay some kind of tribute to South Wales, where I've made my home for the last 3 decades. So, J is for Jones, Sir Tom of that ilk, sixties survivor, and The Voice's The Voice. Now come on, you might not be a big fan, but admit, 'It's Not Unusual' must bring a smile to your face when you hear it.

One Sketch #169) Trevithick's Locomotive

And so the modern world began
To settle a bet
Between industrialists.

On 21^st February 1804, Cornishman Richard Trevithick demonstrated the world’s first working steam locomotive, and he did it on the tramway at the Penydaren Iron Works near Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales. The purpose was to settle a bet between the iron works’ owner, Samuel Homfray, and his fellow iron master from nearby Cyfartha, Richard Crawshay. Trevithick’s locomotive worked, and Homfray won the bet, even though the locomotive’s weight broke many of the cast iron rails. To put this into perspective, this was 21 years before George Stephenson’s Locomotion worked the world’s first ever steam railway, the Stockton and Darlington, and 25 years before the Rocket inaugurated the first ever passenger railway between major cities, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

One Sketch #168) Hay on Wye - Booth's Book Store

Ah, I can never resist
The siren call of second hand books
The siren call 
Of leather bound, cloth bound
Unbound books
And the smell of old paper.
Old knowledge, old stories,
Old ideas
Whose time came, and went
Or never came at all.

This is Booth’s book shop in Hay on Wye, South Wales. In the late 70s Richard Booth opened the first secondhand book store in the town, buying books in bulk in the USA and shipping them back. His success led to other secondhand book stores opening in the town. It didn’t hurt either that Mr. Booth has an eye for publicity, and acts like declaring independence from the rest of the UK, and proclaiming himself the King of Hay brought him some nationwide publicity which can’t have been bad for business. There are still many, many secondhand bookshops in the town, and it is actually known as The Town of Books. Visitors come from all over the world, and in June the Hay Literary Festival is one of the world’s most prestigious, numbering President Bill Clinton among the illustrious figures who have participated.
Just for a change I made this sketch in Biro. I used to sketch a lot in biro, and this reminded me why I stopped using it! The first half of the sketch was fine, but then it started blotting, the ink stopped flowing smoothly - urrgghhh