Tag: 1930

Emails: St Kilda – Ancients British Celts, WWI, WWII, Human and Animal Tragedy! (17.9.2023)

Research suggests these people had lived on this isolated island for around 2000 years – as they spoke a very old Gaelic language mixed with the odd word of Latin and Norse! The island was attacked once by an Imperial German U-boat during Spring 1918 (which fired 60 artillery rounds at a British Telegraph Station) near the end of WWI. During WWII, after all the indigenous Celts had gone – my maternal grandfather – Arthur Gibson – (when serving in the Royal Navy on the Minesweeper – HMS Beaumaris Castle) was ordered onto the island of St Kilda (Hirta) after an aeroplane full of US Servicemen (who were returning home after fighting in Europe) -crashed into the high mountainside with no survivors.

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Henry VIII: St Alban’s the Martyr Church (Cheam) – Constructed from a Nonsuch Royal Stable! (14.5.2023)

The wood used for the roof (and support beams) dates to about 1550 CE – and was originally a very large royal stable used by King Henry VIII and I am told – his daughter – Queen Elizabeth I! It was dismantled from its original site (adjacent to Nonsuch Palace) by Shipwrights – and brought to what was once a remote area of Cheam – and reassembled (with added contemporary brickwork) to form a very large Church! The wood would have been part of a royal forest cultivated in the area – grown to make ships, buildings and other required ‘royal’ structures! Therefore, the wood itself will be far older than the 1550 CE date the barn is believed to have been originally constructed! The beams are held together entirely by wooden-pegs – just as they were originally designned to be – with no ‘modern’ nails or connecting materials! Indeed, Shipwrights reconstructed this building as if they were building a wooden ship!

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USSR: Red Army Cavalry 1938 Model ‘Carbine’ (17.5.2022) 

The concept of the ‘carbine’ may well have originated during the late 1500s in France and referred to the weapon these ‘Light’ Cavalrymen used to carry. In this instance, this may well have been a ‘slang’ term used in the French language which referred to mounted archers from Flanders who were considered deadly shots and sure bringers of ‘death’! (The association is unclear but may refer to an assumed connection between the ‘carrion beetle’ and the ‘plague’, etc). Whatever the origin, a ‘carbine’ appears to refer to a ‘short’ and highly effective weapon carried when sat in the saddle and used when riding the horse whether into or out of battle. The 1938 ‘Carbine’ Model measured just 1020 mm (or 3.4 feet) long (minus a bayonet) – and fired a round measuring 7.62 mm! The ‘Carbine’ Model 1938 was sighted to fire up to 1000 meters! The Izhevsk Machine-Manufacturing Plant was the only place equipped for producing this ‘Carbine’ between 1941-1942 – during the height of the ‘Great Patriotic war’ – when the workers of this factory produced over 1,106,510 which were sent immediately for frontline service! 

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