Bills Posts

It’s really unfortunate, that a trip down to the waterfront at low tide reveals this unfortunate sight. Of course it disappears when the tide comes back up. I reported one trolley to Street scene – they told me that anything on the seaward side of the Haslar Marina Pier Wall is the responsibility of QHM, and it appears that they are not a large priority – kind of understandable really. As annoying as it is, they aren’t in the way of anything.

The frustration from my point of view, is that whenever I write about the waterfront, or anything come to that, you get a picture that is stilted, because that is how I write. I’ve just finished reading the latest issue of Country Walking. Eighty odd pages of descriptive, well written, vivid, entertaining prose. Words that flowed, and built a picture that gave you a feeling for the subject. The trouble for me, is that I know the words, but it seems my brain doesn’t think shall we say descriptively without some effort on my part. Is it flowery words or something else?

At lunchtime today, I didn’t know that I was going to write about the high street, and so I didn’t take a picture. I’ve decided that for the time being I’m going to walk done the high street every day that I go out for a lunchtime walk.

I’m doing this because I want to get a feel for the heartbeat of the town centre. I walked it over the weekend , and even now I am seeing regulars and not just staff.

It’s very nice to see what for me is a busy street at lunchtime (there’s an argument to be had – is it really busy – but in comparison to 0600, oh yes it is). To start with most of the shops are open, of course there are the thirteen or so closed units which I must admit don’t really detract from the activity, perhaps that is because they are spread over the length of the street.

Of course there are the people, and I do enjoy people watching. Coupled really with my desire to do street photography. with a bit of luck it won’t take long for me to get on nodding terms with some people. I speak to a couple of the homeless people. I haven’t mustered the courage to ask if I can take their picture to blog, and I’d be quite interested in videoing them, but I don’t think that will happen somehow. But you never know.

It will also be interesting to see how the weather affects things, I certainly intend to continue to walk if the weather is bad – perhaps not every time, but certainly on a few occasions. Let’s see how things go.

It has been an interesting week for walking. I managed ego clock up just over 36 miles, so I’m quite pleased with that. I’ve changed my route a couple of times to include the high street at different times. For example, I generally walk down the half of the high street at around ten past six in the morning. Unsurprisingly, at that time of the morning, there is not a lot happening. Usually, it’s just Greggs that is open, and they even have their table and chair sets out for use.

I didn’t want to miss the Cockle Ponds, so I still go past them, but then, instead of carrying on up South Street, I went back the western end of the high street and walked it’s length – twice, turning around at the ferry terminal and returning adding a little bit more to ensure that I got my morning’s 3 miles.

The second time along the high street was a bit more fruitful, with the window cleaner working away. He was quite happy for me to take his picture, which was nice. But even that thirty or so minutes later really didn’t find much more activity. I think it is much more likely that the period between 0730 and 0900 would see much more activity. Unfortunately, unless I’m on holiday, I’m not likely to be up at those times.

I can compensate for this a little bit by walking along the high street during my lunchtime walk, I had been trying to avoid doing that because every time I walked that route I would end up going in to the bakery and buying food that I really don’t need to eat, not helping my weight. This week though, I have walked the route at least twice and have avoided the bakery and can do it. It’s getting to the point where I need to do the research about the old buildings and shops that feature in the books I have, so that I can approach the shop owners explain what I want to do and hopefully, get a positive response.

This coming week then, I intend to make as many passes along the high street as I can. Certainly looking out for activities, and things going on, just generally observing. It’ll be interesting to see how things develop.

The picture? Nothing to do with the high street, I just like getting pictures of ships to show you.

The picture has nothing to do with today’s post. I thought I had better clear up any chance of confusion. I just thought it looked an interesting manhole cover, taken from a low angle.

Last night I attended the first meeting of my radio club. I was sat next to John, one of the members. He had to leave early, so he asked if I would hold his raffle tickets. I had no problems with that he lives in Gosport, so if he won I could easily drop his prize off. Of course, at the time of the draw his was the first ticket out of the tin. Luckily, I didn’t choose the note book, which it turns out he had donated to the raffle.

Anyhow, as promised I dropped the prize off to him today. Today, I included his address in my route. Part of that included a road called Jellicoe Avenue. Something had always confused me about the street. For a street of houses it is very wide. Actually, I think it looks like a very nice street to live, wide, light and airy. Why is it like that?

There are quite a few streets in Gosport that are wider than you might expect. It appears that for many of them the reason for this is D-Day. I don’t know if properties were destroyed to widen the roads of if roads where extensive damage due to bombing, or just green field sites were chosen for these wide streets, clearly some more research is needed here. In the build up to D-Day, the activity in Gosport was frantic, not chaotic (for the most part), perhaps organised chaos, but the preparations were huge – much more than I am prepared to go into here.

A legacy of D-Day for Gosport are these wonderful, wide, calm streets. Enjoy.

I started the week looking at rough sleepers in the area. I had been a bit distressed to see one of the people I speak to occasionally picking up used cigarette butts to make up a smoke, I haven’t seen hims since. I’d have been a bit concerned over the last couple of days, as the wind has been freezing. I think they at least have a sheltered place to go to.

I’ve been quite adventurous (in my eyes, not really) with my photography, getting out and actually filming in a public place, and then I walked down the high street with my phone on the Osmo stabiliser, I might have been filming, or I might not. Either way, apart from a few curious looks, I was completely ignored.

I have spent quite a bit of time on the high street. I’ve been good though, I’ve avoided the bakery and their rather delicious pasties and bacon pastries this week – I’m quite pleased with myself for doing that. Apart from the bakery though, there are parts of the high street that are in a very sad state at the count, there were thirteen closed shops units. What could we do with them?

For me, yet another project idea – would I ever get a project of the ground? Well, in a way I have done. I’ve included pictures of people at work. I have a couple of books and I want to do a bit of research before I start out.

In 2017, I took pictures of all the Shop fronts on Stokes Road, then I became interested in the buildings and re-took pictures, to include the buildings. Only problem is; you can see the building, but not the shop – if that makes sense.

The header picture? I took a panorama of the high street. It came out slightly different to what I expected I must admit,

I changed the route of my morning walk today. I normally join the high street at a point about halfway down, usually just after 6AM. As you can imagine, it’s pretty quiet at that time, usually the only people I see actually working are the staff in Greggs, the taxi drivers and the ferry staff of course.

The change involved me following my normal route until after I had been around the cockle ponds and then I went back to the high street and walked it’s entire length. Then, at the eastern end near the ferry port, I turned round and came back up for a third pass.

It was on the second pass that I saw the window cleaner. Now, I have seen him numerous times before, but have never spoken to him. This morning I asked if he would mind if I took his picture. I explained that I wanted to do a photography project featuring working people, he was more than happy. When I see this the next time, hopefully in the morning, I really must ask him his name and give him a card. He wasn’t there on my first pass down the High Street.

I was very annoyed with myself on Wednesday. It was when I was walking down the high street at lunchtime, with my phone on the stabiliser. The lady who runs the mobility shop was stood in the doorway, in the absolutely classic pose. I walked straight past. I should have stopped and asked.

I’m going through the Book of Gosport, identifying specific shops or buildings mentioned in the book, I think the easiest thing to do would be to take the book with me, show them that their shop featured and ask if I can take a picture. What I would then really like to do is a to get access to the old picture and put them side to side here.

There’s a bit of research to be done. How do I get access to the old pictures?

For my lunchtime walk I needed to do two things. The first was to prove that I was capable of walking through the town centre without stopping at the bakery to buy a Cornish pasty (they are rather nice). I’m pleased to say that I passed that test.

I walked down through the town centre to the end of the Haslar Marina Pier Wall. I turned round and started walking back. This was when the second test came in to play. I set the phone up on the osmo 5, and I walked back I through town with it. Now the thing was, I didn’t film the whole walk. I was partly learning how to use the device (it’s really easy to switch between video and photo) but the main purposes was to gauge how people react to me walking through the town centre with a phone being held in a position where it was clear that I could have been filming.

I was watching people. By far the bulk off them just completely ignored me, anybody else just gave me a slightly curious look, but nobody challenged me. I was though prepared for that, and hoped that I wouldn’t have been recording at the time. Even if I had, I would have responded to the challenge by explaining what I was doing and why, and of course offer to delete the video.

To me this was a crucial “fear conquering” step that I really needed to do. It was also a very useful exercise in doing street photography. Can’t really get much more obvious than what I was doing.

I’ll comment briefly on the busker in the video clip. He’s really quite good. He can sing and play the guitar. My regret is that I had nothing in my pocket in to his tin. I’ll try to correct that.

I have a choice. I have written about this before. In 2017 I went along Stokes road taking pictures of the shop frontages, then I read something and I realise that I should have thought a bit more about my 2017 project.

This is because I am now slightly conflicted. The 2017 pictures were just of the shop frontages, I didn’t include any of the building. I have to be honest and say perhaps in retrospect I should have perhaps included the building.

Then what I found out is that buy far the bulk of the interesting buildings on Stokes are included in the Stoke Road Conservation area, have a look at;

https://www.gosport.gov.uk/media/2360/Stoke-Road-Conservation-Area-Map-1992/pdf/Stoke_Road_Conservation_Area_Map_1992.pdf?m=637267918694400000

So really, the buildings won’t change, but the shop frontages do change, and reasonably frequently. Do I make the assumption that my focus should be on the shop frontages as the buildings will look after themselves?

The problem really came to light this evening, when I wanted to compare a change in a shops front. The shop that was Solent Cleaners in 2017 is today the Yellow Edge Art Gallery. That’s quite a significant change. But with the pictures I have today, I can’t give that direct comparison. That’s because the second picture taken just a couple of weeks ago included the building, and it is therefore more difficult to focus on the specific shop.

To be honest, if the building isn’t likely to change, then I’m less inclined to include them. I think that I have just talked myself in to focussing on the shop fronts only. Given that the last set was taken in 2017, and with daylight now in my favour in the mornings I am set to take a few pictures every day that I go out.

Now, I do have another problem. Where to put those pictures to make them accessible to the public in a logical way. I’m still thinking about that.

Out on my lunchtime walk, on Mumby Road I saw this lorry negotiating its way out of an incredibly tight turn at really awkward place.

What is difficult to see toward the front offside of the lorry is a large mobile bin in front of a telecoms box which the lorry has to negotiate past.

Consider the fact that the lorry got in to the awkward place, it must be possible to get out. I’m taken back to my first full time job, I recall watching lorries hauling 40 foot containers. They would pull up at our gates, look at them and then position them selves, they would then reverse in, with I think less than 6 inches on either side of the lorry. It was just the utter skill in the action that seriously impressed me.

I recently finished reading a book; The Book of Gosport. There were a lot of pictures from 1850ish onwards at the height of the Victorian era. The way people posed was partly due to the time it took to take a photo, which sometimes could be on the order of minutes if not seconds.

I don’t think I’ve caught the “celebration of skill” of the driver or the nervousness of the chap guiding the lorry – it was a busy road, but it is my first picture in the project. Let’s see how I can improve things.

I’ve often spoken here about my interest in Street photography, and I think I have even spoken about my desire to recreate the Victorian pictures. I don’t think it would be unreasonable to have a project of “People at work” in black and white of course. It won’t be Victorian pictures, but I am ok with that.

The Gosport branch of Burtons closed several months ago. It was a difficult choice to choose what was the saddest image of the thirteen shops I pictured this afternoon as I walked along the High Street, I’m not sure that this is the one that has been closed longest, it’s probably not, but it serves to illustrate one of the problems with what should be the towns premier shopping area.

At the very least, if the empty shops were turned into residential units it would be serving a useful purpose. I don’t know what the position is regarding rates, which I presume sends income to the local authority (I must admit, I don’t really know how business rates works). To have these unit closed must represent a significant loss of income. Or, perhaps, even though the units are closed, perhaps the owners continue to pay some level of rates? That must really hurt.

I don’t think I’m getting political here. I hope not. I’m sure a solution will appear somewhere along the line.