I always felt a bit uneasy at killing large numbers of beetles, not for some important medical purpose, or even as food, but simply for a decorative colouring agent.

With the West of England Mayoral Combined Authority area already benefitting from a nearly 50% increase in funding to fix potholes this year compared to last year, we are paving the way to the future.

Best-selling author Frederick Forsyth, known for thriller novels including The Day Of The Jackal, has died at the age of 86, his agent has said.

"We mourn the passing of one of the world's greatest thriller writers," Jonathan Lloyd said in a statement.

Forsyth published more than 25 books, also including The Odessa File and The Dogs of War, and sold 75 million books around the world, he said.

His publisher Bill Scott-Kerr said: "Still read by millions across the world, Freddie's thrillers define the genre and are still the benchmark to which contemporary writers aspire. He leaves behind a peerless legacy which will continue to excite and entertain for years to come."

Born in Kent in 1938, Forsyth joined the RAF at the age of 18 before becoming a war correspondent for the BBC and Reuters. He revealed in 2015 he also worked for British intelligence agency MI6 for more than 20 years. Many of his fictional plots drew on his real-life experiences around the world.

He made his name with his first novel, 1971's The Day Of The Jackal, which he wrote when he was out of work. "[I was] skint, in debt, no flat, no car, no nothing and I just thought, 'How do I get myself out of this hole?' And I came up with probably the zaniest solution - write a novel," he said. It is a gripping tale, set in 1963, about an Englishman hired to assassinate the French president at the time, Charles de Gaulle.

The Day Of The Jackal was turned into a 1973 film starring Edward Fox as the Jackal, and then became a TV drama starring Eddie Redmayne last year.

Forsyth died on Monday after a brief illness, a statement said.

"We mourn the passing of one of the world's greatest thriller writers," Mr Lloyd said. "Only a few weeks ago I sat with him as we watched a new and moving documentary of his life - In My Own Words, to be released later this year on BBC One – and was reminded of an extraordinary life, well lived. After serving as one of the youngest ever RAF pilots, he turned to journalism, using his gift for languages in German, French and Russian to become a foreign correspondent in Biafra. Appalled at what he saw and using his experience during a stint as a Secret service agent, he wrote his first and perhaps most famous novel, The Day Of The Jackal, and instantly became a global bestselling author."

Forsyth followed The Day Of The Jackal with The Odessa File in 1972, which was adapted for the big screen in a film starring Jon Voight two years later.

He was made a CBE for services to literature in 1997.

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I've threads on two other forums about this, and on one someone has replied "Luton has always been a van plant, not car - it started off as a Bedford truck factory. The only cars ever assembled there were Frontera 4x4s from 1992 to 2004, but it closed completely two months ago. Stellantis' only UK assembly plant is Ellesmere Port - and that stopped assembling Corsas in 2020 and Astras in 2022. It now assembles electric Berlingo/Partner/Doblo/Combo small vans and their car equivalents."

Rapidly pushed out to 1400 & now 1500
 
National Rail reporting no Elizabeth Line services between Paddington-Heathrow/Reading......Advice seems to be to go via Waterloo.

It's the piers for the useful but closed rail line, part of the shortest route between London and the West Country, and which had at least one bridge of an uncommon design, not sure if the canal crossing's bridge was another, but the piers certainly got beefed up at some stage.

Mark

Regarding the 9th photo, the herons along the Bath section of the Kennet and Avon canal are extraordinarily accepting of humans walking close by them. I assume this is one of them, probably the one that hangs around midway between Bathampton and Sydney Gardens.

Research suggests that the Minehead engine was No. 78 (Knowle) rather than No. 55 (Stepney)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LB%26SCR_A1_class_locomotives

?  - I thought that Stepney was another Bluebell engine right from the start, and Wikipedia seems to confirm that.

Alterations to services between London Paddington and Reading

Due to the emergency services dealing with an incident between London Paddington and Reading some lines are closed.

Train services running to and from these stations may be delayed or revised. Disruption is expected until 12:45 09/06

Back in the early 1970s, Butlins at Minehead were having a clear out, and "Duchess of Hamilton" was donated to the NRM (and, in November 1975, became the final BR train movement on the branch, as she was towed away to Swindon by a Class 25) and the diminutive Stroudley "Terrier" "Stepney" was donated to the WSR.  There was a fanciful idea to return the loco to service, but that didn't happen.  She was used, in 1979, as a smoking prop for a BBC2 telly drama though, thanks to a smoke bomb from BBC special effects department, and a shove from another loco

So there is a precedent for a Terrier on the Minehead Branch

09:56 Great Malvern to London Paddington due 12:22 will be terminated at Oxford.
This is due to the emergency services dealing with an incident.
Last Updated:09/06/2025 11:24

10:53 London Paddington to Worcester Shrub Hill due 13:01 is being delayed at Southall.
This is due to trespassers on the railway.
Last Updated:09/06/2025 11:07

11:52 London Paddington to Hereford due 14:44 will be started from Reading.
This is due to the emergency services dealing with an incident.
Last Updated:09/06/2025 11:39

15:18 Hereford to London Paddington due 18:29 will be started from Worcester Shrub Hill.
This is due to the emergency services dealing with an incident earlier today.
Last Updated:09/06/2025 13:34

Exploiting the zoom effect in that photo, I can see more than by eye. For a start, the nearer pole is actually reinforced concrete, so might have won a game of scissors-paper-stone with a chainsaw. The two behind it do look round and wooden, though hard to see in detail. And why one has a ladder fixed to it, apparently wrapped in vegetation, who knows?

And while there's only the two running lines here (between the skew bridge in the picture and the footbridge the picture was taken from) in any of the old maps I've looked at, some time between the 1930s and 1960s the entry line for the goods yard at the station was extended into this section. There had always been an unused space for it under the footbridge, oddly.

Poles for floodlighting usually had only two wires, possibly more in very extensive installations. If arc lamps were used there was usually a winch to lower the whole lighting unit to near ground level for attention, as this was needed frequently. For filament lamps, or later mercury lamps, a ladder was often provided for lamp replacement.

A few installations used series lighting, whereby special lamps of low voltage were used in series on a high voltage supply. Never popular in the UK, more of a USA thing.

I see pictures of "Fenchurch" - a locomotive I associate with the Bluebell - hauling trains on the West Somerset Railway at present and she looks so out of place (and small). 

Was there ever a siding or head shit there, these types of poles on the SR with only 2 insulators often had lighting on them, or it could have been an electricity supply for the local electricity company / board