CoffeePotter

By CoffeePotter

Howitzer Island

After several days of hardly anything blipworthy, there were loads of things today that I could have used.

Late this afternoon we went to Stratford to see the switching-on of the Christmas lights. We just missed the fireworks but could see them as we approached the town and actually they lasted only about 30 to 40 seconds, so no big loss.

We couldn’t hear the speech from the chap switching in the lights– Christopher Biggins (I’m no wiser now as to who he is, sorry) but the lights did come on gradually thanks to the guys from the street lighting department of Stratford District Council who seemed to be rushing around from one place to another carrying long step ladders. The lights are really very pretty, as always.

This is the top of Bridge Street, the traffic island just outside Barclays Bank. In this exact spot there used to stand a German howitzer, a trophy from the First World War, until my Great Granddad managed to push it into the River Avon on the evening of 28th June 1919, for a bet. Evidently the water was too shallow where the howitzer lay, so accompanied by a whole gang by now, it was hauled back out, man-handled back along Waterside, (it had by now a woman sitting astride the barrel) and over the parapet from Clopton Bridge and back in where the river was deeper – as the bet was that it had to be under water.

There was an article about this recently in our local paper, which seemed to imply that it was done because the locals were offended by the war trophy. The story in my family was that it was done for a bet, and after hearing the other stories about my Great Granddad, I know which version I go with.

I'd love to have blipped it on its way through Stratford, with the lady astride the barrel! Now that WOULD have been a spotlight................

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