Mr.SNips – fraggle ~ rocking a camera across the Universe

Well it’s slim pickings at the moment with my photography. I’ve been working extra hours, and it gets dark here at 4.30pm so once I get home from work, sorted home work out, and had dinner, it’s being difficult to feel inspired or motivated. On top of that the weather is pants. But hey- ho I did get a couple to be going on with.

Last weekend we went to the Annual Free convention held in Tynemouth, about 20 mins up the road from us. It’s (obviously) a yearly event where die hard fans of the band Free meet up, have some drinks and see Free tribute bands, as well as special guests from back in the day. This year the tribute band was Freeway, who were really good, and prior to them we had a solo singer, Toby, who Free’s now departed bass player Andy Fraser, discovered and recorded with. Not my cup of tea songs wise, but he was a great guitarist.

after him we were treated to a couple of class musicians, the guitarist Chris Spedding and singer Mr.Snips (real name Steve Parsons) both of whom joined a band called The Sharks, formed by Andy Fraser after Free split up. They were great and told loads of stories from the olden days when they were hot stuff in the music business.

I had a little outing to Seaham to visit the 1st WW memorial there. Its a statue called 11-0-1 but nicknamed Tommy.

This imposing metal sculpture, entitled 1101, owing to the fact the armistice went into effect at 11am on November 11, 1918, stands 9ft 5ins tall and weighs 1.2 tonnes.

Built out of special corteen steel, it has been installed on Seaham seafront in Country Durham to mark the centenary of the start of the Great War and was supposed to remain in place for three months. But the townspeople of Seaham wanted to keep it, so they raised the £85,000 it cost to buy it to keep.

Created by local artist Ray Lonsdale, the sculpture is also intended to represent Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which many of the returning soldiers endured. Mr Lonsdale got his idea for the piece after hearing a story about a soldier from nearby Murton who won a war medal.

there is a plaque on the rear

I visited a client who lives by Woodhorn Church, St Mary the Virgin. It was built in the early eleventh century but most of the external features are from a restoration of 1842. The church was made redundant in 1973 and is now Woodhorn Church Museum.