Beyond Nab End is one of my favorite books. essentially its the autobiography of a guy called William Woodruff, who was born on the floor of the carding room in a blackburn cotton mill and was raised in the pre ww1 terraced backstreets of the lancashire mill town. its a great tale that has a tiny relevence to this forum. he documents his life in the book and its follow up relating the scrapes poverty and moonlight flits that his family did, and eventually he ran away to london aged 14 and ended up working in a foundry, he came to the attention of the union who noticing his intelligence sponsored him through night school and ultimately oxford university. later in life he became a famous author and professor.
anyhow, the relevence to this place. in ww2 he ended up serving as a DR, and describes thumping along on an old sidevalve bsa500, he also describes one incident when he was 'on a promise' and with a 48 hour pass in his pocket was hot footing it cross country from southampton to oxford when he overdid it on a corner and stacked the beesa in a spectacular style. as it happens, there as a film crew making a pathe newsreel item who recorded his crash, and he wondered if somewhere in the pathe archive would be his accident recorded for all time. ok, its not terribly relevant, but its a great book anyhow, and a tiny snippet of info from a fast disappearing era.
