RF wrote:Oh dear! Lovable cuddly daleks with lovely ears!
When I was a kid and saw Dr Who I thought the Daleks to be utterly preposterous things, they only thing they seemed to be capable of was ''exterminating''. And lousy soldiers - utterly useless in battle against organised real opposition. Imagine the Daleks as ground soldiers in WW2 - they wouldn't last five minutes.
Coming back to the Shying Horse - what about the four legs?
My take on the Daleks was that any species which had to deploy in such cumbersome and impractical vehicles would be bound to become frustrated and perhaps a bit cross. I believe the ordinary Daleks could only run on metal surfaces which would rather tend to limit their reach and curtail their sphere of influence. It required the later models - black with gold spots - before the Dalek could move freely. In this they reveal something of a human quality, in that they always opt for the best idea last.
As regards the legs on the "Shyin' Horse, The KM had experimented with various types of propulsion and this departure was clearly on the lines of the "Sea-Leg" an early discovery for the mariner. The dry-dock photos of Scharnhorst are clearly a hoax. Three bladed screws have been touched in by the German censor, keen to hide her sea-legs.
The Ancient Marriner himself obviously knew all about this when he cried to the heavens; "Half a leg! - Half a leg!" Obviously rueing the day he put all his faith in wind propulsion. Long John Silver, of Treasure Island fame, always on the lookout for an advantage for the hard pressed pirate, seems to have picked up on these lines, though it seems his early experiments in this field were limited to only partial success. Sterner critics might say it was a singular failure.
Time for my medicine I think.
To keep the thread on track; my discovery of the Bismarck came when at the age of 12, I was about to move away from the hideous Croydon for the south coast close to Brighton. We had visited the area near Shoreham and on seeing the ships plying in an out of the little harbour, my imagination was struck and fixed on the sea. I had always been fascinated by battleships because of their low freeboard, wide beam and towering superstructure - a bit like Queen Victoria which seemed to be the fashion of the day when most were designed.
I saw the Four Square paperback "Sink The Bismarck" in the local bookshop and asked for an advance on my pocket money to buy a copy. My mother - the one who suggested that 'Mein Kamf' would be good reading on the train when passing through Germany - (see the Some Mothers! thread) said not to buy anything extra to pack!!! At book! I ask you! It took five months of waiting to move and on the first day of freedon after we had moved, I went on the hunt. I cycled five miles around the unfamiliar towns and villages and just as it was getting dark I found a little shop in Portslade and there in the window was the book centre stage, in all it's glory; BIsmarck - her bow lunging forward, Swordfish torpedo planes attacking her and her funnel lit orange by a torpedo strike. It had been so long and I was certain that the book would turn out to be for display only.
I got the book and must have stopped four or five times on the way home to have a look under the occasional streetlamp I read the book all through the night and though wrecked with fatigue next morning, nothing could dampen my spirits. I read it again and wished I could find further reading about this wonderful story.
I have never been the same since. It was a major turning point in my life and Bismarck became a source of fascination for me for the rest of my life. That was in 1959, the year the film "Sink the Bismarck!" Was released. I was desperate to see this film and everyone knew it - I could speak of nothing else. Sadly my behaviour did not meet expectation and I lost my pocketmoney for that month. I pleaded for the money to go and see the film but to no avail, my parents had finally found a way to hurt me - nothing else worked - and now they would have their pound of flesh. I could not believe they would be so small minded as to deny me this important opportunity ad I still find it hard to believe they could make such a mistake of judgement.
This had a very big effect on me and I resolved that I would never place myself between a child and their heartfelt wishes. It has cost me dear at times, but I don't regret a single thing.
I went to the cinema and sat myself on the steps outside near to the back of the building and listened to the sound-track through and open window. I must have been the picture of misery. As it turned out, I probably got more out of the film than it normally offered, but at the time I did not know this, because it is an utterly appalling film.
Now here I was, at my new school and in the short time I had been there I had let everyone know of my interest, to the point that they became sick of the sound of my voice and my favourite subject. To my utter dismay, it turned out that everyone except myself had now seen the film - everyone went to see war films in those days. Even now I prefer the soundtrack to watching the actual film. I cannot see that the ships are the wrong way round and nor can I see that the wrong types of ship are used for certain newsreel footage.
Vic Dale