WE ARE NOW AT www.pmpfilms.com

our daily blog is now with all the other exciting PMP features on http://www.pmpfilms.com/

HAVE YOU VISITED OUR NEW BLOG AND WEBSITE

daily slide shows compliment our blog on
http://www.pmpfilms.com/

see you there shortly
Dave and Mandy

redirecting DAVE AND MANDY's BLOG

see
http://www.pmpfilms.com/

the site with everything , blog, shop, photos, lists etc

www.pmpfilms.com our new website and blog

http://www.pmpfilms.com/
visit for photos, blog, shop and list

moved to www.pmpfilms.com

our blog is now on http://www.pmpfilms.com/

relocated to www.pmpfilms.com

http://www.pmpfilms.com/

our new website and blog with daily sildeshows

moved to www,pmpfilms.com

blog now on our website
http://www.pmpfilms.com/

moved to www.pmpfilms.com

see http://www.pmpvideo.com/

moved to www.pmpfilms.com

due to Google changes on photo uploads which make it impossible to bring you pictures our blog has moved in with our new website
http://www.pmpfilms.com/

Dave Spencer PMP Blog moved to www.pmpfilms.com

http://www.pmpfilms.com/

see website www.pmpfilms.com

photo load broken on Google moved blog to http://www.pmpfilms.com/

BLOG NOW ON WEB SITE www.pmpfilms.com

The PMP Blog / Dave and Mandy at PMP is now a tab on our website, there is also the first album of photos via flckr
http://www.pmpfilms.com/

Back from Showbus Wet Wet Wet

Hi folks, still no photos, I think I'll change out my blog to another site as for second day running the Google Blog server states server error everytime i try to load photos, its getting a real pain.
It was seriously wet at Showbus, freezing , windy and wet filming the entrants coming in, worse still knowing it was fine at Blackpool. We had a 30% drop in takings on last year, it only just managed to beat Herne Bay rally, really isn't tenable at the rates they charge at Showbus now although obviously the weather had a huge impact as did Blackpool being the same day. The crowds just weren't there though and when I'd got home I had to dry off all the boxes and then clean out the car while Mandy was having a bath to try and get her circulation going again. I popped up for a shower and cleared all the weekends orders for DVDs. Nice to see old friends, regular customers etc but it really was a miserable day though, couldn't face many like that again, worst Showerbus for ages.Really wanted to share pictures of Blackpool yesterday, I'll try and suss out a new blog site perhaps through my Weebly website.

OFF TO BLACKPOOL THEN DUXFORD

sorry no photos yet again, the Google site keeps coming up server error when I try to upload. Anyway off to Blackpool shortly for the vintage service , we'll also attend the parade next Wednesday. Then when we get back a quick change of cars and drive down to Cambridge for Duxford Showbus tomorrow, hoping the weather isn't as bad as forecast

Oradour-sur-Glane 10th June 1944

 well just goes to show that my computer at home copes better thn that at work as is so often the case, loaded up some photos from the archive no problem at all. In this case our visit to Limoges in France and a side trip from the charming Gites to Oradour Sur Glane which seems a suitably reflective autumn thought. Notice the overhead and light rail tracks, most of the French interurban system was lost in the war years.

From February 1944, 2nd SS Panzer Division (Das Reich) was stationed in the southern French town of Montauban, north of Toulouse, waiting to be resupplied with new equipment and freshly-trained troops. After the D-Day invasion of Normandy, the division was ordered to make its way across the country to stop the Allied advance.

Early on the morning of 10 June 1944, Sturmbannführer Adolf Diekmann, commanding the first battalion of the 4th Waffen-SS Panzer-Grenadier Regiment, informed Sturmbannführer Otto Weidinger at regimental headquarters that he had been approached by two French civilians who claimed that a Waffen SS officer was being held by the Resistance in Oradour-sur-Vayres, a nearby village. The captured German was alleged to be Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe, commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion, who may have been captured by the Maquis the day before.

Burned cars and buildings still litter the remains of the original village.On 10 June, Diekmann's battalion sealed off the town of Oradour-sur-Glane, having confused it with nearby Oradour-sur-Vayres and ordered all the townspeople – and anyone who happened to be in or near the town – to assemble in the village square, ostensibly, to have their identity papers examined. In addition to the residents of the village, the SS also apprehended six people who did not live there but had the misfortune of riding their bikes through the village when the Germans arrived.

All the women and children were locked in the church while the village was looted. Meanwhile, the men were led to six barns and sheds where machine-gun nests were already in place.

According to the account of a survivor, the soldiers began shooting at them, aiming for their legs so that they would die more slowly. Once the victims were no longer able to move, the soldiers covered their bodies with fuel and set the barns on fire. Only six men escaped; one of them was later seen walking down a road heading to the cemetery and was shot dead. In all, 190 men perished.

The soldiers proceeded to the church and placed an incendiary device there. After it was ignited, women and children tried to flee through the doors and windows of the church, but they were met with machine-gun fire. A total of 247 women and 205 children died in the carnage. Only two women and one child survived; one was 47-year-old Marguerite Rouffanche. She slid out a rear sacristy window, followed by a young woman and child [1]; the Germans' attention was aroused and the three were shot. Marguerite Rouffanche was wounded and her companions were killed. She crawled to some pea bushes behind the church, where she remained hidden overnight until she was rescued the following morning. Another group of about twenty villagers had fled Oradour-sur-Glane as soon as the soldiers had appeared. That night, the village was partially razed.

A few days later, survivors were allowed to bury the dead. No less than 642 inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane had been murdered in a matter of hours. Adolf Diekmann claimed that the episode was a just retaliation for partisan activity in nearby Tulle and the kidnapping of Helmut Kämpfe.

GOOGLE SCREW BLOGS UP AGAIN

sorry can't upload photos today as Google have had another brainstorm to ruin our routine, can't get a blessed thing on now, hoping they scrap it straight away. Anyway I got caught in a multi car pile up soon after leaving work last night, 40 cars involved in bad weather on the M56 near Stanlow.I was in the midst of cars spinning around me but thankfully emerged body and car unscathed. We went down the Three Greyhounds for our usual Thursday night drink , the place was dead, I really don't think it has a future. The temporary manager has yet to speak to us, we have only glimpsed him once. I've started editing the Italian material and all covers for DVDs are ready. Hope to see many of you at Showbus on Sunday, I'm packing the car ready tonight as well as hopefully mowing lawns!

IMAGES OF PADUA TRANSLOHR LAST WEEK

today's assortment of images in Italy were taken in the lovely town of Padua where the Translohr system runs on reserve power through the most sensitive parts of the city with pantographs down. Not everyones cup of tea, neither beast nor fowl as we say in English, I suppose its more a tram on the cheap. Not the smoothest of rides but I really recommend this as a location and free of tourists.
Last night we were at the Halle in Manchester for the first night of the new season with Marker elder at the baton as usual, it was a night also for children to come along who are taking part in workshops with the orchestra ( three schools from Rochdale) A top evening with a mix of Smetana, Brahms and Dvorak. The weather for Showbus on Sunday looks slightly damp which is a blow as originally it was forecast to be dry, Blackpool on Saturday for vintage car running still looks mix of sun and cloud.

NEW DVD TITLES NO

I was so busy at work today that i had no time for more Italian photos but here are some of the DVD covers that I managed to get done last night. A couple of new areas for advertising brings us into mainstream trucking with a 1/4 page in Trucking and again in Truck Model World, lets see if this gives the truck DVD sales an even bigger boost this Christmas while I'm away seeking some of the oldest working trucks left in the world in Myanmar ( Burma). Off to the halle tonight so its a quick tea and out, catch up with you all tomorrow. Gt success on Sue's family tree thanks to a kind gent, features Beech family from Biddulph, Staffs.

MORE ITALIAN ESCAPADES ON THE BUSES

two liveries and three types of vehicle and three routes, that's Bologna trolleybuses as far as I found them last week. The two circular routes like Milan are interescted by cross town route 13 which is quite lengthy and pretty frequent, even at weekends. Bologna repays some exploratiion, photography can be a bit of a pig with shadows on the narrower parts of ther old town on the 13 but you can usually get your spot if you await the movement of the sun through the day. The banana split Mandy is eating and looking into the sun hence the slight frown is worth a mint, that and two coffees came out at £20. I got a couple of shirts in a sale and Mandy some new shoes.  It was an easy placwe to get around once you'd got your bearings, all day tickets, timed tickets, machines on board all put it above simlar places in Italy.

PHOTOS FROM OUR ITALIAN TRIP

my first selection from our Italian transport trip starts as we did in Milan featuring the old Peter witt cars which have been the source of much trouble recently between public, management and unions over supposed dangerous speeds. The weather was pretty good at this juncture, we have over 2 hours of film from Milan. its been hectic back at work and I need to lose some weght, great food in Italy, Bologna in particular, posting hotel reviews on Trip Adviser as normal. Heard from Li in China, he is back at work after the holidays, also from John in Guaungzhou who has had a family full moon ceremony for his new daughter.