This blog is to showcase some of the photo's I've taken, the pictures can be from my archive of many years or taken recently. They are from where I live and the various places I have been. I hope Enjoy my work and come back to visit again
Tesco is a local Supermarket in Didcot and ran a art competition for local Kids from the various schools in the area , the winning painting was placed in the Didcot store for all to see. It has all the local features to the store. In the background you can see the remains of the power station that dominates the town. The Railway which put the town to the map, the nearby housing estate and Tesco itself with the delivery lorry. One thing to note is the steam train, Didcot has a big steam preservation museum which is famous and the intercity train as Didcot is on the line between Bristol & London
A well thought out mural with some of the info on it below.
My Sunday photo was of the Cooling Towers at Didcot Powerstation 3 minuets before they were blown up. The build up started the week before with people from all over the place let alone the locals getting a photo of the cooling towers. If you believed the press you would think the whole lot was coming down but it was only the 3 South towers by the town. The contractors would not put it off till a more reasonable hour so it was taking place between 3 & 5 AM. I went along to see the event with my sons. The Powerstation is over 40 years old & I remember it being built watching the new electric pylons going up now it was going.
Not the last sunset but the last one I took of all the towers a few days before the event, The three on left are going. it was taken just outside our village. You can see the powerstation from most of South Oxfordshire. When it was built it was Berkshire
2:40 am in the morning & lit up like Christmas
3 minutes to go
Bang and off they go, I nearly missed it and hit the remote button to set the camera off when some one said there they go. I've enhanced the photos a bit to show more detail, the orange glow is the explosions
The first tower is well on the way down and the second following with the third starting it's decent
The first is nearly down with dust coming off
This is what I saw as far as light is concerned but you can see the first has fallen and the second nearly down
The last moments of the third cooling tower as it brakes up, I might add the sound of the explosions came just after this
That's it all they are all gone and we went home
About 12 hours later from the same spot.
If you type in to YouTube Didcot Powerstation Demolition you can see videos of the even but here are a couple I like. The first was taken not far from the powerstation and the second about half a mile from where I was stood so is the same as what I was looking at.
I posted some sunsets on my Wordless Wednesday of these towers, the reason is because they only have days before they are blown up and gone form the skyline.
The sun sets one more time on Didcot Powerstion now with only two more to go
I took these photos a few years ago when I was going to Bolton to pick my son up from Uni. I stopped off at the Orchard Center in Didcot to get some photos of the Christmas Lights. They were taken early in the morning before dawn.
This is my 200th daily photo and I thought I'd show something different. It was taken around 7am one December morning near Christmas a few years ago. The place is the Orchard Center in Didcot which is built where an industrial estate used to be.
Didcot Power Station which opened in 1970 finally closed, the switch was thrown and the place shut down at 14:00 hours on Friday the 22nd February after 43 years.
The place will be demolished over the next few years and a skyline will change.
I remember them building the place back during 1960's I remember the huge pylons being built near my village and then heading off in the direction of Reading. around 1971 I had tour round the place and at one stage I even went for a job there but never got past the first interview. During the 1970s the place was besieged by Miners during the coal strike but was still supplied by a constant stream of lorries I remember going along the A34 This photo was taken from Great Western Park which is a new housing estate nearby.
