Letters Page: 9th May 2024
Over the last few weeks, we have published a couple articles. One on a May Day celebration and one on steam engines. We’ve had an excellent response from our readership.
Emily commented on the article on Yorkshire Puddings from the previous week. Her and her toddler had never had them before and she was amazed at how good they were. Welcome to the fan club!
Your Yorkshire Pudding piece inspired my toddler and I to try our hand at it! I’m gluten and dairy free, so we substituted coconut milk and oil for milk/butter. Delicious and toddler approved! We made it for St. George’s Day and then again later in the week per my toddler’s request. It’s such a fun recipe to make together. He likes them with cinnamon apples, plain yogurt and honey, or a dab of chocolate ice cream for toppings. We’ll try them with a more traditional meat sometime soon ;) For now, I’m just so happy to have a bread substitute! Thank you!
We had some lovely comments about Alex’s article on steam engines. J Meakin said,
You say: "Stood up on the footplate of a Steam Roller, towering over the traffic and the hedges, surrounded by dust, fumes, and noise". Noise: I was introduced to a steam traction engine on my grandfather's farm in North Yorkshire. It was on rotation through the farms and was used for threshing. The thing that struck me, used to internal combustion engines, was how QUIET it was. A soft chuff chuff, chuff chuff, chuff chuff, a whirr from the regulator, and a low chuttle from the thresher. Still with me 66 years later.
And our very own A Catholic Pilgrim, a new writer for the Institute of England, said this about Alex’s article,
I was brought up by a steam fanatic; steam railways, steam rallies, engines of all kinds were the subject of our holidays and days out. My father also built model steam engines which he ( and I, on occasion) drove around tracks, pulling passengers. I now live near a steam railway line and the whiff of coal and steam really takes me back in time. Marvellous things.
I agree. The scent of coal and steam is beguiling.
And finally Jesse commented about steam engines with:
The melding of man and machine came and went with steam power. Its successors, internal combustion and electric powered, are seemingly independent of man. The only vestiges of that melding that now exist are in racing. In aviation, railroading, ocean-going, and automobile transportation are now largely automated and require much less operational expertise and heroic attention.
Next week, we will be publishing an article by A Catholic Pilgrim on church crawls. Yes, you read this correctly, not a pub crawl, but a church crawl.
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