A master of railway art
QUESTION Does anyone have information on the artist Don Breckon? I have a large 1975 print, entitled Sunday Working, of a steam train and men working on the railway. Don Breckon is one of my favourite artists, and I have several of his evocative paintings of railways. The artist was born in 1935 in northamptonshire and became married with three children.
His interest in trains started at an early age with a fondness for trainspotting. As the age of steam declined, his passion for the history of railways increased and, on a visit to the clapham Museum of Transport, he saw the work of Terence cuneo, famous for his railway paintings.
Don trained at the Bath Academy of Art and went on to teach art at schools in Bedford and reading. His painting at this time ranged from cityscapes to abstracts and experimental work, and he contributed to local galleries and open exhibitions.
His work became more related to railway themes and was included in two travelling exhibitions of the Industrial Artists Group. With different influences nudging him towards a change of direction, Don began the final steps away from teaching to make a living as an artist.
In 1969, he reduced his teaching to parttime in order to develop his painting.
He sold the family home in reading and, after travelling around for a while, settled in cornwall. After painting a range of subjects, he decided to concentrate on railways. To his pleasant surprise, his artwork began to sell well. His work became entirely involved with the railway scene, appearing on TV and in several books.
Don died in october 2013, at the age of 77, after a long illness.
The painting referred to by your reader shows Great Western railway Grange class no 6861 crynant Grange passing a permanent way gang in the Thirties or Forties. My favourite Breckon painting is racing The Train, a rural scene with two young boys racing a local passenger train hauled by Great Western railway 2-6-2T 4500 class no 4570.
Scenes such as this sealed my interest in the GWr and railways in general. David Clifford, author of The Finest Work In England, The Construction Of The Great Western Railway, Crewkerne, Somerset. WHen Sir Stanley retired from League football in 1965, his weekly wage during his last season at Stoke city was just £25 a week (around £444 in today’s money).
Initially, he had signed a two-year contract for £50 a week.
His biography, published in 1989, stated that Stoke manager Tony Waddington — ten years Stan’s junior — had then reduced his weekly wage by half.
Matthews was later general/honorary manager of Port Vale (1965-68), unpaid at first. Tony Matthews, author of The A-Z Of Stoke City, Almeria, Spain.
QUESTION How does the U.S. ‘mother of all bombs’ compare with Barnes Wallis’s Grand Slam bomb in World War II?
THe MoAB (‘mother of all bombs’) and Grand Slam bombs are different weapons with different objectives. The MoAB is an air-burst weapon, weighing 21,600 lb with more than 18,000 lb of explosives and made from lightweight aluminium.
Like conventional bombs, it is designed to detonate at or above ground level and is intended to destroy ‘soft’ targets such as people, livestock, vehicles and buildings by incineration and pressure waves.
The Grand Slam was a deep penetration (earthquake) bomb, weighing 22,400lb, heavier than the MoAB, but with only 9,200lb of explosives.
The remaining weight is down to the 40mm-thick steel case built to withstand the forces required to penetrate 60 ft or more underground. The prime targets in World War II were underground storage and manufacturing facilities producing V1 and V2 rockets.
Barnes Wallis calculated that a bomb exploding deep underground would effectively be like an earthquake. Many underground facilities were destroyed or abandoned after a Grand Slam strike. It was used against hard ( concrete) targets, too, such as submarine pens, tunnels, bridges and viaducts.
Wallis instructed pilots and bomb aimers to just miss the targets. The bombs would then penetrate beneath the target and the subsequent explosion would blast a cavern below, into which the target would collapse.
one such target was the Bielefeld viaduct: some 3,000 tons of conventional bombs had rained down on it with little result. one Grand Slam brought down several spans of the viaduct.
G. Watkins, Chipping Norton, Oxon.
QUESTION Who invented the flamethrower used in World War II? Was it effective? Is it still used by any military forces?
FurTHer to the earlier answer, during World War II my uncle John Philip Apps was fighting the Germans in Italy.
After fierce battles, with all officers killed and no rank higher than private left, the remains of the British force had no ammunition left, either.
The Germans sent in tanks using flamethrowers to finish off the few soldiers left. My uncle, along with a handful of others, ran for the woods. While dodging between trees, my uncle’s friend was engulfed in flame and killed. uncle John was saved, as there was a large tree shielding him from the flamethrower.
When the remaining few got back to British lines, they were interrogated and told they could face a court martial for desertion: they could have stayed and fought, as they still had bayonets, even if there was no ammunition for their guns.
My father and his brother’s views on flamethrowers could not be printed.
Barry Apps, South Petherton, Somerset.
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