Budding artist

My 11 year old daughter has always been good at drawing but just lately her 'manga' style drawings have started to become very good for one so young. I have quite a few so I might devote a page to them , for a while at least, so if you like this one look out for a new page of Sophie's art coming soon.

Dog flight

I was at Brooklands yesterday and after the shoot I had a little look around the museum, with a particular personal interest in finding anything to do with a cousin of my grandfather's, the aviation pioneer Harold Barnwell who I knew to have been based at Brooklands as a test pilot for Vickers until he died in a plane crash in 1917. Anyway as luck would have it, in a display cabinet dedicated to F. W. Merriam there was a picture dated 1912 of the first ever dog to fly, the pilot was Merriam and who should be holding the dog, none other than Harold Barnwell. I wonder if it's in the Guinness Book of Records?

The Wellington Monument

I was out on a shoot last week in Aldershot, the first in quite a while due to the adverse weather of recent weeks and found myself at a location overlooked by the most enormous statue of the Duke of Wellington. Apparently it used to adorn the top of the Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner before being replaced after the Duke's death with the current bronze statue of the angel of peace descending on the chariot of war.

The bronze Wellington Statue by Matthew Cotes Wyatt was at 40 tons (40.62 tonne) and 28 feet (8.53 m) high, the largest equestrian figure ever made when it was unveiled in 1846. Many people, Queen Victoria included thought it looked disproportionately large on top of the arch, but it was left there until after the Duke's death so as not to offend him by replacing it while he was still alive, especially so as it was directly opposite his home, Apsley House (No.1 London).

Round Hill close by the Royal Garrison Church in Aldershot was selected as the new site for the Statue, Aldershot being the home of the British Army, where it was moved to in August 1885.