"My hat that has three corners"

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I’ve never been one for all this ‘celebrity’ lark.

I’ve never fainted over Abba or the Beatles.

I've never craved the autographs of these blokes who ‘hoof’ footballs into nets.

But I do have my favourites....

…… and one such - is no other than Fred Dibnah.

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Now, folks from around these parts will have heard of him,

a steeplejack from up t’ north from around Bolton.

But here’s a short clip about Fred, for those further a’field.

Not only did I enjoy the programs, but I loved that introductory music.

(There is a snippet at the start of the above video.)

What was it?

Where did it come from?

I did a bit of chasing around and I have uncovered a whole ‘can of worms’.

It is so complicated, that I really don’t know where to start,

or why to even start at all, when all I really wanted was the sheet music,

to see if I could arrange it for the organ.

It appears to originate from :-

“The variations on The Carnival of Venice”.

Paganini was the first to introduce the piece to England — nay, to the whole world, one may say. The great violinist first heard the melody when he visited the Queen of the Adriatic in 1816. No one seems to know who composed it, though many a musician has added to it, and varied it, and embroidered it from time to time.

Here’s a delightful arrangement for flute and harp.

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P.A. Genin: Carnival of Venice for Flute & Harp

Karin Leitner - Flute

Duccio Lombardi - Harp

The Paganini Variations date from 1829 and were dedicated to the Austrian violinist Karl Fradl, who almost certainly never actually played them. They were issued posthumously in 1851 in the version for violin and piano. Paganini himself originally supervised the orchestration of only twelve of the variations, whereas the complete collection actually reached twenty.

Here is another version with some absolutely brilliant playing .

This has been arranged for Wind Ensemble by Denis Bouriakov

(partly based on Hikaru Watanabe's arrangement for flute ensemble).

The theme in question was actually a counter-dance made popular in France by a musician of Italian origins, a certain Cifolelli. The highly catchy tune soon became popular in Germany as a children’s song, where it was known under the title "Mein Hut hat drei Ecken" ("My Three-Cornered Hat"), eventually being played on barrel organs.

My hat that has three corners.

Three corners has my hat.

And had it not three corners,

It wouldn't be my hat.

And lastly, after several days work,

I have managed to arrange it for 26 notes!

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All I have to do now is to punch all those thousands of holes!

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By hand!

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Last Saturdays Steam Rally.

Shabbington is a pretty village situated on the rounded hill above the River Thame, which divides the two counties, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. A hundred years ago it was an outlying part of the Waterperry estate, but now consists of about eight separate farms.

In the 1920's, most of the men of the village would have worked on the land and with money being scarce, the women of the village thought nothing of walking the 3 1/2 miles into Thame to find work.

I visit Shabbington every year in August for the Steam rally.

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This year the skies looked very grey but the rain kept off for most of the day.

Now I have some good news and some bad news!

The good news is, that I have found out how to re-size my photos.

They are no longer over 1 Mb each, but just a mere 250Kb.

The bad news is, that I can post up loads more!

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Two real old characters,

haggling over the price of an equally old lawn mower.

Actually I was surprised to notice that us older generation out numbered the children by about 10 to 1. Perhaps real steam doesn't appeal to the younger generation as it did in my younger days.

Plenty of 'Off-the-Road' vehicles!

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Notice how they 'drive on the left'.

Instead of Sheep Dog Trials, I watched a Duck Dog demonstration!

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I actually felt sorry for the ducks.

They gave two demonstrations, one in the morning and another at about 3 o'clock.

They only had short legs and had to run up and around this field

for about twenty minutes at a time.

I bet they would have loved to cool off in here.

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A beautiful model, amazing detail. Even a dog on board.

My friend John putting a dirty coal covered hand on Cecil's lovely white roof!

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Lots of traction engines both small (1/3 full size as here) and full size.......

And of course vintage cars, old tractors and..........

the ubiquitous 'phut-phut' engines, or as Jan calls them, 'chuggers'.

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One field was half full of these stationary engines.

I have never really understood what the attraction is,

but they have quite a large and enthusiastic following.

Here's the most unusual use for one of the many driving water pumps!

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The engine on the right was driving the pump in the centre,

which provided water for a very cold shower.

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