Radio station staff's build up for a carnival
A magical mechanical marvel which took its place in the Oswestry carnival procession of yesteryear – a photo of which we featured the other day – was the handiwork of staff at Criggion radio station, a former worker there, Barry Jones, tells us.
And Barry's memory fits in with what we know about the picture, which came from John Powell of Oswestry. John told us it was one of a number of prints in a box of photographs which he thought came from Colin Powell, an engineer at the radio station.
John said he helped clear his darkroom after his death.
With an appearance vaguely like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, one theory was that it dated from around the time of that movie, but Barry, from Oswestry, thinks it was from the early 1950s. He has also emailed us a couple of photos he took of its 1955 successor, dubbed King Oswald.
"I worked at Criggion radio station for many years," said Barry.
He was pretty sure that the picture we carried showed a carnival entrant that radio station workers used to build using the chassis of an Austin 7 car as the base. He did not recognise anybody on it, although he said the stove-pipe hats made it difficult to see them.
"You said it was possibly in 1968. It must actually be prior to 1955 because I have a couple of photographs I took myself of a later model.
"I did my National Service from 1953 to 1955, and in that time they must have built the one you featured. I don't recognise it, but I do know they were built on an Austin 7 chassis which had been donated by the late Johnnie Bullock."
During his time stationed in Germany Barry had bought a German camera and became interested in photography. He used his camera to take a picture of King Oswald at Oswestry carnival in 1955, in one of which Colin Powell, who was known as Sandy Powell, features.
"One of my pictures shows King Oswald in procession in Church Street, Oswestry, in 1955. The late Colin Powell faces the camera and the late Tim Trotter is facing the other way.
"The other photo of King Oswald was taken at the radio station, Criggion, if my memory serves me correctly a few days before the carnival at Oswestry in 1955.
"Aboard is the late Ron Davies, and in front of him is the late Jack Goodworth. To his left with the bowler hat is Scot Wills who still survives – because I didn’t really hit him with the sledgehammer which I hold, and I am also wearing a bowler hat."
