Originally Posted by brando
(Post 189944)
Thanks Oleg for a delightful update. Have a good weekend.
A couple of replies to the thread.
Tally ho is indeed a fox-hunting term, and was used by the pilots to indicate visual recognition of enemy aircraft, as in "Tally ho, bandits at ten o'clock low" or whatever. It wasn't, however, an order to attack. That came after recognition, and came from the squadron leader, flight leader or section leader, with detail on what form the attack would take.
A little research will reveal that the make-up of the pre-war RAF contained many officers from the 'hunting, shooting and fishing' set, so it's really not surprising that they used a fox-hunting term.
As for similarities in the buildings, that's just how it was. The great Victorian expansion brought a systematic use of identical houses and roofs, aided by the use of the railway to import the materials. A trainload of slates from the Welsh mountains would mean hundreds or even thousands of similarly-toned roofs, so, if anything, there is still a little too much variation of colour rather than too little. Likewise for a trainload of bricks - all from the same brickworks - this would mean streets and streets of identically coloured houses. Of course there may be the occasional burst of orange, where some kind of tile has been used on a few houses; and one might expect to see cement rendering on the walls of more 'quality' dwellings. Occasional buildings might even still be thatched, though rarely in a town, and Welsh slate was the most common roofing.
These facts tend to dictate the colours and shades I guess. Slate roofs are a glossy dark grey when wet, but dry to a pastel grey when dry. They are sheets of stone after all, unlike tiles which are made of clay.
The average brick is generally matt too, with only 'engineering grade' bricks having a semi-glazed surface. These were most commomly used for tunnel openings, bridgeworks and railway buildings. Even after rain they are generally matt in appearance as towns and cities tended to be.
The one part that is not particularly noticeable, and I have no idea how it may be achieved, is the overall pall of coal smoke that was general at the time. I guess it may be argued that the BoB took place in summer when coal-burning was at its lowest and that's fair. It is still important to remember the effect of 50 to 100 years of coal burning, which left it's mark on every building.
It's probably something that most people born after the mid-Sixties (in England) cannot recall at all. In the time of the war it was a big factor as far as overall colouration is concerned.
Excuse me for rabbiting on. I'm over sixty and I have strong memories of the drabness that decades of coal use brought to the townscapes.
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