Enlighten the ignorant

[sprog]

Kind regards from warm but a bit miserable Abingdon in Oxfordshire

I know I've been overseas for a long time, so when did Abingdon move from Berkshire to Oxfordshire. Pickfords must have made a bomb.

[RJW NZ]

If you take a close look at the mechanism that attaches this over the rifles bayonet lug, isn't it more than slightly like that muzzle brake that Numrich and Pacific leather used to sell a few years back. In fact its exactly what the muzzle brake uses/d and that front tube of the launcher looks suspiciously like it might be convertible into such a useable piece of kit by some handy inventor.

[Peter Laidler]

Ah,. yes! I did my parachute training at Abingdon too. The l.ast course to use |Beverleys but one crashed so we were the first to use the 'new' Hercules. It changed from Abingdon, Berkshire to Abingdon Oxfordshire in the late 70's I believe. Apparently it's all to do with..............., well, whatever it is, I don't understand it. My Mum lives in Shrivenham, Berkshire that is now Wiltshire. She doesn't understand it either so as rar as she's concerned, it's still Berkshire!

Anyway, greeting today from dark and overcast Warminster that's still in Wiltshire

[Mk VII]

That'll be the infamous Heath-Walker local government reforms of 1973, which abolished many counties, moved the boundaries of others, and created several new ones.

[John Sukey (Deceased)]

Makes me wonder if Heath Walker is any relation to Heath Robinson.

[harry mac]

I was too young at the time to know what all the fuss was about, but I remember my mam and dad were mightilly ****ed off when Yorkshire lost it's ridings, West Riding, North Riding and East Riding and became West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. What was the old East Riding became North Humberside. After 30 odd years we've now got back what was the East Riding, but it's now called East Yorkshire.
A riding is an old term for anything divided in to 3 not necessarily equal parts.

[Jim K]

No, RJWT32 is right, and I am sure the seller intended to write accouterment (or accoutrement), meaning an accessory. In arms collecting, it means a device that accompanies a weapon but is not part of it, excepting ammunition. Cartridge belts, bayonets, slings, cleaning rods, etc. fall into that category, but items like helmets and uniforms do not as they are not accessories to a weapon.

Jim

[Jim K]

Correct me if I am wrong, but in my Yankee understanding, I thought a "riding" was an area that could be covered by what Americans would call a circuit court, in other words, the area that a judge and his staff could conveniently cover ("ride around") by coach or horseback. Not many counties were as large or as rugged as Yorkshire, which is why it was divided.

Jim

[harry mac]

Correct me if I am wrong, but in my Yankee understanding, I thought a "riding" was an area that could be covered by what Americans would call a circuit court, in other words, the area that a judge and his staff could conveniently cover ("ride around") by coach or horseback. Not many counties were as large or as rugged as Yorkshire, which is why it was divided.

Jim

Some one once told me that a riding was so called because it was the distance one could ride on a horse in one day. I was told the proper meaning by an English teacher. That's why the ridings are all different sizes.

[harry mac]

The word riding comes from the old Norse word thridjungr, which over the years has been corrupted to riding via thriding and triding, it means "a third part".
And just to keep it on topic, the town of Maltby was in the West riding and is famous on this board for being the site of ROFM, which made No4 rfles.