Caving Audio Archives

[langcliffe]

Three new interviews with Bert Bradshaw have been added to the Audio Archives. Gilbert Bradshaw started caving with the BSA during the war, but when the BSA splintered in the late 1940s he became a founder member of the Northern Pennine Club.

Bert is now in his 80s, but he has some great memories of caving in those early year, and gives a valuable insight into how Eli Simpson's old-school manner was found not to go down too well with those returning from the war.

http://caving-library.org.uk/audio/listbyinterviewee.php?interviewee=Bert%20Bradshaw

 

[IanWalker]

fantastic!

 

[langcliffe]

fantastic!

Nice to know that someone appreciates them! These interviews were primarily recorded for a film that Sid is putting together about Eli Simpson.

 

[skippy]

I think I've listened to them all.....fantastic accounts.
The telling of the stream passage pot incident really has my toes curling.

And the best thing is I can listen to them and my manager thinks I'm working

 

[damian]

Nice to know that someone appreciates them!

I'm pretty sure there are quite a lot of people who consider the Audio Archives to be superb. Thanks to you, Sid and anyone else involved in them.

 

[IanWalker]

Nice to know that someone appreciates them!

i cannot believe you think otherwise. they are interesting, informative, funny, personal, poignant, a great direct record that would otherwise soon be lost, and best of all they are freely available to all! thank you for all the work you are putting into this project, it's great benefit to speleology in this country can only grow over time.

 

[Paulaner]

Very much appreciated ,inspiring stuff .

 

[langcliffe]

I have taken the plunge, and updated the Audio Archives technology to use the HTML5 <audio> facility to play back recordings. If the browser doesn't support the HTML5 audio facility for MP3 files, such as Firefox and Opera, Flash will continue to be used.

I haven't been able to test the implementation on any of these new-fangled computers (i.e. those without a CRT screen that you can carry around in your back pocket), so if anyone encounters any problems, would they let me know, please?

 

[langcliffe]

Sid Perou has 'created' an additional interview with Bob Leakey which has now available on the BCRA Audio Archive, in which Bob talks about his Mossdale explorations in the early 1940s. The reason for the word created, is that the whole of the interview lasted about two rambling hours, and Sid has managed to extract the snippets relevant to Mossdale.

http://caving-library.org.uk/audio/selected.php?id=207

 

[dunc]

Interesting listening.

Re: the note about "new fangled computers" - I used an Android phone and the play/time bar showed up as a black box (with JW Player at the top and a play icon in the middle) - I clicked, it said playing video, I got a black screen with the audio playing fine, so no problems for me via that route.

 

[langcliffe]

Re: the note about "new fangled computers" - I used an Android phone and the play/time bar showed up as a black box (with JW Player at the top and a play icon in the middle) - I clicked, it said playing video, I got a black screen with the audio playing fine, so no problems for me via that route.

Thanks, Dunc - I must be clever than I thought!

 

[langcliffe]

Has anyone any photographs of Jochen Hasenmayer I may use for the Audio Archives, please?

 

[rhychydwr1]

There is a picture here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jochen_Hasenmayer

and probably a picture here:

FASZINATION BLAUTOPF Vorstoss in unbekantne H?hlenwelten by Arbeitsgemindschaft Blautopf (HG)  2009  136 pp, 75 colour plates, mainly whole page.  The Blautopf is a Vaclusian Spring in Southern Germany.  It is every cavers? dream.  Cave diver eventually found dry passage at the end of the sump.  Then even better, dug into cave.  Exploration continues.  HB DW in German. 

Problen is, I sold my copy years ago.  You could try BCA Library.

 

[langcliffe]

There is a picture here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jochen_Hasenmayer

Thanks - I had that one earmarked as a last resort seeing that it is in the public domain. I was hoping for one in his diving gear, though, rather than in his wheelchair.

and probably a picture here:

FASZINATION BLAUTOPF Vorstoss in unbekantne H?hlenwelten by Arbeitsgemindschaft Blautopf (HG)  2009  136 pp, 75 colour plates, mainly whole page.  The Blautopf is a Vaclusian Spring in Southern Germany.  It is every cavers? dream.  Cave diver eventually found dry passage at the end of the sump.  Then even better, dug into cave.  Exploration continues.  HB DW in German. 

Problen is, I sold my copy years ago.  You could try BCA Library.

Again, thanks - but one has to be sensitive to copyright issues.

 

[JasonC]

I can't believe I haven't come across this superb site before, but now I have, thanks to all who put it together!

Just one thing - does anyone know what I need to do to make it work in Chrome?  Works fine in Firefox, but I tend to use Chrome, so would be nice to have it from there...

 

[langcliffe]

Just one thing - does anyone know what I need to do to make it work in Chrome?

Interesting - it has always worked fine in Chrome for me (I use Windows on a desktop).

By default, it uses the HTML 5 audio markup to play back the recording, but it reverts to Flash if the facility isn't supported by the browser. It does, however, require JavaScript to be enabled. If it isn't the following message will be displayed: "Sorry, the embedded MP3 player is unavailable as either JavaScript is disabled or the Flash plugin is not installed. Click here to download the recording."

What device and operating system are you using?

 

[ianball11]

On chrome at work it doesn't work, at home it does if that's of any help.

 

[JasonC]

Looks like I must have been unlucky - the first interview I chose was this one: http://caving-library.org.uk/audio/selected.php?id=186 which doesn't seem to respond in Chrome, but having picked several others, they all spring into life no problem  :-\

For the record, I'm using Windows XP on a bog-standard PC, but I seem to be sorted now, so no worries.

 

[dudley bug]

Same as Jason C here. http://caving-library.org.uk/audio/selected.php?id=186 does not play using Chrome on a Mac.

All the others I have clicked on appear to work.

 

[langcliffe]

Looks like I must have been unlucky - the first interview I chose was this one: http://caving-library.org.uk/audio/selected.php?id=186 which doesn't seem to respond in Chrome, but having picked several others, they all spring into life no problem  :-\

Thank you - that was useful information.

I have played back that specific recording with Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, Firefox, and Chrome and it only fails on the latter. When I force Chrome to play the MP3 file using Flash it also plays the recording without any problems, so it looks as if there is something in the Chrome implementation of the HTML 5 Audio markup that doesn't like something about this particular MP3 file.

It seems to me as if the problem is actually within Chrome rather than with the implementation or with the file, and as such is outside my control.