Dick Turpin and other highwaymen

[wolfinthewood]

I shall be on UK terrestrial television next week in a documentary called Revealed: the Real Dick Turpin, which is scheduled to be broadcast on Channel 5 at 8pm on Tuesday 4th September.

The programme blurb describes it as an “investigative documentary which reveals the harsh truth about a legendary highwayman who has become a byword for traditional English values. For 150 years, Dick Turpin has been known as a handsome, dashing robber who galloped his famous steed Black Bess from London to York in record time. This programme explores how the myth was created, how the Turpin brand has been used to sell everything from pottery to pubs and how the truth of his exploits is rooted in a more brutal reality.”

Sounds pretty good to me. I am looking forward to seeing it. I want to know what the other people they consulted had to say!

Meanwhile, I have finally completed a task that has been looming over me for a while: updating my Outlaws and Highwaymen website, which has now been online for almost six years. Back in 2001, I taught myself html, since I couldn’t afford a web designer, and learned the arcane arts of complex table-based layouts and invisible spacer images, &c. The result was a site that was a pig to update or extend, and that had begun to look increasingly old-fashioned. The redesign has kept what I think was acceptable in the look-and-feel of the original site, and there hasn’t been much change to the text, but the images have all been completely rescanned. And thanks to the facilities of css, it is going to be easier in future to add more documents (which I would like to do) and modify the overall appearance of the site.

As part of the overhaul I have added a number of additional
highwaymen images, of which these are a sample. Click on the thumbnails to see larger versions.

Comments

[samoth.livejournal.com]

Redesign looking excellent. Couple of minor points :

1) The cover image of the book seems to have gone missing
2) Personally I'd align the outside div to the center rather than the left of the page - looks most peculiar on widescreens I think - can do you a screenshot to show you what I mean.

Congratulations on getting it done though, I know what hard work it is!

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this. Both problems fixed. At least, I think you meant I should centre the text box on the screen? Fixed at a stroke - I do like style sheets!

[april-art.livejournal.com]

The Turpin show sounds fun. I wonder if it'll ever be shown this side of the pond?

I was always more of a Du Vall fan, though! ^__^

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

The programme may well get shown overseas, I should think - sadly, I am unlikely to to be told when or where.

I agree that Du Vall is a much more attractive and appealing figure. All the dash and style that legend attributes to Turpin is borrowed from the legends of robbers like Du Vall, and the story of the real Turpin is very sordid.

Did you know Du Vall has his own website (http://www.du-vall.net/), put together by a couple of his modern admirers?

My own favourite, insofar as I have one, is James Hind (http://www.outlawsandhighwaymen.com/relation.htm), who in his own way was a man with some principles.

[artnouveauho.livejournal.com]

Argh-- I'll be in France on the 4th! Maybe C5 will re-run it?

Hmmm. I'll try and get someone to tape it...