Problems removing a faulty storage Hard Drive that Windows has made a boot disk

This post has been edited from a post where I couldn't post any charts one week, to one that people still using Windows 7 might find useful.  

F Drive Error
I was working on a 3D printing program, when it suggested I should update the version to get better printing result. So I did, but things started to go wrong with the application. I should explain first of all that I have several hard drives on my computer, two of which are set aside for the operating system and programs. Drive C being the one that has Window 7 on it. The other was set aside for programs called F drive. Basically the idea of having two drives, being that if the main OS drive fails for whatever reason, it can be simply reinstalled on a new replacement drive. Leaving some programs, which are from other software companies on the separate drive. Especially as many of them these days are download off the net and have no CD or DVD rom disc to reinstall them on. 
All my other drives except drive C has an external back up disc. Drives E and G being storage for files. Now F drive has the DTP software application on it and also the Word Processing software I needed to do the charts. So if anything goes wrong with that then although none of the work or files is lost, which are on E. I just can't access them! 
Drive F had been acting up funny for a week or two before. Perhaps because the video editing software I sometimes use (the earlier versions Magix 2005 etc) tend to crash vary easily. Making errors on the F drive. A couple of times prior a check disc operation would start as soon as a booted up my computer at the start of each day - checking F drive due to errors! 
Back to the new software download and I ran it to put on drive F. The software detected the old version and removed it. Then started to install the new. Until it failed. So I had to close it. Trying again to install it there, this time drive F had vanished! When it does that you have to often restart the computer and so I did. Disc Check on F started again. It started to talk about "bad sectors" on the drive. But I couldn't get the software to install on drive F. Bad sectors can be caused by physical problems on the disc itself. Which because of things like dust or scratches on the disc are not fixable. However most are caused by file errors and the like which are fixable. 
Wipe The Drive
Now has I have a back up disc of the files, which due to the nature of the program files disc doesn't need a weekly or even a monthly back up. So all the files on the back up date to 2017 and 2018! When they were working all fine! I thought I would wipe the F drive, then restore the files with the back up drive. Easy you would think!!
So I reformatted Drive F and then ran the Disc Check to see if it was OK. When it was done it showed no bad sectors, which meant there were no faults on the disc which would mean it couldn't safely be used to store stuff on. 
So I set the restore software going. And it failed. Drive F would vanish from time to time and re-attempts produced file errors as it copied the files. Later on I found that if you go into "Device Manager" and select the drive you need and then hit refresh, when the software can't find the drive that is restoring the files, the drive will pop back on. And you can hit the retry key. Nevertheless some files would just not load, even if the drive F was on and when that happened it would stop. 
Naughty Windows 
After I looked at Drive F, I could see the file folders, but eventually worked out that's all they were! No actual system or program files in them.  So I checked the files on the external drive. It had stored all the files in about 150 zipped folders. Opening one of these (number one actually) showed that all the files were there and the program files too. So there was nothing wrong with the back up. 
So I decided on a new course of action. Replace Drive F with a new SSD drive. 
So I ordered a new drive that would come the following day.  See photo at the end! So I decided to remove the F drive. Which wasn't as simple as it sounds! For starters both F and C drives were Western Digital 500 GB. Which looked the same on the outside. But each has a different serial number.  But these don't show up in Device Manager. Instead drive F shows up as: WD500AAKX-D8ERMA0. And it also doesn't tell the letter of the drive, till you go into one of the sections of the properties and click "populate".  Fortunately my computer has a drive status program on it, which does tell you the serial numbers. Though again doesn't say the drive letter. But it also gives the device code number as above. So that's how I could tell the difference! To be on the safe side I put sticky labels on all of them! The photo shows the Front end of the drives with labels. 

So I powered down, took the sides off the computer and removed drive F.  Powered back up, to reveal a boot failure! At first I thought I had took drive C out, but no I had not. Putting Drive F back. I tried a different approach. I would remove F from computer by using the delete hardware option. It did that and requested a restart. So I did. And then Windows after loading back, reinstalled the drivers for F and reinstalled it!! 

Mass of connections to the hard drives. The coloured wires are for power and the black and light blue are data connections. 
The next step I did was to remove the drive from the system as above, then power down, rather than restart and then remove the drive (physically) after it shut down. Powered up again - BOOT FAILURE! 
Put the drive back in and restored operation, but the system reinstalled drive F again.  I then looked at the Device Manager again and this time noticed that under this drive where two sections: Drive F and something called "System Reserved". Which turned out to be only 100MB in size. 
So of course I had to look up what the System Reserved was and found out it was part of the boot system to windows. Which explained why when I removed drive F completely Windows wouldn't start! 
Normally it is hidden and is not assigned a letter. But you can assign it a letter and it then shows up in Windows Explorer. For most people it will be on the same one as the operating system. But naughty windows has put it on my drive F.   It sometimes also puts on on another drive if you have a dual boot system. But you can't remove it. 
Crash Test Dummy
Though you can move it. Or so I thought!!  I found how to do this in a well laid out online guide.
system-reserved-partition
You start by running Disk Management in Windows. This shows all the drives up in a block diagram. The drives are colour coded to show "Primary Partition" which is blue. And "unallocated space". 

Which is black. It's the unallocated bit you want. If there is sufficient space to stick the 100MB in that section of space. Then you can create a new simple volume in it. Windows will tell the space available. But if there is more than the reserved than you need than, you can just make it the same size as your S R. The rest will be left as unallocated.  In my case I needed there to be space like this on drive C. And of course it was all blue! There is sufficient space on the drive C to get loads of stuff on. But not one bit is unallocated! It does say you can shrink the Volume to produce the the stuff. But though the option is there. Mine doesn't allow it. 
The guide gives another option of a free software (well a 30 day trial version) to clone the bit. However this too requires you to have unallocated space. Otherwise cloning could interfere with the operating system, since you could be putting the boot into the working part of the OS. 
Getting nowhere with that I thought I would have a go at the option to boot directly from drive C using the Gigabyte motherboard, which comes up when you start the computer. 

The above photo shows the drives and the connection. The one at the top is Drive F. With The label of C showing below it. 
So I removed drive F and started the computer and selected the boot option for Drive C on the boot set up on the motherboard.  It didn't work. So I went back. Put back Drive F and went back to the settings on the motherboard boot up. But for some reason the computer froze on me and I couldn't save and exit properly. So I powered down and then back up again. But this time the fans ran and power was there but there was no signal on the screen at all. 
Old Laptop To The Rescue
 There was no option but to get the old laptop out, which is as slow as hell. And needed lots of updates to get working.  I eventually found a video on YouTube of another Gigabyte board that had failed and he mentions two Bios chips. He got his computer to start by shorting one of the chips. Which he didn't recommend doing. But first he said try removing the battery overnight.  Mine is located in this photo after the word "Ready". The board above it being the video capture board.

Which I did and after a few false starts the screen showed what his did. That the bios chip was corrupt and that it would use the second chip to start and correct the problem. So I got it back. With only the clock saying 2012! 

Above is a picture of the new SSD drive resting on top of the motherboard manual. I did consider a new board, which I thought was only £79. But when I looked at it, it wasn't the same thing.  Not the number in the photo above And my board turned out to be the rarer type and selling currently for around £200! Just put that number into Google and see the prices! 

Problem Solved
I managed to find a clever bit of software which is FREE that creates a new boot system on my drive C. It's called Easy BCD
easybcd

The above link will take you to the Forum and the instructions of how to do it. The first download link there doesn't work, but if you go to page 15 you will see one that takes you to The Major Geeks site that will have the download. It creates the new file on the drive you want. Once done all I had to do was change the Bios on the the motherboard to drive C and it started from drive C. I closed it down removed the faulty drive F and it starts Windows from drive C all the time! I have installed the new SSD drive and kept the name Programs and Drive F.  After installing the software back, using the old system disks, it worked fine. Some of the systems only needed to be repaired to put the links back to drive F. Even though it's a new disc!  I was even able to get the software stored on the back up drive back on the new drive. I just used the selective "folder" option on the restore software. Picking the folders that I didn't have system program disks for. I left off any folders of programs that might cause errors. Especially the Magix earlier Video editors. As Windows stores the thumbnails of the desktop, even when they were working again, the thumbs were not showing right. So I had to clear the Cache, by going to drive clean up in windows and select Thumbnails. In the image below it gives you the option to get rid of Windows Update Cleanup. But be careful with that one as I did tick that box. But afterwards Windows spent several hours installing new updates and it lasted about 8 hours doing that. Since there are no new Windows 7 updates these days, or rarely! It must have reinstalled those which where "cleaned up". So I won't do that again!! 
 



The one thing I have learn't from this is when you are installing your system. Only connect up the operating system disk first and install Windows to that before connecting any other disk drives.    

                        

A Way To Live Special Post - London Needs Cutting Down To Size

London Needs Cutting Down To Size

The simple truth is that if the UK allows it Capital City to keep expanding it will spend a fortune on just moving people around. Money that could be spent elsewhere. And boy is it expanding!! London has currently 8 million people living in it. There are more Londoners than Scottish people (5.3 million) and Welsh people (3.0 million) put together. Having said that London's population hasn't always been on the increase. World War Two saw it fall drastically and it kept falling till 1979. Of course in the year the Conservatives took power and with their empathise on the financial sector started the population rising again. It's currently estimated to 13 million by 2050.

Most of the rest of the UK has no big populations centres that even compares to London. And as the picture shows there populations can fit into London with plenty to spare for others:

So why are all these people there? Well if you look at the statistics of what they do for a living you find a disparage between types of workers, compared with the rest of the country. London workers fall way behind on manufacturing and agricultural jobs. Surprisingly there's less secretarial workers in London. And less manual workers and skilled workers there. But you probably know who are there in greater numbers. Banking and money people 26.2% on 2018 figures. Much higher than the 17% of the rest of the UK. The boss and management are also there in higher numbers too. A lot of professionals and technicians are there too. This is probably not as surprising as it's likely than professional based organisations such as The Royal College of Surgeons or other research bodies have been based here in the past. Indeed many such places and bodies were founded in London. They simply have not needed to locate elsewhere, in fact they have all their needs met by the Local Authorities in London and of course Central Government. However Governments have tried to move certain parts of the structures out of the London area. Some commercial bodies too. But many of these were due to pressure being applied by areas outside London to relinquish control to them, rather than Central Government having the money and power. The most recent being the Scottish and Welsh democracy movements. In general most decentralisation schemes have hit snags and due to the fact that places, that have received these schemes, are operating with the unfair disadvantages that they always have under the present system.

Despite what seems to be lots of new developments in London, construction type jobs are slightly below the level of those in the rest of the country. But only just. London's total workforce stands a 6 million up from 4 million in 2005. Yet the UK's workforce only rose by 4 million in the same period. Which means that London jobs accounted for half the jobs created between 2005 and 2019.

Of course to get them to and from work requires a transport system that simply is not coping with the demand and has required massive investment already.

However in a Transport for London document Transport Supporting Paper 3 it highlights the need for more transport and gives a very strange conclusion
Dense cities and public transport also support more sustainable growth. 

It also further argues:

Some people argue that London’s growth should not be encouraged. Given the pressures, this is understandable but unrealistic. Our city’s growth matters – both for London and the UK as a whole.

Of course the systems already in place make alternatives doom to fail. But if the Way To Live practice was in place, the economy would actual benefit. For example not needing to transport people to places would cut the transport bill vastly. It does away with congestion charges and all the associated costs of making roads. Even if companies decided to move away wanting to use London as base, but were not allowed to. They would find that any city still employing the old system, would have greater costs and they would see ongoing costs laid at their feet as these places have to find ways of dealing with costs such as pollution.

But the document shows what might be required to keep the City of London a world leader.
The overall scale of transport investment set out in this document (around £200 billion)

Much of this however would need to be car based. Since the road system isn't working.

An efficient road network is key to supporting employment and economic vitality more widely across London. 
parts of the A12 catering for more than 100,000 vehicles a day and the North Circular exceeding 120,000. Overall, the road network carries 80 per cent of people’s journeys and 90 per cent of freight. Already each day in London it caters for around 10 million car trips, more than 4 million bus trips

With such problems the report also mentions what a lot of people do too!

more than 6 million walking trips

Meanwhile as traffic will continue to rise the actual income from tax measures will actually fall. 
Duty and VAT on fuel currently raise about £32bn annually

Vehicle Excise Duty which raises £6bn annually, is declining as people buy more fuel efficient, cleaner cars


So, despite a projected growth in traffic nationally, revenue from motoring taxation is set to drop by £13bn a year, or 35 per cent, by 2029 

It's therefore no surprise that London has a massive transit system already in place. Accounting for 12.1% of Jobs and much greater than the rest of the UK. But moving people around is dangerous in many ways. All transport links have been targets for terrorist attacks. Underground fires and crashes have taken place. Railway trains have collided with each other. And we have the latest threat of people spreading diseases just to the close proximity with each other.

The same report acknowledges that overcrowding will get worse.

By the early 2030s we estimate that there will be a 25 per cent increase in the volume of Underground travel in crowded conditions, and a 65 per cent increase by 2050.

Even if the people above don't catch a germ that might wipe many of them out. Most will suffer from the stress of these conditions. Arguing with other commuters and trying to get a seat. Waiting for cancelled services, or getting to work late, which could mean a loss of the job. And the boring nature of this form of travelling. 

Tourism 
 Without doubt lots of people visit London for the historic places. And of course London would still be a place for people to come to see. Nevertheless the places are all in a area that is smaller compared with the whole of London. Since they were all constructed when London was much smaller. They really do not the City to expand in area or in numbers of the population to grow. In-fact they would be better served if most of the traffic vanished. The existing rail links are actually quiet adequate to move around tourist and any person connected with the trade. Monorail links could be incorporated to move people shorter distances. 

Other Trade 
To some extent some shopping streets would not need to be touched. And would benefit from being converted to being more suitable for people rather than the Taxi's and Buses. Do all the theatres need to be in the West End? Many places would benefit from having them in their area. However as long as they don't see the need for an army of people to keep them going and they can be easily incorporated into the Way To Live concept. They could stay where they are. 
But much of the financial sector needs to vanish from the city. Along with other sectors removed from Central London. This will take much of the commuter traffic out of the picture and put an end to many of the suburbs of London.

Central Government
I have discussed this already in Way To Live. With each centre running itself having the Houses of Parliament running the UK would be silly. If the UK requires some elected figurehead then it can still use the Number 10 system for it. But it must be pointed out that the Prime Minster is really just the First Lord of The Treasury. And since the Treasury is just the way the country spends things, all such functions would be down to a more local level, so in a way it would be obsolete. In the end the P.M. Would simply be an elected King or Queen. And we have an un-elected Queen already.       

Lightweight Shelves for Model Paint storage

I was having a problem storing various model paints which come in all sorts and sizes. I have purchased commercially made stands, though they tend to take up lots of room. So I came up with this clever idea.
As my rooms walls are not the strongest things to put things on. I realized that what I needed to build had to be strong, but light of weight. Now I could have made the shelves out of hardboard, or small plywood. But instead I came up with the idea of using Correx Sheet, or as some people call it Sign Board, which is what they make signs from of course. You can get this in various sizes and thickness, but the size I got was only 4mm thick. 
Amazon Correx Board 4mm
It's much easier too cut then the wood materials. There were some big sheets of it on Amazon so I got them. I cut one of them to the size of the backboard that I wanted. I used another to make the sides of the unit. I glued the sides on with a strong adhesive. You can use the Strong As Nails type or any glue that will stick plastics together. For the shelves I used L angle plastic strip, that you can get from hardware stores. I found it cheapest at Screwfix. Depending on how wide you want the shelves depends on how large the bottles and tins you want to store. I found that 30mm angle was enough for my needs.

It comes in long strips so you work out how many you need from the size you have chosen for the base. You then cut the L Angle to the size (width) of the shelf. The distance apart depends on the height of the materials you want to store. For example the height of a Humbrol or Revell tin will only just reach the top of the 30mm strip. Even allowing for space to get a tin out, you could get a lot of strips on your board for that. If you have made a large board for them, you can always add more strip shelves at a later date. Glue each strip to the board with a the same glue. As mine was a large piece of board I allowed two strips for the attachment of the wall mounting screws. Two on each side. Drill the holes to take the screws and then attach the strips to the board. Then drill again (when the glue dries) in the holes, all the way trough the backing Board. You can then mount them to the wall. I put a metal washer at the back to stop the pressure damaging the plastic when the screws are sent home. It goes without saying that you need a sprite level to attach both the L angle and the thing to the wall. A small one comes in handy for fixing L angles. 
To stop tins falling out, I used another L angle strip this time only 10mm wide. If you want more protection you can use wider ones. Simple cut the strip to size of the angle shelf. Then before you glue to the under side of the shelf, measure your widest bottle or tin. I found that the Revell Aqua Color boxes to be quite wide, so I put two of them on each shelf and then glued the strip on. For speed I used Super Glue. But you could clamp it on, till the glue dries. You probably still need to clamp them with the Super Glue method. The edge strip doesn't need to be tight against the other. In fact it can't be if you use the Revell Aqua ones, as they won't fit the shelf!  Other than that that's the job done. So here's what it all looks like:

     
You can see a spare angle for extra shelves on the left of the picture I also put a piece of 10mm angle on the top shelf to form a lip for storing other items on top of the unit.
This close up shows the mounting screw for attachment to the wall. You can see it on the second shelf up on the first photo too. The white cap is one that you can get that fit into the screw heads. 

This image shows how different sized bottles can be stored on the same shelf.

Next photo shows the 10mm edge strip that  helps prevent the tins falling out. 

Lastly this image shows how narrow the shelf is compared to a commercial made paint stand. 

To prove how much space can be saved, the shelf unit is back of the door, which tends to be a bit of a dead zone for putting things. 

There was one item that couldn't be stored on the shelves. Acrylic Paint Pens. Th solution to this was Remote Control Holders. I found these commercially made from clear plastic. 

And if you are always losing pens they can be used to store them too! 

Why Margot Robbie could have stayed as she is now to play the Queen Elizabeth, with just a few years added on!

Margot is now aged 28, but at 54 (her age at Mary's death in 1587) Queen Elizabeth could compete with a girl of 18 for youth and beauty.  But how is she made up like in the new movie about Mary Queen of Scots?  Like this:

Meanwhile Robert Dudley has gone the opposite way to Elizabeth changing from a white man to a black man!
The truth of the matter is that everyone in Elizabethan England saw the Queen looking like that of the modern actress Margot Robbie. While the real Queen Elizabeth saw herself as that which Margot portrays.  
So now you are thinking women can't longer in the 50's. But these headlines from Woman Magazine show that's not true.

  Leeds mum Pamela is actually 52, but has often been mistaken for her 21 year old sons girlfriend… rather awkwardly for him! 

Christie Brinkley (56) has always been a mega babe, with glossy blonde locks, a three-time Sports Illustrated cover-worthy body, and a dazzling megawatt smile.

The original 80s supermodel, Cindy Crawford was the ultimate poster girl for natural beauty with her super shiny locks, naturally white teeth and glowing skin. 20 years later, she ‘s barely aged a day!

Then of course even the reincarnation of Queen Elizabeth is still young looking at 52.

The mystery of the hypen on Shakespeare's name solved

There are several printed plays and of course the Sonnets, that on the title page use the name of Shakespeare but where the word of his name is split by a hyphen. Like this: Shake-speare.
Anti-Stratfordians have argued this was used to indicate that William Shakespeare did not write these pieces and that another writer did them using the name of Shakespeare as a cover. Each of the groups then proposes a candidate, or more then one, that did write the piece. However they never credit William Shakespeare of Stratford with the writing of them, even if he was working with someone else on them.
However I think we can now pin the origin of the use of the hyphen on Shakespeare's name to one man. That of Ben Jonson. 

We can do this because he had his own works printed before Shakespeare died. On January 20 1616, Ben had his book entered in the Stationers Register. 
It gives us massive clues about William, because Ben says when the plays were first performed and gives a list of the actors. But the actors names are not in the same order for each play.
For example Every Man In his Humor dated to 1598, Shakespeare is top of the list. Yet on another play he is fifth place. This to me implies that Shakespeare was the top actor or the main star of the piece and not on the other play.
Some of course don't carry Shakespeare's name at all.
But one play in question where he is not top billing called Sejanus His Fall, on the cast list splits Shakespeare's name with a hyphen.

However it is also known that Ben admits that he did not write this piece alone. As this taken from Wikipedia shows:
"Jonson's epistle "To the Readers" in the 1605 quarto states that an unnamed author had "good share" in the version of the play which was performed on the public stage:

Lastly I would inform you that this book, in all numbers, is not the same with that which was acted on the public stage, wherein a second pen had good share; in place of which, I have rather chosen to put weaker (and no doubt less pleasing) of mine own, than to defraud so happy a genius of his right by my loathed usurpation".

The fact that Jonson doesn't want to name the person leaves him with a problem. To find a way to name the person without doing so publicly. Since he does not use the hyphen on the previous play, it's clear to me that Jonson used it here on Sejanus to indicate that William Shakespeare was the joint writer with him.
The fact that Jonson used this publicly gives us a massive clue to the fact that it was his way of acknowledging a joint work by Shakespeare. Even if he was not the other writer. For as we have seen the Sonnets also carry this "Shake-speare". And we know Ben wasn't the joint writer on those. The above information gives me a massive clue that Jonson was the person that had the Sonnets published and the hyphen was his way of showing that Queen Elizabeth was the other writer of them. Though even though she was dead when they were published in 1609, he dare not use her name on them.
As for any other plays that use a hyphen on Shakespeare's name, it is very clear to me that Ben Jonson had these published, or was somehow connected with them. And that he knew they were joint works with William Shakespeare. Of course the problem is we do not know who the other writers were on these works. But they probably could be worked out.
We do not to look far as to why Ben Jonson wanted to publish these things by Shakespeare. As he tells us he worshiped the man. He wasn't going to let William Shakespeare's modesty, or principles stop the world from knowing about William Shakespeare. And I think thanks largely to him we do know about Shakespeare. But having said that he was also responsible for a great deal of the confusion about Shakespeare. However most of that was caused by William Shakespeare trying to hide from the world and protect himself and other people.
   

Shakespeare's Skull or Anne Hathaway's found?

Who's Skull is Missing?

If you watched the recent documentary on Channel Four entitled Shakespeare's Tomb, broadcast on the 26 March 2016. You will know that Kevin Colls of Staffordshire University and geophysicist Erica Utsi recently were granted permission from the Church of Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon, to do a radar survey of all the graves of the Shakespeare family buried in the Chancel of the Church. They were not allowed to dig the ground, but the radar survey (shown below) did show some interesting things.

 

Firstly we need to clear one thing up. The radar did not show the bones of the people themselves. Just the impression that a burial would make in the ground. So they couldn't see a skeleton of anybody. The first thing they proved that each of the seven people interred in the ground was that they were not in a family vault. What they found was the seven graves were of the type that would mean that they were wrapped in a cloth (called a winding sheet) and buried. No coffins, no lead box. All the graves were no more than 3 feet deep, around one metre. 

Shakespeare's stone, marked by the use of the "cursed" inscription is actually shorter than the rest. This had lead to rumors than he was buried standing up! However the radar showed that his grave extends right up to the plinth area of the alter. And so a blank slab on the top (head) end is still covering the burial of Shakespeare. 

Further investigation of the area around the plain slab at the head of Shakespeare's stone, revealed that a structure had been put in place to support it. Erica Utsi commented that in all here experience of doing these types of surveys she had not seen anything like it. 

The conclusion was that it would be done to repair the slab just to stop it sinking. But why would it be sinking in the first place. And why would Shakespeare's stone need a slab at the top end? 

Kevin Colls and Cambridge historian Dr Helen Castor think they have found the reason. It occurs in a magazine called the Argosy published in 1879 (link below to a PDF of it).   

Argosy 1879 - original from internet archive (39mb)

On page 268 there is a story of how Shakespeare's skull was stolen! It relates to a story that was thought to be a work of fiction by most Shakespeare academics. 

The story told third hand to the person writing the piece, relates to one Frank Chambers who in 1787 was assigned to work with a doctor working in Alcester (the only doctor in the area).  Sometime around the 1790's Frank Chambers attend a dinner with many of the local gentry of the Stratford area. By that time the Stratford Jubliee's were on the go and one said (in connection with that event) if the face of William Shakespeare on the monument in the Church actually looked like the real William. 

One of the guests said that you had better dig him up to find out. Then another guest said the Horace Walpole was offering 300 guineas for Shakespeare's head! 

Now Chambers, who was a medical man, wasn't opposed to digging bodies up that were more recently buried, for medical research. He had employed some men in the past to do this. So with the prospect of a lot of money at stake he got in touch with the men. There names were Tom Dyer, Harry Cull and another man with the surname of Hawtin.  They agreed to help him dig up Shakespeare. 

Late at night with Hatwin watching outside, they eventually got into the church and went to the stone of Shakespeare. Tom Dyer was clearly a tradesman and worked in a smithy, so he could easily get the lock open of the church door. 

They lifted the slab up and started to dig. To their surprise the first thing the came across was a more recent burial. Complete with bones, the remains of an Oak coffin, with nails and a silver plaque, with the name Ashwin. Also found were burnt glass and a ring! The image below shows the details in the Argosy of what they found...

 

I should point out this bit of the story was NOT referred to in the Channel Four documentary, though in one bit you can see the piece of the Argosy where it's shown.

They then continued to dig down till it looked like the had found the grave soil. At which point Frank Chambers told them to work with just hands. 

The story then takes an unexpected twist for they state that the burial was 3 feet down!

Precisely the same depth as the radar survey showed!!

Colls and Castor clearly worked out that the tale would therefore appear to be true! Otherwise how would they know it was 3 feet down? Before the radar survey everyone also assumed they would be in a vault. But the Argosy makes no mention of that. Or at least in a coffin, but as the next part of the story relates that wasn't true either.

Tom Dyer eventually finds the skull and removes it. He hands it over to Chambers and he looks at comparing it with the image of Shakespeare nearby. He concludes that it is smaller than the bust.

The rest of the grave was filled in and the stone carefully placed back in place.  

 

Frank Chambers then tries to sell the skull, but his attempts turn out to be fruitless. It seems some of the people just wanted to see it, not purchase it. Chambers heard that the vicar of Hatton, Samuel Parr was a big Shakespeare collector and he approached him, saying he had something of great importance. So Samuel met him and tried to tell him about the skull, but Samuel kept butting in with statements, as he asked his questions. Parr was not to pleased with some of the historians, that were looking for stuff on Shakespeare. He then told Chambers that if any man violated the "sanctity of that grave" he would have that man whipt! So Chambers changed the subject.

It was clear that Chambers wasn't going to be able to sell the skull without revealing it had been pinched from the grave!! So he had a word with Tom Dyer and another man to put the skull back.

I think he convinced them if the skull was found and linked to them they would be publicly whipped as the vicar of Hatton suggested.  

But as the story reveals Tom was left to do it on his own. He claimed it was put back. But somebody went back to the Church to check on if the stone had been put back right, on the pretence of just going to the normal service. But what he saw was a large crack at the top end of the Shakespeare stone. 

When Dyer was pressed he said that while he was lifting the stone he cracked it. But he said he had put the skull back. I don't think they believed him.

But did he put the skull back and if he didn't what did he do with it? 

 

Colls and Castor answered that question too. It seems shortly after that publication a second book came out called Shakespeare's Skull Found.  PDF below.

Shakespeare's Skull Found - original from internet archive

At St Leonard’s, Beoley, in Worcestershire a strange skull was found in a family vault of the Sheldon family. All of the family skulls were accounted for. This skull was the odd one out! 

 

It seems Tom Dyer was working at that church carrying out repairs. According to the above book Tom couldn't lift the stone of Shakespeare on his own and so put the skull into the Sheldon vault at Beoley. Hoping no-one would notice. I can testify to the weight of any gravestone, they are extremely heavy. I tried to lift one myself, investigating a grave yard in a run down cemetery. I couldn't shift it an inch or fore that matter at all!

The author of the book above known only as  “A Warwickshire Man” was thought to have been the Revd C. J. Langston, Vicar of Beoley from 1881 to 1889. He had had found in the possessions of Frank Chambers a piece of bone wrapped up very carefully. Finding a connection to the Shakespeare's skull story he took the bone and went into the Sheldon vault and found the mystery skull. He was able to put the piece of bone back into the skull precisely.

He thus found Shakespeare's skull.

 

Only he hadn't...

 

In 2016 the present vicar of Beoley arranged with Kevin Colls to have the skull scanned and photographed, as long as they didn't touch the bones or skull in the vault. So they did scan it.

Caroline Wilkinson, very famous for her re-creation of faces on many archaeology TV shows as well as working with the police on unidentified skulls. Was brought in to recreate the face of the person from the evidence of the scans and the images. She could however tell straight away that it was a woman, plus an old one at that, round about 70 years old.  The reconstructed face is shown below.

 

So it wasn't William Shakespeare. But even so the head end of Shakespeare's grave had been disturbed and the stone was sinking because of it, needing repair. For if you take soil out, of any hole you dig, even if you manage to get it all back, it will sink later on, needing either more earth adding to fill the hole, or if a slab is on it, to be raised up again. I'm certain that you will have come across the faulty paving slabs in the street, up and down, so you trip over them. So Shakespeare's stone would need to be repaired.

However the Vicar of Stratford wasn't convinced that the grave had been broken into, especially as the skull turned out to be a woman. So wouldn't let Colls and his team investigate the head end further. So if Chambers and Tom Dyer had broken into the tomb and taken his skull, the question remains did he put it back, or is William Shakespeare skull out there in the world still.

The Tale of the missing head....

The story however does not stop with the TV show. For when the image of the woman face appeared on the screen, I got hairs standing up right down the back of my head as well as a few expletives! For the sake of protecting someone, I can't say why that happened, but all will become clear.

Supposing Chambers did indeed break into the tomb of William Shakespeare and Tom Dyer didn't put the skull back, but into the Sheldon Vault as the book's suggest. But it wasn't Shakespeare's skull they had taken, but somebody else! Who could that skull be at Beoley? A woman around 70 is all we know. But there was a woman around 70 in that set of graves. Anne Shakespeare (Hathaway) his wife was 67 years old when she died. So that could fit our mystery woman's skull age. But it is clear they dug up Shakespeare's grave, not Anne's which is next to the wall. But when Chambers looked at skull he said it was small. Was that because it was a woman's skull he was looking at? But Chambers was a medical man, surely he could spot the difference between a man and woman's skull. Well yes he could, but he wasn't thinking that under the tomb of William Shakespeare was buried a woman aged around 67. So he just assumed it was William's Skull!

Now before some of you go rushing off thinking that Anne Shakespeare wrote the Works of Shakespeare, hence why she is under the tomb of her husband, think back to the bit that wasn't mentioned on the TV show, that Frank Chambers dug to find a modern grave by the name of Ashwin first. Clearly somebody had lifted the stones up prior to Chambers. There are indeed Ashwin members being married at the Stratford church as these printed registers show.

 

 

 

I couldn't find the burials of the same people, due to the fact they haven't been published. The IGI records are also generally lacking burial records, so they don't crop up in that. But I am certain that these Ashwin's were buried in Stratford. It's likely that sometime prior to 1790 the Ashwin family gave the vicar of Stratford a great deal of money to be buried under the Shakespeare tombs. Completely on the side. With no record being kept. Chambers was unaware of this when he then dug up the tomb of what he thought was Shakespeare and was in fact the burial spot of Anne Shakespeare. 

So why is Anne under Shakespeare stone?

 

 

Well if you look at this plan of the graves you can see that the first four burials on the right are not in the order of the dates of their deaths.  

 

In order for them to do that the grave diggers would have to leave a space between the wall of the church and then dig Shakespeare's grave! And the same for the rest of the other two. But I can't see them doing that. I think that William, who died first, would have been put against the wall, then Anne next to him, Susanna Hall next to Anne and then John Hall and the rest as they are...

This plan shows the full church layout. 

 

You can see that the Charnel House (demolished) is next to the Shakespeare tombs. But it wasn't demolished when Chambers dug the tomb, so there was no need to move the stones for that. 

Shakespeare paid £440 pounds in 1605 for a share in the tax privileges, this gave him the right to be buried in the Chancel, since it was including in the rights of the tax. A considerable amount of money back then. 

So it seems that the first four stones of the Shakespeare's were all lifted up prior to 1790 and my betting is when they put them back down they didn't put them back in the same place. As I said tomb stones that size are really heavy brutes. And If the people that lifted them were like some of the workman that I have known in the past, they didn't give a monkeys what order they were in, even if they could read the inscriptions. Which at that date seems quite possible that they couldn't read. In fact some of the men Chambers employed couldn't read. He had to stop them digging up an outside grave because of it!

The vicar might have noticed it, but he would have got the reply from the men, "you put them back right then!"

So William Shakespeare skull is safely buried with him under Anne's tomb and the Shakespeare "cursed" stone currently has a headless skeleton of Anne Shakespeare. And the Beoley Skull is the wife of William Shakespeare - or Anne Hathaway.

 

If you compare the facial reconstruction with the miniature of  her I can see a facial resemblance, bearing in mind she was a lot younger. But for a 67 year old woman, Anne does indeed look a lot younger than her age. Which is what I said about her, long before the story of Anne's skull

          

   

     

Shakespeare Scribbles Away in A Room Myth - addition to chapter four

Shakespeare Scribbles Away in A Room Myth

In the Shakespeare Guide to Italy, I came upon the details of the character of Shylock the Jew. Richard Paul Roe makes it clear that whoever wrote this play in which Shylock appears, knew a great deal of information about Jewish customs, far more I believe than could be got by experience of travelling to Italy. But I know of no candidate as the author of the Shakespeare's plays that would fit them having a Jewish background, including Shakespeare himself. Moreover the details relating to Shylock seem to be very specific about his Jewishness.

This leaves us with a problem. For while one could accept that Edward De Vere did travel in Italy, picking up enough knowledge to write the plays, he would have great difficult in being accurate about what it would be like to be Jewish person and a specific person of that race precisely. Like any none Jewish person he would slip up in his writing. Though it might be possible these days for a writer to hang around a Jewish person and get the details correct about them, it would seem unlikely for an Elizabethan Earl to do that!

My personal theory is that the person who played Shylock was a Jewish man from Italy. This would not surprise me, since I have said that Shakespeare wrote the plays around the people he had to work with. As I have covered earlier in this chapter, I know for certain he used two actress'. One was older than the other. I even know their names! One of them was even 14 in the Play Romeo and Juliet, as Juliet was 14 at the time. And yes she was of Italian descent. Then there is the black actor used in various plays.

Shakespeare doesn't cast the actors. There is no auditions like in Shakespeare in Love. He writes the parts with the starting point of a black actor in mind, for example.

Actors audition for parts in modern times

 

I don't think Shakespeare was sat in some back room scribbling texts, quill pen in hand writing on bits of parchment. I think that idea is a myth. Instead it was more interactive than that. Shakespeare

De Vere in the Film Anonymous even perpetuates the myth  

 

Shakespeare in a fancy study the Victorian view of the myth

 

had the ideas and then the actors said lines they way they did, making suggestions too. Shakespeare then copied it all down. They bounced ideas around each other too! If you think about it that would make more sense to have loads of different views and experience. So if one of the actors had studied law, his experience would come into it. And so on with all the professions in the Shakespearean plays which William couldn't have been involved with or have much knowledge of. I think it was highly likely the whole company were involved with the writing process. They might have even sat around a table or in a circle discussing they idea that William had come up with for the play, with each member saying something with a free hand to speak. Some of them might have contributed more than others, due to their cleverness or egos! But it was probably more of a co-operative effort than anything else. If you think about it this actually helps the company to be more successful, since the entire enterprise requires plays to come out on a regular basis. This way the members ensure that they are not reliant on one man to write a play. However we know that they do give somebody the credit for the plays. But this to me points to the person who had the original idea for the play being given the credit, it was as simple as that.

It seems to me also that most of the other writers who followed Shakespeare's way of writing used the same technique. Which is why people think they can see other hands in the works. But if Shakespeare was simply writing down the words as spoken by one of his fellows, then even though it was somebody else doing it, it was still written by Shakespeare.

I did come upon the background to the play Othello, or if you like the original idea for it. It was the result of the line in one of the Sonnets were Elizabeth talks about angels and the black one killing the good one. This is Elizabeth showing the two sides of herself. In the Sonnets she says "the worser spirit" and Shakespeare uses this as the lead character in Othello, which he makes black - another reference back to the Sonnets. Desdemona is of course the good spirit. And by getting Othello to kill her, it thus fulfills the prophecy of Sonnet 144, that the bad angel would fire the good one out. In order to make this happen Shakespeare employs a Devil's advocate in the form of Iago. Which I think was played by Shakespeare himself! For who better to play it.

I think that over the years and how the theatre world has developed, that we have become entangled with how things are done and how things were done. So now we see it as somebody going into a room and writes down the words for the actors to speak and emerges later with a fully worked up play. Then the actors are cast! Though it's like that today, it doesn't mean it has always been done like that!

As I have shown with the above, none of the modern ways ever applied to a Shakespeare play. Shakespeare would be like a duck out of water in the modern system. I actually believe the modern way was around at the time of Shakespeare, but it was considered boring, being about tales of how London Bridge was made etc.

With the Civil War and the closing of the theatres the Shakespeare technique was eventually lost, only the modern form of a single person writing the parts on their own has survived. Leaving us confused of how William Shakespeare fitted that role! Which of course he didn't. 

Copy of how it was performed

I have recently found a bit more to back up the fact a single person didn't write the plays, but they were done in a the way I describe above. Thanks to Ben Crystal. He is an actor and he discovered that the disjointed rhyme in certain sections of the play is meant to be like that, simply because it is meant to convey things like arguments, between the characters, including raised voices. Plus in Hamlet one of the characters is ignoring what the others are saying and just making his point over the other actors.

Ben found out that if the lines were presented in the normal way, that is letting each character finish speaking before the next one speaks, it doesn't mean anything. But allowing the actors to jump in before the other one has finished, the combined effort not only makes sense but rhymes too!

Now I think that shows that the text was either copied down direct from watching the play. Or more likely the text was written as the play was being performed. Thus proving that one man did not write a Shakespeare play. It also rules out the lords and nearly all the rival candidates as they would need to be present when the play was being worked up. Highly unlikely that Oxford and the other Earls would mix with the scum of the earth actors on a play like that.