This page is intended to educate on what is possibly the most important bit of history on this website.
That history is, of course, that of the Order of the Bed.
The first seeds were sown when someone, long ago, invented the bed. This, of course, was essential for any Order on such a subject.
Further progress was made when beds were made comfortable, so it was only a matter of time before a group began to encourage increased use.
Finally, a really big step took place when our much-overworked Founder was born in 1990. This is an occurrence which some already regret.
During 1999 a holiday was made by the Founder's family to North Wales. The Founder came too, as is normal for 8 year olds. Here he took the view that, much as the holiday was good and the sun was shining on Blaenau Ffestiniog, he also wanted to take advantage of the provided bed. When this option was not made as readily available as he would like, with suggestions that he should get up by 10 o' clock, the plunge was taken and the Order of the Bed was finally founded on Friday 13th August 1999, a very lucky Friday 13th except that it was raining at the time. This move was appropriately made while the Founder was still in bed. After this the Objectives and Aims were set out.
Objectives and Aims of the Order of the Bed
1) That the Order shall encourage, at all times, greater usage of beds by people throughout the world.
The following day the Founder returned home and began to encourage the Order. The next important move after foundation was that it was given a primary colour of blue.
Work after this was sluggish - obtaining converts was surprisingly difficult. Thought continued to be given to things and a further momentous task began on 24 November 2001 at 19:16 when the draft of the homepage was created. The task was not so large then, with only 15 pages being written out of a planned 16, but it rapidly increased in bulk. The original scheme was to give thought on the present local situation while attempting to advertise the OB. Aims increased
Objectives and Aims of the Order of the Bed
1) That the Order shall encourage, at all times, greater usage of beds by people throughout the world.
2) That the Order shall express its opinions except when decreed that it shall be prudent not to, particularly on politics, transport and beds.
3) That the Order shall cause entertainment if so needed, felt to be needed, or considered to be worthwhile by the Order.
This second aim allowed us to be rude, which we often are, in the knowledge that we can hide behind a nice loud website and the third saw the creation of the Kids section. Two pages were missing - page 13, which never became a guestbook, and page 17, which was decided to be probably illegal.
Expansion of the site continued, the Seasonal Area (now resuscitated) closed, and work began shortly after on various smaller cynical projects and the rather fun efforts associated with constructing page 27, which is still ongoing at time of writing (very very slowly - being a one-off project it never gets anyone to concentrate on it for very long). We kept out of politics at this point, as the Iraq war was raging, but we are slowly engaging in the honourable trade of Government Bashing.
And then - a massive new page (32) - the Wye Valley Railway takes over the Planning Department (and most of the emphasis in the website) without trouble and introduces two new Aims.
Objectives and Aims of the Order of the Bed
1) That the Order shall encourage, at all times, greater usage of beds by people throughout the world.
2) That the Order shall express its opinions except when decreed that it shall be prudent not to, particularly on politics, transport and beds.
3) That the Order shall cause entertainment if so needed, felt to be needed, or considered to be worthwhile by the Order.
4) That the Order shall dedicate its power and energy to assisting the reconstruction of the Wye Valley Railway as part of our aim to improve public transport in remote places.
5) That the Order shall campaign against developments on the motorway and airport front, with the long-term view of cutting down usage of such forms of transport in the UK as going against the Government's claimed commitment to greener transport. They also do not provide sufficient encouragement for people to go to bed whilst on the move, unlike the railways.
We are slowly aiming for a position as a major voice for ourselves and our views on the planet.
The website has developed extensively to support this. The Wye Valley Railway section has transformed into a massive development which has finally got big enough to be noticed by people. This means that the Founder's name is now appearing in references on Wikipedia, suitably mis-spelt. We are not sure if we should be proud or insulted. We have also been noticed by the trackbed's current owners, which is jolly nice.
Meanwhile the Comment, Satire and Tripe section grew out of a desire to pass comment occasionally without actually taking up blogging. This area is yet to become too controversial but has already developed a spin-off in the form of the History of the British Railway, which was good fun to write and required minimal research.
The Order seems to have a good future ahead in its current low-budget position. We are pondering trying to get a proper income at some point but are a little worried about the possibilities of making a rather fat loss. Such is life in the bed lane.