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peter scott
Joined: 18 Dec 2007 Posts: 7118 Location: Edinburgh
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lowdrag
Joined: 10 Apr 2009 Posts: 1585 Location: Le Mans
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Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2021 5:29 am Post subject: |
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Growing up in the fifties, my first memories are of cousins saving their cheese ration for me, and then the wonderful day that chocolate came off ration and I made myself sick, spending all my pocket money in one go. Seeing a banana for the first time is another memory. Catapult competitions, tops with leather whips, wind-up toys, Meccano, Horny Dublo - all this tactile hands-on life left its memory. Fixed-wheel bikes with cow-horn bars for dirt tracking, no need for a gun licence, taking down the hay rick with a circle of guns pointing outwards to kill the vixen and cubs when finally they broke - plus all the rats! Working on the farm in holidays, picking potatoes or riding the bale sledge after harvest. Going to buy the milk or bread with those little coins with a robin on too, and arriving home with the warm cottage loaf topless.
It was fine as a child; a world where our parents and aunts and uncles indulged us after five years of privation, but as an adult I reckon it was a pretty hard world to live in. Moving to London in the sixties, the wonders of the new age of music, no more light programme stopping every ten minutes to stuffily say "the time is seven forty; seven forty" but Radio Caroline on my tiny valveless Sanyo radio was really my formative years. Digs in Brixton at £3 10/- including breakfast and dinner, working for Sun Life in the city for £300 p.a. plus an extra £30 for the London allowance but at the same time seeing the seedy underbelly of life in those times.
Would I go back to live like that? Not on your nelly I wouldn't! Life in the main has been kind to me, but like everyone I have my scars. I love the comfort of central heating and watching a tele where I don't have to stand holding the aerial in one hand while I am told "left a bit, no, right" and hands groping behind trying to regulate the horizontal and vertical hold, all the while trying to regard a Pye 14" fuzzy 425-line black and white image of Uncle Mac.
Sadly, memories are that, but at the same time, they are, like the tele, warm and fuzzy and in the main will remain in black and white. And should stay there. |
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peter scott
Joined: 18 Dec 2007 Posts: 7118 Location: Edinburgh
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Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2021 9:32 am Post subject: |
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It's true that we look back with rose coloured specs but that's what's good about old cars and living in the past. You can have the glamour without the all the miseries. Well, with fewer of the miseries anyway.
Peter _________________ http://www.nostalgiatech.co.uk
1939 SS Jaguar 2 1/2 litre saloon |
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UmTumTiddly
Joined: 14 Oct 2016 Posts: 35 Location: Ringwood, New Forest.
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Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2021 12:00 pm Post subject: |
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lowdrag wrote: | with those little coins with a robin on too,. |
Yes, remember it all (with some affection). All very well recounted. Thank you!
(Pedant alert: I am sure the "little coin," [Farthing -the smallest coin], had the smallest British bird on its reverse - a Wren rather than a robin.) |
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BigJohn
Joined: 01 Jan 2011 Posts: 954 Location: Wem, Shropshire
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Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2021 4:05 pm Post subject: |
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in the mid 60's I remember a mate and I, aged about 10 or 11, wandering into the chemist's with a shopping list, the chemist saw it and said,
"Gunpowder lads?"
"Yes"
"What you doing with it?"
"Blowing up tree stumps"
"Take care now."
And gave up our requisites.
Happy days. _________________ 1974 Mk1 Escort. |
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Ellis
Joined: 07 Mar 2011 Posts: 1382 Location: Betws y Coed, North Wales
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Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2021 12:16 am Post subject: |
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I will have to be discreet here.
There is one family here in the village who keep their main lounge exactly as it was when they moved here in 1957 - same carpet rug, three piece suite, ornaments, period record player, wireless (or radio) and even the Bush 15" television set in burr walnut and so on.
The reason? The younger family members who are left are able to look to the past and the values and opinions they deemed important to the family then. I have seen the lounge and it is a true time warp experience because everything is pristine, unused really.
The remainder of the house is modern but the impression I got from that room was a feeling of permanence.
I think we may all have this trait. For example I still have the Sanyo "Solid State" radio from the mid 1960s. No FM of course but there is short, medium and long wave and it still works - 3 HP2 batteries.
I know it's been said countless times here and elsewhere that those of us who have classic cars are perhaps trying to hold onto a past. Who knows?
What I do remember is Quentin Willson writing in one of the classic car magazines in the 1990s that we own classic cars "to wear" and that if we are really honest about it that ownership is, in Willson's words " a slightly off focus fantasy". _________________ Starting Handle Expert
1964 Jaguar Mark 2 3.4 litre
1962 Land Rover Series 2a 88"
2002 BMW M3 E46 Cabriolet |
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MikeEdwards
Joined: 25 May 2011 Posts: 2470 Location: South Cheshire
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Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2021 7:32 pm Post subject: |
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I've only recently stopped using a CRT television, just because I couldn't quite bring myself to bin a TV that worked perfectly well. Until it stopped during the first lockdown, and I had no choice but to replace it - otherwise it would still be here. Not quite to the same extent as some, but I generally struggle to throw out things that still work (and some things that don't if there's a slight chance that they might again). |
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Rootes75
Joined: 30 Apr 2013 Posts: 3810 Location: The Somerset Levels
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Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2021 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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I do think the hobby of driving/collecting vintage or classic cars is for us taking one step into the past. Its pure nostalgia. _________________ Various Rootes Vehicles. |
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Peter_L
Joined: 10 Apr 2008 Posts: 2680 Location: New Brunswick. Canada.
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Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2021 4:29 pm Post subject: |
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Over the last year I have spent considerable time and some expense in researching the history of a significant property in Yorkshire. I was asked via FB, Quote "why?, what's the point ?, waste of time and money" End Quote: to which I replied "Doubtless you have ignored so much for so long, that you now know absolutely nothing about everything"
In reply to Rootes 75. It is all about what we want to do while at the same time "contributing". What worse an epitaph than "Came - Went - Did Nothing" |
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alastairq
Joined: 14 Oct 2016 Posts: 1950 Location: East Yorkshire
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Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2021 5:20 pm Post subject: |
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Quote: | Over the last year I have spent considerable time and some expense in researching the history of a significant property in Yorkshire. |
Not Castle Howard, by any chance?? _________________ Dellow Mk2, 1951 built, reg 1952.
Fiat 126 BIS
Cannon special [1996 registered. Built in 1950's]
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Ford Pop chassis, Ashley 1172 bodyshell, in pieces. |
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Peter_L
Joined: 10 Apr 2008 Posts: 2680 Location: New Brunswick. Canada.
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Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2021 7:04 pm Post subject: |
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Hi Alastair. Nothing quite so grand. Pinder Oaks, Barnsley. I was born there, and at one time lived not far away. Ignored by photographers and historians, it was demolished in 1969. Origins go back to 15th century as a farm. |
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Penman
Joined: 23 Nov 2007 Posts: 4756 Location: Swindon, Wilts.
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Peter_L
Joined: 10 Apr 2008 Posts: 2680 Location: New Brunswick. Canada.
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Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2021 9:06 pm Post subject: |
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First the tramway but later the Bus Depot for Yorkshire Traction. Now all gone. A new hospital on the site of "Pinder Oaks" and new houses where the "Tracky Sheds" were.
BTW I also use National Library of Scotland (NLS) and I have the 1771 Jeffreys Map CD |
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