What do you remember?

[Derek R.]

(snip)

I personally think the commer on most keyboards looks exactly like an apostrophe should but until it is pressed you have no idea where on the page the key will place it.

(snip)

 

Rose has lost her keys to the 'commer' Neil - get the ERF started . . . !

Edited March 4, 2010 by Derek R.

[Tiny]

We saw Robinson Crusoe at the London Palladium. Tommy Cooper was in it playing a part and stole the show with a routine aimed at an imaginary chap named Fred who was sat (like us) in 'The gods'. Fred had a knife and turned nasty, Tommy had a gun and shot him, then got really unhappy that he had. It was hysterical - and nothing to do with the story. Who played who in that I haven't a clue and only remember the Tommy Cooper routine - 'Fred, put that knife down Fred.' 'Fred, I've got a gun Fred.' 'Fred, I've shot you Fred'. - all delivered in with the usual TC hysteria and with the audience falling off their seats with laughter.

Edited March 4, 2010 by Tiny

[soldthehouse]

Replace your comma with the correct apostrophe, and use the shift button for a capital letter: "i,m" - I'm. Apostrophes more often indicate a letter of a word missing and connected to its partner in crime such as; I am - I'm; they are - they're; we are - we're; would not - wouldn't etc., and cannot becomes can't. To some extent I believe it is a corruption of the language for the sake of speed, which has become so common as to have been accepted and now widely used. All part of an evolving language which in part aids, but can lead to confusion. The basis for it seems to be a combination of poor standards of education and a desire of the young to be 'different'. But to counter it in some ways, is the desire to continue regional accents through the vernacular. It would be a sad thing to have everyone speaking one standard accent, and turns of phrase used by many old folk are gems in themselves - long may they remain - though using commas where apostrophes are required is rather like using a letter 'a' where 'b' is the correct one.

 

One thing I do remember from childhood, English language lessons and a teacher, whose face I can visalise now but cannot recall her name, implicitly emphasising "There is no such word as 'can't'". It had a two edged meaning, as she was also encouraging us to try things instead of giving up before beginning.

 

Her name will come to me, but she was tall and slim, fifty plus yrs., piercing blue eyes, a shock of white curly hair resembling a halo, with a high pitched voice and perfect diction - terrified us all.

 

Derek

 

Miss Walsh - I'm sure that was her name.

My dear old dad once had a commer two stroke never did aspire to an apostrophe but they were quite rare anyway,./;'[

[Derek R.]

Two strokes of a comma? Sure it wasn't a

? Now those I remember from a youngster!

Here we are

ripping it up - I see why they call 'em Knockers!

[cheshire~rose]

Two strokes of a comma? Sure it wasn't a

? Now those I remember from a youngster!

Here we are

ripping it up - I see why they call 'em Knockers!

 

Nah!

 

Foden were just a Mickey Mouse outfit by that time - This is my kind of Foden

Edited March 4, 2010 by cheshire~rose

[soldthehouse]

Nah!

 

Foden were just a Mickey Mouse outfit by that time - This is my kind of Foden

Ive sat in that, used to go to school with the nephew they had a few two stroke diesels their fleet colours are green and always kept a tidy fleet. They were british leyland car dealers and had a garage in hetton le hole.happy days

 

Two strokes of a comma? Sure it wasn't a

? Now those I remember from a youngster!

Here we are

ripping it up - I see why they call 'em Knockers!

Still nice trucks I can remember them clattering up the main street past our school what a racket lovely smell tho.,/'[]=-

[Timleech]

Two strokes of a comma? Sure it wasn't a

? Now those I remember from a youngster!

Here we are

ripping it up - I see why they call 'em Knockers!

 

I've driven a Foden 2-stroke coach in the past, a couple of quite long trips. Interesting, rear engine with a crash gearbox 30 feet away, keeping your ear to the open window to judge the gear changes.

Never driven a Commer, but the local dustcarts had them.

 

Tim

[soldthehouse]

I've driven a Foden 2-stroke coach in the past, a couple of quite long trips. Interesting, rear engine with a crash gearbox 30 feet away, keeping your ear to the open window to judge the gear changes.

Never driven a Commer, but the local dustcarts had them.

 

Tim

Quite common with local authorities at the time ours was a compartmental coal tipper delivering miners monthly coal allowance./';[-

[Water Woman]

We had a studio couch when I was a kid

 

Today we have visited Blists Hill Museum in the Ironbridge Gorge and a couple more memories came back to me:

 

I bought some 1 1/2d worth of clove balls - I used to love them but I think I was the only person in the shop at that time that didn't find them repulsive! Dave chose 1 1/2d worth of sherbert lemons but they also had some other old favourites available such as "pips", liquorice torpedoes and rhubard & custard.

 

In the chemist shop - while they did not have either thing I thought about the "Fennings Cooling powders" which my mother in law used to swear by if one of my kids (as a baby) was off colour. They came in a box of 5 each dose being folded into a slip of paper very much like Beechams Powders used to be (I think you may still be able to get the traditional ones) I also used to give them gripe water which they loved!

 

I can remember "De Witts Kidney & Bladder pills" which mum used to give me occasionally - not sure why - think it was probably for cystitus? I know they worked their way through your system and turned your pee an interesting shade of blue! Quite fascinating to see when you are a small child!

 

 

My mum used to take those pills... we callled them 'blue wee tablets'!!

[MartinClark]

I can remember, as a small boy on my way to piano lessons,walking across the dried up bed of the Kennet and Avon Canal at Widcombe, Bath, and assuming that all canals were like that.

 

This was long before there was a Deep Lock there, of course, and you never saw any boats on the River Avon. I also remember seeing the River Avon halfway up Southgate Street in the the great flood of 1960 that did for the Old Bridge in Bath.

[Ray]

A black and white television with an approx 9 inch screen in a nice (real) wood case.

A set top box on top that allowed your single frequency television to get a second channel.

 

And a payslip from 1971, for £93.17 for four weeks, tax at £15.35 and NI contributions of £2.40.

 

And the years later on when my annual pay rise equalled more than my annual salary all those years earlier.

[steelaway]

A black and white television with an approx 9 inch screen in a nice (real) wood case.

A set top box on top that allowed your single frequency television to get a second channel.

 

And a payslip from 1971, for £93.17 for four weeks, tax at £15.35 and NI contributions of £2.40.

 

And the years later on when my annual pay rise equalled more than my annual salary all those years earlier.

 

 

Hi

 

In 1964 when I started as an apprentice in the steel works, my first wage was £2.17s.8d.

Of this 17.8d was tax and NI. 30s when to mi mam, but she did pay my bus fares and pack up.

I had the other £1.00. Not ever having much money as school kid I could live on next to nothing.

Over the first 17 weeks of work I saved £15 for my first motorbike - BSA A7 with a sidecar attached!!!!

I can still remember thinking that when I started earning £20 a week (£1000 a year) I was on top money.

 

Alex

[Tiny]

A black and white television with an approx 9 inch screen in a nice (real) wood case.

A set top box on top that allowed your single frequency television to get a second channel.

 

And a payslip from 1971, for £93.17 for four weeks, tax at £15.35 and NI contributions of £2.40.

 

And the years later on when my annual pay rise equalled more than my annual salary all those years earlier.

 

Now we have online shops selling TV bits like scart gender changers. Then my dad - who liked to get new electic things (like square pin plugs and sockets - he installed 2 ring mains in our house years before they were common in new houses - used to know of little shops in Manor Park and up Tottenham Court Road where you could buy such stuff. From one he got a box that he fixed to the back of the 12" TV just after the second channel started. The rigmarol to work it was - push plunger on box in = ITV, Pull it out = BBC. (It made a very satisfying clunk but you had to hold the telly in place and give a real good pull/push.) So we saw the first episodes of Corrie, Emergency Ward 10 and others that would one day be called Soaps while actually enjoying the adverts as it was all new,bright, brash and shiney compared to the slightly upmarket and a little dry BBC.

 

Later when I got married we asked for the (brand new) pill. This (family) doctors seemed to disapprove of such modern thing for after a short time they said no more - you must let you body rest (to the wife). We were very annoyed and worried at this but then a friend suggested we go to our family planning clinic where they knew a lot more that stuffy old GPs about the pill. We did and they were a revalation - lady doctors and nurses who knew their stuff like there were lots of different pills so the one used could be varied to fit (as it were). After that we used family planning for the next many years - waiting outside for the wife it was facinating watch singles and couples - obviously first timers - creeping in to FP like they were doing wrong (for maybe going behind the back of the family doctor as it were) - then coming out all happy and reassured.

 

Edited March 7, 2010 by Tiny

[Mac of Cygnet]

I can still remember thinking that when I started earning £20 a week (£1000 a year) I was on top money.

 

Alex

 

Did anyone else's family have a tradition of offering the last scone, biscuit, etc on the plate to a child present, saying "A thousand a year!", this being a veritable fortune at the time. As an only child with childless uncle & aunt I did rather well out of this!

 

And yes, my first full-time job (after 6 years as a student) was £1100 a year.

 

Mac

[soldthehouse]

Hi

 

In 1964 when I started as an apprentice in the steel works, my first wage was £2.17s.8d.

Of this 17.8d was tax and NI. 30s when to mi mam, but she did pay my bus fares and pack up.

I had the other £1.00. Not ever having much money as school kid I could live on next to nothing.

Over the first 17 weeks of work I saved £15 for my first motorbike - BSA A7 with a sidecar attached!!!!

I can still remember thinking that when I started earning £20 a week (£1000 a year) I was on top money.

 

Alex

I started in 1974 as an apprentice shuttering joiner with J. Laing construction on £16 wk going up to £18 at the next birthday, The "men" were on thirty quid and that seemed a fortune. My mother still has my early payslips. Bless

[Athy]

I recall my first pay slip in the UK being £73.73p net. That was in 1974, as a fully qualified teacher, and included an incremental point for the year which I had spent teaching in France.

[FredDrift]

there are a few things that send me straight back. the smell you get during a hot spell in summer when there is a short light shower. suddenly you realise that the smell of the air has changed; it was dusty and tired and suddenly its clean and cool. heaven, and only lasting for a minute.

the smell i remember from the old timber stand at Franklins Gardens. combination of late autumn, faint pipe smoke and wintergreen liniment. i can almost feel it, the excitement, the spectacle. and walking back past the old railway station to get the green bus home.

building dams in the stream in the village.

the old co-op with the tubs for biscuits, and the bacon slicer.

the co-op in town with the vacuum tube system that sent the payment up to the account office and returned the receipt and change.

my mother's co-op divi number - 22233.

frost ferns on the windows.

having only 2 channels on tv - black and white too.

probably no more than 20% of famlies in the village having a car - one, not one each!

playing round the farmyard at my mates dads farm.

supercar, fireball xl5.

the outdoor swimming pool at middy meadow in northampton - with diving boards.

stop me now, or i'll turn into a 'it's all gone downhill' type

memories...

cheers

nigel

 

Some of that has taken me back a number of years...................... Both sets of grandparents lived near to Franklin Garden - they built a bowling alley more or less next door - Bear filling station next door to that. Each Saturday we, my sibs & I used to catch the No9 red bus from Five Bells to 'Jimmy's End", alight by the Mettoy toy factory (think diecast cars, matchbox and corgi IIRC) and visit 1st G/parents briefly before spending the remainder of the day with the other G/Ps. Invariably, after lunch we would all go for what seemed then like a 100 mile walk with the dog around the then working Sixfields gravel pits. Loved the gravel pits / the machinery / tracked cranes (draglines?) and riding in one of them with the driver who always found time to chat with my teenaged aunt but being fairly scared of the huge noise it made and the 'dangerous moving parts, albeit in a cage herein.

 

Royal Marines playing at the Garden................... , Mr Bowers (Baldy?) the barber just opposite. A liitle shop beside the 'Red Rover' that had immediately outside an operational police box and better yet, a milk machine that dispensed chilled? milk. A big pale blue thing with a big illuminated panel above a huge pull down door into which the milk tumbled with a satisfying thud.

 

Enough though , nostalgia is a thief of time...........................

 

HN

Edited March 7, 2010 by happynomad

[Hairy-Neil]

Neil - get the ERF started . . . !

 

It would smoke out the forum for the first 10 minutes....

[mayalld]

Hi

 

In 1964 when I started as an apprentice in the steel works, my first wage was £2.17s.8d.

Of this 17.8d was tax and NI. 30s when to mi mam, but she did pay my bus fares and pack up.

I had the other £1.00.

 

If you had a pound left after deducting 17/8 and 30/0 from £2 17/8, you were working miracles somewhere along the way.

 

By my reckoning, you only had 10/0 left!

[Grace and Favour]

But it's much nicer to remember a £1-oo-oo

 

A Pound bought 960 Blackjacks - (or Fruit Salads) in the days when these were sold at 1/4d (Farthing) each

 

 

 

If you had a pound left after deducting 17/8 and 30/0 from £2 17/8, you were working miracles somewhere along the way.

 

By my reckoning, you only had 10/0 left!

[Roger t' Bodger]

The earliest memory is being in my pram in the back yard and a huge black crow lands on me with an eye for the half a soggy rusk in my mitt. My mum spotted him out of the kitchen window and screamed and to my disappointment the bird flew off. She thought it was after my juicy peepers! We will never know.

 

My dad drove a Dennis truck of 1940's vintage for Henderson's, a ship fitting company based near the Royal Albert Docks. His job was to drive to UK ports to meet Shaw Saville ships and either deliver or pick up items. The Dennis did 45mph down hill with a following wind so anything over a 100 miles away meant a overnight stay for him. My mum suffered from irritable bowel symdrome so he took me out with him as much as possible while I waited to start school. I must have viisted all the docks in grey depressing east London in those years of mid 50's but the special treat was to get up at 5am and go to Southampton docks. Being a diesel it took a bit of starting of a icy morning and I used to watch him get his special stick ('Don't ever touch!') which he wrapped a cloth about and stuck it in the barrel fuel tank to soak it in fuel oil. This he then lit and held it up under the engine block to warm it up which scared and amazed me that the whole thing didn't catch fire. Once running he would lift me up into the lofty wooden framed cab where I stood while the cab warmed up as the hard leather bench seat was freezing. There wasn't much conversation as the engine was so noisy and I remember driving though the quiet streets of the City of London as dawn broke spotting the model of ships displayed in the offices of insurers and shipping companies. Hours later we arrived at the port exchanged a few words with the port police and drove around to where either the Southern Cross or the Northern Star were moored. The business of the trip was conducted sometimes with a giant crane loading a heavy engine part onto the back of the truck and seeing the leaf springs bow down with the weight. I was always made to stand well out of the way as an previous accident had demolished the cab! Once this business was done then it was all aboard to the pursers office and another business was transacted resulting (as I would discover when we got home) in crates of fruit and sacks of frozen meat were sneaked off and put on the Dennis while I was given a feast of food and shown the bridge by friends of my dad. Then as dusk fell we left for Essex stopping to say bye to the police at the port gates.

 

I think it is a mark where you grow from a baby to a boy when you can't sleep on the seat anymore while the Dennis travelled the long road home despite how much you wanted to!

[Athy]

Fantastically atmospheric piece, Roger. Reading it, I can almost feel the chill and hear the din of the engine.

[Roger t' Bodger]

Fantastically atmospheric piece, Roger. Reading it, I can almost feel the chill and hear the din of the engine.

 

 

Ta.

 

It was the dusk of industrial Britain, that I experienced. Me ol' man continued to drive trucks for the rest of his life until the mid 90's. He had been completely duffed up by the WW11 and suffered post traumatic distress ever after due to North Africa (where he learnt to drive) and Italy where ihe was captured and being a nazi slave helping to build V2 rockets in Poland that then oblitterated his East Ham neighbourhood. This made him hard to decipher for those about him and my wife and girls found him hard to appreciate. He died quietly in hospital 5 years ago. Those born since WW11 are the lucliest humans alive ever.

 

For his funeral, my sister and I sorted the music to be played. She chose 'Isn't Grand to be Dead' an old 1930's black comedy song (being local, she had had the bulk of the care duties for years and the bulk of his moods). Aft

er the service, his last remaining sibling Doris wept as she thanked me for playing it as 'it were 'is favourite song, 'e would sing that to me when I was a nipper!'.

 

We're lucky - really!