Web Page 906

First Picture:

A typical Laundrette shop sign

Second Picture:

That Levis advert!!!!!




Yet another school friend to join us, a big welcome to Robert Webster.

My Wonderful Laundrette

One innovation which came our way during our youth, before the days of the automatic washing machine, was the introduction and rapid spread of the laundrette. These new fangled washing places seemed to pop up all over the place. The nearest one to my childhood home was the one in Cosham High Street, although I do believe that one did open a little nearer but Mum had got used to the Cosham one, she said she knew the machines, so we always used that one. My parents never owned a washing machine in their lives although my mother did submit to having a Hoover Spinarinse to help with the home wash. She preferred to hand wash in the sink and boil the whites in a large container on the cooker. After my father had managed to persuade her that actually taking your washing to the laundrette was not like washing your dirty linen in public, it was then a scout round the house to find as much washing as possible to get the best value for money from the machine. Having found enough large bags to pack it all in we then took the car, a grey Truimph Herald 948cc 186 COU, on a family excursion into Cosham, but Mother always insisted that this trip was to be in the early evening when there would be fewer people about.

Having arrived at the place we loaded the top loading machine with our washing and bought the little packet of washing powder (there was a sign hung above the machines which said that you were not allowed to bring your own washing powder as it was not compatible with the washing machines, I suspect that was just a rouse to get you to buy their expensive powder), it was a case of just sitting there watching the washing go round. Actually as the years rolled by the little packets of washing powder disappeared to be replaced by bulk machines which dispensed the powder into little paper cups.

Of course whenever we went, there was always a barrage of advise from those already in the place, “Don’t put that shirt in with those sheets”, “That will need a hot wash not a cool one” and “If I was you I would not put anything like that into a washing machine”. After the wash there was the scramble to get a dryer ( have you got a 2/- piece for the machine please?) and then again we sat down to more watching. When the dryer had completed its job it was time for the emptying and folding. Now this had to be done with your back to the other washers so that you could hid your smalls or badly worn sheets from prying eyes, my mother used to go to great lengths to preserve her privacy in the place. What was the lingering memory of these washing evenings? Mainly the warm soapy smell and the utter boredom of watching the clothes tumble round and round and.

The very first UK laundrette was in opened in Queensway, West London in 1949, if they had been introduced in the 1980’s I suppose we would have had to put up with names like Suds-You-Like !!!!!

But in the last 25 years, the number of launderettes in the UK has fallen by three-quarters. In fact mention launderettes to a lot of people and their first reaction is often one of surprise that they still exist, actually there are two within a half a mile of where I live today. According to NALI, the National Association of the Launderette Industry (yes, there is an association for everything these days), numbers in the UK peaked at 12,500 in the early 80s but have since have dwindled to just 3,000. In the mid-1980s, a Levi's jeans television advert generated hopes of an altogether different kind of liaison in a laundrette. In the ad, a handsome young man enters a 1950s-style American launderette and in front of the other customers, calmly strips down to his boxer shorts and puts his jeans in the machine. The ad helped sales of jeans to rocket and made a star of its leading man, Nick Kamen. The opening bars of Marvin Gaye's hit I Heard It Through the Grapevine are among the most evocative in television advertising history. For a whole generation, it brings one image to mind but did you know that Nick Kamen only got the part on condition that he lost weight!

But back to our washing. Once all the processes had been completed and all the clothes neatly folded without anyone seeing what they were, they were all carefully placed back in the bags they came in and then it was back to the car and home. Once indoors all that was left to do was to sort the washing out into piles and Mum to do the ironing.

Such strange pleasures we had in the 1950’s!!!



Stay in touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com
Pj.keat@ntlworld.com

You Write:

Chris asks:-

I had a friend who lived at No. 4 Lonsdale Avenue in the 1950’s, Richard Coppin. I wonder if anyone knows what happened to him? I am also keen to trace Michael Harrison from the same period, he lived in Hilltop Crescent on the top of Portsdown Hill.

News and Views:

Reg Presley Update. Reg is recovering well and at present a tour with the Animals during this year is a possibility and he has been told that he does not need to see the doctor again.

Pat Boone, who normally lives in Beverly Hills, has bought a second home on a floating condominium ocean liner named the Utopia. The ship, due to sail in 2013, will take its tenants around the world to events like the Grand Prix in Monaco and the Cannes Film Festival in France. Pat is estimated to have spent $4 million on his onboard "home."

More ‘home’ news:-

Ringo Starr and his wife, actress Barbara Bach, have put their three-bedroom Aspen, Colorado cabin on 16 acres of wooded land on the market for sale. The price? A mere $4.5 million. They have owned the property on the Roaring Fork River for 20 years.

On this day 23rd January 1960-1965

On 23/01/1960

the number one single was Why - Anthony Newley and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was not listed and the box office smash was North by Northwest. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was bomb attempt on Harold McMillan in Africa.

On 23/01/1961

the number one single was Poetry in Motion - Johnny Tillotson and the number one album was Tottenham Hotspur. The top rated TV show was The Russ Conway Show (ATV) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £ 13.25. The big news story of the day was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada).

On 23/01/1962

the number one single was The Young Ones - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was The Young Ones - Cliff Richard. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions

On 23/01/1963

the number one single was The Next Time/Bachelor Boy - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was Out of the Shadows - Shadows. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 23/01/1964

the number one single was Glad All Over - Dave Clark Five and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Steptoe & Son (BBC) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 23/01/1965

the number one single was Yeh Yeh - Georgie Fame and the number one album was Beatles For Sale - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page 904

First Picture: Mickey Dolenz as Circus Boy Corky





Second Picture: Mickey with the Monkees.



Firstly lets welcome two new school friends, a big hello to Christine Budd and Carol Page.
Secondly look for the new Section School Report

Mickey Dolnez

Many of us will remember Micky Dolenz as the drum playing lead singer from the late sixties American answer to the Beatles, the Monkees. During the peak years of the Monkees his voice was featured on such hits as “Last Train to Clarksville”, “I’m a Believer”, “Stepping Stone” “Words” and “Pleasant Valley Sunday”. But what may be a lesser known or even totally forgotten is that Mickey Dolnez first gained fame some ten years before the Monkees project ever got off the ground, as a child actor on the television show, Circus Boy.

Born to actor George Dolenz and his wife Janelle in 1945, Micky Dolenz made a very early decision to follow in his father’s footsteps. George Dolenz had made it as an actor with RKO Studios and during the 1950's played the Count of Monte Cristo for the ITV television series. To avoid the stereotype of being another actor’s son, it was decided, early on, that young Micky would not use his father’s last name; instead, Micky Dolenz began his acting career as Micky Braddock but by the time of Circus Boy this plan appears to have been dropped. In early 1955, the production company, Norbert Productions, were looking for a way to generate some form of income from a bankrupt South Carolina circus that, for some reason, they had bought. The idea of developing a television show that would make good use of props, animals and infrastructure of the circus occurred to the Director Herbert B. Leonard. As a Director had had a previous success when he had developed another childrens favourite, Rin Tin Tin and was now looking for another prospective television success. By the end of the year, he had a script for the pilot prepared and began to hold casting sessions for the various roles of what was now being called the Circus Boy project.

Micky Dolnez auditioned for, and won, the role of Corky, the central character in the pilot. The plot that was developed had the twelve-year-old orphan being adopted by the boss Big Bill Champion and performers of the near bankrupt Burke and Walsh circus. Corky had become an orphan after his trapeze artist parents were killed during a high wire act that went wrong. In the story Corky was now looked after by the clown Uncle Joey and his friend Pete. There had to be animals in the programme of course and Corky's pet chimpanzee was called Bobo, other featured animals were Sultan, the tiger and Nuba the Lion. Each episode Corky was seen riding the baby elephant Bimbo, and each storyline had him dealing with his adolescent problems, whilst the financial problems of the circus were always in the background and as the story developed it was clear that the Circus Boy actually helped the adults keep the circus in the black as the show moved from town to town each week.

NBC picked up the series for the September 1956 line-up and ordered a season of episodes. “Circus Boy” made its debut in the US on Sunday, September 23, 1956. While the show did not establish itself as a runaway success, there was enough interest from young people to establish some Circus Boy merchandise and that soon became a mini-boom. Goodies such as Circus Boy puzzles, board games and colouring sets, a lunch box, Halloween costumes, and action figures and puppets. That year Circus Boy promotional toys were found under quite a few American Christmas trees.

Still, the ratings were not quite what NBC had hoped. In the spring of 1957, it was announced that the show would be cancelled, although all the 36 episodes that had been filmed would be run. However, the show was not over yet. ABC announced it would be picking up “Circus Boy” for a second season. While ABC did a fair amount of promotion for the series, it appeared that the show was not going to perform any better for ABC than it had done for NBC the previous year. ABC had made a second season commitment of thirteen episodes and aired all of them by the end of the year.

While the production of “Circus Boy” had ceased, re-runs of the 48 filmed episodes found a home on Saturday morning television much to the delight of the small but loyal fan base and even developing a rather strong fan base in Australia in the late 1960’s, actually during the heyday of the Monkees’.

The series was picked up in 1956 by the BBC who screened it on and off for the next two years. “Circus Boy” might well have been lost to posterity if not for the success that Micky Dolenz had with the Monkees a decade later, and his continuing success as a director and performer in the United States, here in Great Britain and Australia.

At the very least, the show occasional appears on Cable TV helps a few of us to recapture some of the innocence we knew as kids.

Stay in touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

You Write:

Anida Writes:-

The name of the grocers on the corner of Roseberry Ave and Lonsdale Ave was Kinch's, Mr Kinch had two daughters and they ran it together. When Mr Kinch died it was taken over and became Chusan Stores because the man who bought it had worked on the liner 'SS Chusan'!!!!

Martin Writes:-

Miss Burdens christian name was Barbara.............She was gorgeous...........Bob Coulthard and she would met for lunch and smooches in her classroom (one of the old hut room beside scholars walk...........Molly Butler..........the photo does not do her justice........remember her blue hair.............the 58 trip to London was a great trip.......we all had a great time.............Where was Cosham House located....???? on Havant Road close to Drayton..........????............I think it was Andy.....not Danny Williams who recorded and hit number one with Moon River............Cheers for now

School Report.

Web Page from 9 years ago.
Homework

There was a strange period during my 4th year when most homework for some subjects actually ceased and we returned to school for two hours between 17.00 and 19.00 for extra lessons. These lessons had to be at these times so those kids with paper rounds could get their evening deliveries done. This was a very strange system although it was helpful, it was also very frustrating especially when it was a glorious summer evening outside and we were still stuck in school. The reason being that the school had changed examination boards from Oxford to Southern Counties and there were things in the Southern curriculum that we had not covered. So to catch up we had to return in the evenings. We were not told the reason why we just went. In fact it was not until about 6 years ago that Norman Folland told me the reason and that the teachers and the cleaning staff were paid overtime to take the classes. As a concession those of us who attended were allowed to wear non uniform clothes and to eat during these evening classes. I remember diving into the shop on Central Road to buy a cold Steak and Kidney Pie and a cake so I could munch them during those lessons. I don’t really remember having evening classes in all lessons, I remember David Gee taking Religious Education and Bob Coulthard Geography but I don’t remember English or French and Keith Conlon reminded me recently that the was also General Science lessons with Bert Ray. Maybe you remember other lessons in the evenings. Did these classes help? Who knows? But maybe it assisted me passing my 0 levels but it certainly was a very strange system. Although I do know that most of us could not wait for 19.00 so that we could descend on the Chip Shop in Drayton. Peter

News and Views:

Announced on TV recently by Gerry Anderson himself is the news that he is going to make a further ‘Thunderbirds’ film!

On this day 16th January 1960-1965

On 16/01/1960 the number one single was Why - Anthony Newley and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was not listed and the box office smash was North by Northwest. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was US screenwriters plan pay strike.

On 16/01/1961 the number one single was Poetry in Motion - Johnny Tillotson and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Sunday Night at the London Palladium (ATV) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions

On 16/01/1962 the number one single was The Young Ones - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was The Young Ones - Cliff Richard. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 16/01/1963 the number one single was The Next Time/Bachelor Boy - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was West Side Story Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 16/01/1964 the number one single was Glad All Over - Dave Clark Five and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Steptoe & Son (BBC) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 16/01/1965 the number one single was Yeh Yeh - Georgie Fame and the number one album was Beatles For Sale - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page 902

First Picture:

Out on the trail

Second Picture:

Major Seth Adams, Ward Bond.

Wagon Train

One of the most popular programmes of our youth was ‘Wagon Train’ and no self respecting early teenager in the late 1950’s would miss an episode. To us it represented all that was good, happy, exciting and adventurous. The program went out on BBC between 8.00p.m. and 9.00p.m. on a Monday evening, which meant I was allowed to stay up late to watch it with my parents. We sat in total absorption, immersed in the stories of those brave, ordinary and extraordinary people who dared to load a wagon and strike out for the Wild West as they travelled from St. Joseph to Sacramento during the 1860’s.

Wagon Master, Major Seth Adams, was played by Ward Bond. Scout Flint McCullough was Robert Horton and I knew that no matter what terrors, wickedness or evil deeds occurred, these two, together with Frank McGrath as Charlie Wooster, the cook, would ensure that righteousness would triumph and the Wagon Train would get through. Basically, the ‘goodies’ would defeat the ‘baddies’ and the moral message was that good could often redeem evil, or at least, the wicked would get their just desserts!

The events, scenery, characters and heroism, all combined to capture the essence of the West. Though ‘Wagon Train’ was filmed in black and white from 1958 to 1962, when it was extended in length from an hour to an hour and a half for the seventh series it was shot in colour, but for some unknown reason the production company decided to film the eighth series, which was actually the very last series, in black and white. But as we only had a black and white television I only ever saw it in monochrome. The stories, the acting and the realism of the locations was enough for me, colour was not needed!


Like all good drama, this TV Western drew it sources from real life, plays, history and books, which possibly explains its appeal for so long. It ran from 1957 to 1965, with changes in casts, sadly, the death of Ward Bond, in the saddle, on location in Texas, in 1960, which put the production team in a quandary and after much casting around they put Chris Hale (John McIntire) as Wagon Master, most viewers took some persuading but they soon accepted him. The series still told the stories of pioneers travelling through the unsettled territories to reach California. Along the way they still encountered "wild" Indians, cattle rustlers, con men, blizzards in the mountains, shortage of water in the desert and every other hazard you can possibly imagine. The series also often explored the motivations that caused average people to leave civilization for the unknown lives they would find in the Western United States!

For a lot of households in the UK these central characters were like family and friends but by 1965 the wagons had rolled across our screens for the last time and we had moved on to other great TV Westerns, ‘Bonanza’, ‘Rawhide’ and ‘The Virginian’. On hearing the theme music of any of these programmes I am still instantly transported back to those days of the old West. However so many earth-changing events had happened during the heyday of the TV Western that the simplicity of the world of the Wild West was no longer a means of escape.

So, for many reasons, the Western disappeared from TV in the 1970s, but not before it had delivered thousands of hours of entertainment and created millions of fans. Of them all, ‘Wagon Train’ still stands out as the best and most authentic, never mind the fact that certain aspects of history might have undergone imaginative amendment.

Let’s take a look at some of the facts about Wagon Train.

Ward Bond started his acting career when one of his fellow football players at USC got him some work as an "extra". That team mate was John Wayne! Ward Bond's first job was in the 1929 musical "Words and Music". That was also the first movie where John Wayne got listed in the opening credits!
The TV show was not only popular with audiences. Actors and actresses were very easy to get as guest stars. Here are just a few that appeared:- Dan Blocker, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Van Cleef, Chuck Connors, Lou Costello, Bette Davis, Lee Marvin, Agnes Moorehead, Leonard Nimoy, Leslie Nielsen, Ryan O'Neal, Cliff Robertson, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Vaughn and Shelley Winters. One reason why big stars were willing to appear on Wagon Train was that the storylines very often made them the main character. The regular cast members were often given supporting roles while the guest-star became the main focus of the show.

If only life was quite so simple now as it was then! But one scene clearly stays within the memory is Ward Bond standing in the saddle, looking back at the wagon train, raising his arm in the air and calling

“Wagons…….Roll!”


Stay in touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

Willie Writes:-

You are right,without refrigerators food shopping was a daily chore ;
but we did have our corner shop. Does anyone remember Mr. and Mrs. Shaw's tiny shop opposite Solent Road School? It was packed with children at lunchtimes and after school, exchanging their pocket money for halfpenny chews, sherbert dabs and fizzy pop etc. Mr. Shaw bottled the drinks himself, using a strange apparatus that Bert Ray would have been proud of. On Saturday mornings I often did odd jobs for Mr. Shaw. It is difficult to believe now, but I sometimes used to collect his weekly small change for the shop. In the bank in Drayton I would give the man a list of monies and receive small bags bursting with everything from farthings to half crowns. I was no more than ten years old! It was obvious it never occured to Mr Shaw that anything could go wrong........People did things differently then!

News and Views:

Ringo Starr and his wife, actress Barbara Bach, have put their three-bedroom Aspen, Colorado cabin on 16 acres of wooded land on the market for sale. The price? A mere $4.5 million. They have owned the property on the Roaring Fork River for 20 years.

On this day 9th January 1960-1965

On 09/01/1960 the number one single was Why - Anthony Newley and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was not listed and the box office smash was North by Northwest. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 09/01/1961 the number one single was I Love You - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was. The top rated TV show was Emergency Ward 10 (ATV) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Sunday Night at the London Palladium (ATV).

On 09/01/1962 the number one single was Moon River - Danny Williams and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 09/01/1963 the number one single was The Next Time/Bachelor Boy - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was Black & White Minstrel Show - George Mitchell Minstrels. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 09/01/1964 the number one single was I Want to Hold Your hand - The Beatles and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Steptoe & Son (BBC) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Anti-US demonstrations over the Panama Canal.
On 09/01/1965 the number one single was I Feel Fine - The Beatles and the number one album was Beatles For Sale - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page 900

First Picture: A Flit Gun the only defence against the bluebottles!






Second Picture: These have made a come back recently, the Muslin Food Cover.

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone.

I thought that at the start of the New Year, I would look back 60 years to when we were children.

After that there are letters from Peter, Steve and Mary.

Was this the price of two World Wars I wonder? Adults in the 1950's were somehow different. Or at least they seem to have been different. They all looked older, more serious, and they acted in a more adult way. I suppose even young adults look to be old when you are a child and our teachers all looked decidedly ancient! Mind you, we have to take into account that they had gone through two world wars within thirty years, it's no wonder they looked older than the adults of today. But by the time the fifties arrived, things were getting back to normal.

Let’s start with food. Everything was cooked from fresh then. All the meat and vegetables came straight from farm, to shop, to table, with only an occasional tin of something being used. When I say occasional I mean the odd tin of processed peas or baked beans with dinner and a tin of Salmon on special occasions. There wasn't the variety of tinned food in the local shops and supermarkets were yet to make an appearance. Frozen foods were non existent because no-one had a freezer. In fact hardly anyone even had a refrigerator! Things we take for granted now and eat frequently were too expensive back then, because the farming methods differed. There were no factory farms, chicken was a luxury, served only for Sunday dinner periodically. Afters, which we now refer to as dessert, were also a luxury, normally Spotted Dick or home made jam tart with custard. On special occasions we would have tinned peaches with Carnation or Libby’s evaporated milk poured over it. The trouble with all this fresh food and the fact that there were no supermarkets and no fridges and freezers to stock up, was that someone had to run to the shops every time Mum forgot something. It was either go, or get no dinner!

Generations were brought up on bread and scrape, but luckily not ours! The meat dripping from Sunday dinner was always saved. Poured into a pudding basin when hot, it solidified into a thick white mass with brown jelly at the bottom. This was for ‘bread and scrape’. My Grandmother would spread the dripping on bread or toast with a bit of salt and pepper, but this was not for me! Another snack was sugar bread, bread and butter sprinkled with sugar. Terrible for the teeth! All the stale bread was collected during the week and used for bread pudding, real Bread Pudding bulging with raisins and currants. Oh, and Custard went with everything!

Which reminds me of something else that has almost disappeared, the local milkman with his battery operated cart. We still have a milkman but his van is now diesel powered.

I always knew what was for tea on Sunday afternoons. On Saturday morning my Mum and I used to walk into Slapes the Fishmonger in Drayton and buy a quart of cooked shrimps. Sunday tea was very often shrimps with bread and butter followed by tinned fruit and jelly.

Because there were no refrigerators, precautions had to be taken against flies and heat. There were two inventions of the time that most households possessed. The collapsible muslin meat cover, and ‘Flit’. There were no aerosol sprays and this lack of spray cans mean’t that ‘fly papers’ were hanging from the ceilings of most kitchens and were even seen in the butcher’s window. A roll of sticky paper pulled out into a coil (like a spring), covered in dead and dying flies that had been unfortunate to land on it and get stuck fast. One day Dad brought home a ‘Flit Gun’. This was a tin of insecticide mounted on the bottom of what can only be described as a bicycle pump. You pumped the handle as hard as you could and a fine spray of fly killer emerged from the nozzle. The trouble was, that unless you could keep pumping the pressure dropped and the spray became more of a squirt.

The next great gadget was the collapsible muslin food cover, a framework of four metal spokes covered in muslin, with a handle on the top. When you pulled the handle the spokes opened outward and formed a square shaped dome. Any meat left over from the Sunday roast was put on a plate on the table and the muslin umbrella was placed over the top of it to frustrate the flies, who could see the meat, but not get through the muslin.

We never had computer games or battery operated and electronic toys. We did have imagination and the advantage of being able to play real games with real kids in the open air instead of at a computer or games console.

I hope the next paragraphs will give you a chuckle and maybe bring back some memories.

The Marshes and the Hill were favourite play areas for us. Here we made hideouts, gang headquarters, and meeting points. They all had an order of preference depending on what we had chosen to do or what we wanted to be at the time. Cowboys, spacemen, Tarzan, or whatever the current mood was. Where I lived we had such a choice of places to go on our adventures that we never ever got bored. In one way I suppose it's just as well that today's children don't face the playtime dangers that we did, because when I look back at some of the things we got up to I wonder how any of us survived!

First there was the chalk pits and their steep drops or the marshes with its sticky mud. We had the run of the place and here we would recruit a gang, or jump in the puddles, chuck a few stones, or dig a hole. We could do battle against the raiders from Mars but we always knew that Mum’s word was law, unless you were due for a serious word, when it was Dad who took the initiative.
Yours

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com



Peter Writes:
Hi Pete

By the way, do you remember we went to the launching of a naval
frigate at the dockyard. about 1960 I guess. The ship was HMS Nubian and the launching was marked by lots of red faces. The pomp and circumstance, the prayers and hymn,the speech by Lady somebody followed by the smashing of the champage............Then followed by nothing , the ship refused to budge. .......After what seemed an age that has no place in time, it reluctantly started to edge its stern down the slipway and was in no time afloat. I guess your Dad got us the invitations, and , you and I had a morning off school.

Steve Writes:
Hi Peter, you were right about the post deliveries on Christmas day, my Father was a postman in Portsmouth for 35 plus years and he very rarely had Christmas day with us.

There was one treat for us kids of Postmen, the Christmas Post Office party. Here we all had lashings of jelly, cakes, sandwiches etc. And the highlight of the afternoon or evening was the arrival of Father Christmas. I remember the one year when the regular chap who donned the red suit and fluffy beard could not do it for one reason or another. So when it was my Brother's and my turn to sit on Father Christmas's knee prior to collecting our present, it came as a bit of a shock to find out that it was actually our Father!!

Regards and happy New Year to you and all your many readers.
Steve.

Mary Writes:

I can’t say how much I enjoy the weekly bulletins - it’s great! I saw a sight in Fawcett Rd., recently that made me smile. Outside a second hand shop was an old Aladdin paraffin heater. I could remember my parents giving my grandparents one as a special gift and then it was the very latest thing. You could remove the top bit and boil a kettle, which is exactly what my grandparents did when they were snowed in at Catherington. My father was somewhat shocked when they told him that the pipes had frozen and the water for the kettle came from their rubber, hot water bottle! The box for the Aladdin heater was taken by my Uncle Harry who, sometime later, appeared with it full of live chickens which he had decided to give us. He opened the box and for a few minutes chickens were attempting to fly around the room. Like a couple of other families we kept poultry when we lived at Farlington. Oh happy days!


News and Views:

Chuck Berry fell ill an hour into his Chicago concert on January 1st and had to stop the performance twice to be checked over by paramedics. He refused to be taken to a hospital but the concert, already an hour long, never resumed. The 84 year-old left on his own in his limousine. Concertgoers said the performance began to deteriorate after 15 minutes and he began to play only portions of songs at times out-of-rhythm.

The Housing Minister has written to Liverpool's City Council urging a temporary reprieve of the demolition of Ringo Starr's birthplace. A campaign to have the home preserved was rejected by government heritage officials in December saying "the house has no associations with the success of the Beatles as a group, was only lived in by Ringo Starr for four years after his birth and is not architecturally or historically significant enough to match listing criteria." The decision paved the way for the house to be demolished, along with many others in the neighbourhood.

The white suit which John Lennon wore on the cover of the Beatles' "Abbey Road" album brought $46,000 at an auction in Norwalk, Connecticut. A fancy blazer owned by the ex-Beatle sold for $18,000. However, both items together had fetched $120,000 in an auction six years ago. John and Yoko's 1972 Chrysler station wagon sold for a mere $5,500.


On this day 2nd January 1960-1965

On 02/01/1960 the number one single was Starry Eyed - Michael Holliday and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was not listed and the box office smash was North by Northwest. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was Stephanie Baird was beheaded. She was murdered and decapitated at a YWCA hostel and her killer was thought to have escaped by bus.

On 02/01/1961 the number one single was I Love You - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was The Russ Conway Show (ATV) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 02/01/1962 the number one single was Moon River - Danny Williams and the number one album was Another Black & White Minstrell Show - George Mitchell Minstrels. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 02/01/1963 the number one single was Return to Sender - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Black & White Minstrel Show - George Mitchell Minstrels. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.


On 02/01/1964 the number one single was I Want to Hold Your hand - The Beatles and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 02/01/1965 the number one single was I Feel Fine - The Beatles and the number one album was Beatles For Sale - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.