Web Page  No 2258

29th April 2016

Top Picture: Pulley for the Washing Line

Second Picture: All Sorts of Pegs

Third Picture: Remember the annoyance when the washing prop fell down on the muddy lawn?

The Washing Line

I remember waking up one sunny Saturday morning when I was about seven or eight years old (I know it was a Saturday because I was not at school and my Dad was home) and there in the driveway alongside the house was a long pole, very similar in shape and size to a telegraph pole. Where it came from I have no idea and I do not know even to this day, all I know was that it was not there the previous evening when I was called in from playing and went to bed. On finding my father in the garden I discovered that this miraculously appearing pole was to be our new clothes pole; our existing one was a short, rotten  wartime thing which was only about six foot high, but this new one to me seemed enormous.

As we already had the metal fixings in the ground up the garden and a couple of anchoring points on the wall at the back of the house, it seemed everything was ready to erect this magnificent new pole, but how were we to move it. The answer was simple because my father had already asked Harold next door and his son in law Roger, who lived with them to lend a hand. I can see them now heaving this large pole along the side of the house and across the lawn to lie in front of the metal fixings. However that was the easy part, there was some wood work to be done first before the new pole could be erected. Firstly the old pole had to be taken down, the washing line disconnected and the two large rusty bolts which acted as a pivot and fixing point removed after much use of oil and sweat. Then the fun really began. A hole had to be drilled in the post for both the two bolts to go though and another one half way up the pole for the clothes line pulley to go through and as this was to be a two line clothes line, another hole drilled right at the top for a second pulley. At this period of time no one had an electric drill the holes all had to be bored out by hand with a bit and brace. ( I still have that brace). My father and his two helpers took turns in using the brace and bit.

I seem to remember this took up most of the morning and that tea and sandwiches suddenly appeared for lunch, brought out into the garden by my mother and grandmother.

My father did his early training as a radio engineer starting with Martin’s just beyond the level crossing gates at Cosham and latterly with HMV and so decided that the top of this pole would make the ideal situation for our radio aerial (it was too early for us to have TV this did not come into our house until 1956) and he set to work with cables, wires and insulators to give us the finest aerial in the area. It actually worked very well when it was in position but it still did not stop Radio Luxembourg from fading at regular annoying intervals.

Having installed the radio works and cables all was ready for the pulleys to be roped up and the pole erected. So with much heaving, pushing and sweating, the hammering of pivot bolts and the pulling of ropes the new clothes pole slowly and majestically rose into the air. The strange thing is that my father must have borrowed a ladder to fix the rope through the pulley’s  high up on the house wall but I have no memory of this whatsoever, what is even stranger is that my Dad never owned a ladder so he must have borrowed it from somewhere, I know not where.

My mother was delighted with her new two level clothes lines which meant that the sheets she had washed could be hung out full length to dry which must have made things a lot easier for her.

As far as I and my friends were concerned this new pole was a marvellous play thing, it was home base in tag games and  especially when mother had no washing hanging on the line and we were playing pirates, it was a great place to run up my home made Jolly Roger to let all and sundry know that there were pirates about.

Keep in touch

Peter

gsseditor@gmail.com

You Write:

News and Views:

On this day 29^th April 1960-1965

On 29/04/1960 the number one single was Do you Mind - Anthony Newley and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Wagon Train (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. 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 29/04/1961 the number one single was Wooden Heart - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada) 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 29/04/1962 the number one single was Wonderful Land - The Shadows 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 29/04/1963 the number one single was How Do You Do It? - Gerry & the Pacemakers and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) 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 29/04/1964 the number one single was A World Without Love - Peter & Gordon 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 29/04/1965 the number one single was Ticket to Ride - The Beatles and the number one album was Rolling Stones Number 2 - The Rolling Stones. 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  No 2256

22nd April 2016
Have you got your copy of the new book on Drayton yet?

Top Picture: Knitting pattern for boys swimming suit

Second Picture: Knitting pattern for girls swimming suit and cardigan.

 Third Picture: Advertisement for Aero Knitting Needles

Forth Picture: Baldwin & Walker wool advert

Knitting

Two of the major interests of my mother and grandmother in our household when I was a child were Whist Drives and knitting. My mother would attend at least two afternoon Whist Drives a week in either the Scout Hut or the Drayton Institute whereas my grandmother would find at least two other Whist Drives in the evenings, maybe in the Carlton Club or some other venue.  I have indelibly printed on my brain a vision of groups of elderly ladies (there were very few men, if any) all sat round card tables studying their cards. They all seemed to have removed their outdoor coats but every lady still wore her hat, that never came off and plus they all seemed to carry enormous clip topped handbags!

But the major female interest in our house was knitting and there always seemed to be a ball of wool, a pattern and a pair of knitting needles in every room I went into, not that my mother ever used a pattern very often she could just look at something and work out how to knit it in her head. My grandmother was also an avid knitter and at one time undertook some crochet work, dressing table sets etc but luckily this did not last, I did not want a pair of pink crocheted gloves!

Our house seemed to be filled with knitted hot water bottle covers, scarves and gloves, tea cosies and balaclavas, jumpers and cardigans, hats and socks, it was almost like a production line and when an item had outlived its usefulness it was carefully unpicked, the wool washed and dried and then made into skeins which were then rolled up ready to be used again. I expect that most of us, especially during our infant years, can remember being made to wear a multi-coloured jumper or sweater made up from the recovered wool from many different items and being told that, ‘it is good enough for you to play in!’

The real problem came when mother decided to knit you a bathing costume. Mine was in maroon and looked very smart when dry but as I expect you all found out once they got wet it was disaster time. The wool became sodden and wet and retained vast amounts of water and it was a relatively common sight to see a child stand up in the sea or swimming pool and the knitted bathing costume ending up embarrassingly around their ankles.

My mothers and grandmothers supply of wool came from a tiny wool shop in Drayton situated in a private house on the south side of the Havant Road near to Nappers the ironmongers and next door to Mr Levy the tailor. The shop was really just the front room and hallway of a lady called Mrs Moffatt. The counter was in a small conservatory attached to the front of the house and to a child’s eyes the whole of the shop was always stacked from floor to ceiling with wool of all sorts, knitting needles in various colours and sizes, patterns, the little row counters which were slipped onto the top of the needles and other such knitting apparatus most of which I never figured out what they were. A visit to this shop was always amazing. My mother would go in and reserve a number of balls of wool from one particular dye batch, these balls were then put into a paper bag and labelled so when my mother came to collect each ball she paid for it as she took it. Mrs Moffatt always seemed to know exactly what wool my mother had reserved and she always knew exactly where to find the right bag in the myriad of bags of wool stored all over the shop, how she did it never ceased to amaze.

One other thing that puzzled me was how my mother managed to control all those knitting needles when she was knitting socks. It all seemed impossible to me. I did learn to knit as a child but very badly, all I really mastered was French Knitting.

Needlework in our house was not very common nor was embroidery, in fact the only time the sewing box came out was to repair something, sew on a button, put patches on dads elbows or to trim the worn cuffs with leather. I have known my mother ‘turn’ a collar or put a sheet ‘sides to middle’ but this was unusual. The busiest demand on the sewing box was for the mushroom and darning wool to repair a hole in dad’s socks.

 Keep in touch

Peter

gsseditor@gmail.com

You Write:

News and Views:

On this day 22^nd April 1960-1965

On 22/04/1960 the number one single was My Old Man's a Dustman - Lonnie Donegan and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Armchair Theatre (ABC) and the box office smash was Psycho. 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 22/04/1961 the number one single was Wooden Heart - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada) 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 22/04/1962 the number one single was Wonderful Land - The Shadows 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 22/04/1963 the number one single was How Do You Do It? - Gerry & the Pacemakers and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) 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 22/04/1965 the number one single was Ticket to Ride - The Beatles and the number one album was Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. 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  No 2254

15th April 2016

Top Picture: Peter Pan in Hyde Park

 Second Picture: Bluebell Dell

Third Picture: John Bull Magazine

Forth Picture: Duradio Paint Poster

The Second Part of Drayton Revisited 'Drayton Memories' is now available. Same price as the last one £3.00 + £1.25pp

Those were the Days

In our house my Grandmother was the Matriarch as my father was away from 1951 until 1954 and when he returned she had moved in and was really set in her ways. She smoked socially, normally only at home or at Whist Drives, drank Guinness but only at home and did most of the cooking. She had taken over the second largest bedroom in the house and had moved in with some of her furniture from London, she lived in the Lodge on Hyde Park Corner. She brought with her an Aspidistra stand and no plant, an enormous wardrobe and bed and a very chunky dressing table. On the walls were pictures she had in the Lodge, the Peter Pan statue and a Bluebell dell. She had a collection of hats, some for shopping, some for going to the Whist Drives and some for going out, but that was not all, she also brought with here a couple of fox fir stoles and these hung in her wardrobe and their false eyes peered at you whenever she opened the door. 

When she moved in life changed, to start with there was always a smell of Lily of the Valley when she passed, there always had to be an ashtray in every room and noisy play was banned as ‘nice children always played quietly’. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my Gran but when she arrived things certainly changed.

This got me to thinking about other things that had changed in that period of time and the things that have disappeared.  When was the last time you saw Bluebell metal polish, Cardinal Red for the grate and Blacking for the kitchen stove and bedroom fireplaces or Sunlight and Fairy bars of soap or soap flakes for the delicate washing or even dubbin for your football boots. My first pair of boots were the old fashioned heavy brown ones which had to be broken in, a very uncomfortable business. But then in came the black and white continental, low cut boot which every boy wanted, but I had to wait until my birthday before we marched along to Mr Smith’s shoe shop in Drayton and bought me a pair.

I also desperately wanted a pair of roller skates, these I had one Christmas while my father was away but I think my mother did not know what she was buying because I ended up being the only lad in our group with roller skates with metal wheels, everyone else had rubber ones which were quiet, me you could hear coming from miles away!

I mentioned bedroom fireplaces my parents room and my grandmothers room both had small open fireplaces but I never ever remember them being lit. I had the smallest bedroom and there was only just room for a bed and wardrobe, no room anywhere for a fire place. None of the rooms had fitted carpets, they were things of the future, but all rooms had either a square carpet of large rugs on the floor and around the edge lino was laid and sometimes even that was painted with lino paint. Now there is something else you never see any more, lino paint.

Home DIY had just started to become popular as my father came home and he manfully tackled painting the ceilings with distemper, I seem to remember that it went everywhere. Long disappeared brands of glass paint were used, brands such as Brolac, Household and Duradio, I assume that they were all absorbed into the Dulux brand. The other thing was to paint the door thresholds with Darkaline which was advertises as being so easy to use that ‘even a woman could use it’, I cannot see that phrase going down today!!!

There were so many other things Mansion Floor Polish, Iron on Patches for the elbows of Dads jacket, the Chimney Imp which you were supposed to place up the chimney set fire to it and it would blow down all the soot, we never used it we always had the sweep come in. Dabit off spot remover, Airwick air fresheners, Vim and Ajax all of which had a distinctive smell of their own.

Finally if you wished to stay up to date and read about what the best families in England were doing, you settled down with the latest edition of the magazine John Bull.

.

Keep in touch

Peter

gsseditor@gmail.com

You Write:

 A poem by Bett

Hey, Mr Dopson,

I wanted to say, thanks

You taught me clause analysis

Before, I'd had paralysis

When subdividing sentences

And analysing clauses

With parentheses and pauses

And meaningful construction

For which I had no deduction

Of the reason for the phrasing

My eyes would oft start glazing

Then a miracle occurred

You used your coloured chalk

To underline your talk

And I followed every word

So thanks.

Bett

News and Views:

On this day 15^th April 1960-1965

On 15/04/1960 the number one single was My Old Man's a Dustman - Lonnie Donegan and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Wagon Train (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. 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 15/04/1961 the number one single was Wooden Heart - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was The Budget (All Channels) 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 Bay of Pigs landings in Cuba.

On 15/04/1962 the number one single was Wonderful Land - The Shadows 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 15/04/1963 the number one single was How Do You Do It? - Gerry & the Pacemakers and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the 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 15/04/1964 the number one single was Can't Buy Me Love - The Beatles and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was The Budget (All Channels) 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 Shea Stadium opens in New York.

On 15/04/1965 the number one single was The Minute You're Gone - Cliff Richard and the number one album was Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. 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  No 2252

8th April 2016

Firstly welcome to Janet Sealey who has just joined us and would like to be in touch with old school friends.

On the side are are some pics from today at The George

Top Picture: Barley Sugars.

 Second Picture: Melon Slices

 Third Picture: Gob Stoppers

 Fourth Picture: Caramac

Sweets

Remember your childhood sweetshop and the trip into the tuck shop with your pocket money?  In these shops there were the shelves of colourful boiled sweets... and they were great places to spend your money.

And then there were all those sweets to chew - in our sweetshop they used to be in boxes and tubs on the counter... and under the counter too.  Some were wrapped ( like Black Jacks and Fruit Salads), some were bars (Highland Toffee), tubes (Opal Fruits and Chewits) and others were unwrapped (shrimps and milk teeth), half penny chews and flying saucers.  And then of course there were bubblegums aplenty... destined to end up stuck to your face as you attempted your biggest bubble ever... only for it to puncture and deflate from your nose to your chin.

Also there were the other types of unusual chews, things like strawberry bootlaces, chewy fruity tongues and pencils in a range of fruit flavours.

There were traditional gums in a variety of colours and flavours.   On the more traditional side you had the slabs of jaw-breaking toffees  both creamy, treacle and liquorice flavours, there were chocolate coated toffees (both plain and milk), eclair toffees with chocolate inside the creamy toffee... and also toffee with nuts and/or raisins. Do you remember the toffee tray made by Sharps which came with its own little hammer. This was too expensive for us, it was an item that was either bought by Mum or Dad or given as a gift!

No childhood sweetshop, nor any self-respecting confectionery store today would be complete without such classics as Jelly Babies and Liquorice Allsorts.  

If it's chewy or boiled, it was. Mouth-watering so here are a few that I remember I expect you can remember lots of others!

Barley Sugar

Barley Sugar - a rich, sweet, soothing boiled sweet, and what a classic! The taste is so comforting - it reminds us of bygone days , those were the days! For a time these were passed around on aircraft to prevent airsickness, I have no idea of how it was supposed to suppress that malady!

Sour Melon Slices

Sour Melon Slices - fruity slices of melon... they start of quite sour, then become fizzy, ending in a juicy melon chew.  No one I ever liked much!

Aniseed Balls

Just had to suck them down to the white pip in the middle. What excitement it was to know that in your trouser pocket there lurked a small white paper bag with, what was left of a quarter of aniseed balls in it!

Cherry Wheels

Think Catherine Wheels (you know the coils of liquorice with one of the dotty liquorice allsorts or a liquorice torpedo in the middle) meets strawberry bootlaces meets cherry... and you had a cherry wheel.

Acid Drops

Acid Drops a traditional favourite. A refreshing, mouth-watering sour boiled sweet.

Fizzers

Fizzers - real old school little fizzy sweets – these came out before the better known Refreshers and Love Hearts!

Caramac

Nothing tastes quite like the rich golden creaminess of a Caramac! Who can forget the distinctive red and yellow wrapper but more to the point, who can forget that lovely caramelly, melt-in-the-mouth taste? People think it disappeared years ago, but Caramac lives on still but takes some hunting out

Cinder Toffee

Cinder Toffee - light, crisp, bubbly, sugary traditional sweet - delicious! Also know as puff candy or honeycomb! Great stuff.

Love Hearts

Love Hearts - The making (or breaking) of many a childhood romance. The messages may have changed a bit over the years, I understand that there is now one that says Fax me and another that sayes Text me.  

.

Barratts Shrimps

Barratts Shrimps - raspberry flavour soft, chewy crustaceans. No other shrimp came even close to a Barratts shrimp. These are definitely one of the definitive nostalgic, childhood sweets... one of the ones that almost everyone includes when they take a mental trip back to their childhood sweetshop and list off the sweets they loved then. Were you a 'let your shrimp melt on your tongue' person?  Or did you just 'chomp and chew' yours? I was a chomper!

Gobstoppers

Good old fashioned gobstoppers - layer after layer of hard suckable sweet - and no bubblegum centre in sight! A traditional favourite which just went on and on and are still in production.

But no matter what sweets we chewed on we were always told that they were no good for your teeth!

 Keep in touch

Peter

gsseditor@gmail.com

You Write:

News and Views:

On this day 8^th April 1960-1965

On 08/04/1960 the number one single was My Old Man's a Dustman - Lonnie Donegan and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Wagon Train (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £10.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions. The big news story of the day was Stirling Moss loses his driving licence.

On 08/04/1961 the number one single was Wooden Heart - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Labour Party Political Broadcast (all channels) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £10.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 08/04/1962 the number one single was Wonderful Land - The Shadows and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was The Budget (All Channels) 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 08/04/1963 the number one single was How Do You Do It? - Gerry & the Pacemakers and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the 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 08/04/1964 the number one single was Can't Buy Me Love - The Beatles and the number one album was With the Beatles - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was The Budget (All Channels) 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 Sidney Poitier wins first 'Black' Oscar

On 08/04/1965 the number one single was Concrete & Clay - Unit 4 Plus 2 and the number one album was Rolling Stones Number 2 - The Rolling Stones. 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  No 2250

1^st April 2016

Hope to see a lot of you on Thursday at noon in The George

Top and Second Picture: Hilsea Miniature Railway

 Pictures three, four and five all show the Southsea system

Bottom Picture: Diesel haulage at Southsea.

Miniature Railways in Portsmouth/

 There were two on Portsea Island and here is a bit about both of them.

The Hilsea Miniature Railway

The Hilsea Miniature Railway was a 10^1/₄" gauge system built by Louis Hathaway of Reading in 1945 but within a very short space  of time of opening the track was lifted for use at the already established Southsea system and new track laid by Leonard Baker & Robert Bryden. In 1947 the track extended so that it ran from beside Hilsea Lido along seaward promenade towards a terminus just short of Alexandra Park. Their one locomotive was built by David Curwen Ltd number 1547 and weighed 2 ^1/₂ tons and was painted Apple green based on the LNER Pacific express locomotive Robin Hood. In 1950 new track was laid by W Botterill of Nassington but the recepts were low and the line did not reopen for the 1951 season and W Botterill asked to remove the track and locomotive to Drayton Manor Railway near Tamworth.

I never remember riding on this little line but I do remember seeing the track bed and platform edges along with three bridges over the line that were still in situ in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Southsea Miniature Railway

This line was much earlier and opened 1932 at Children's Corner on the Esplanade at Southsea For most of its history the line was run by Mr George Vimpany of Bognor who owned the Southern Miniature Railway Company. He who also ran three other lines on the South Coast including the one at Stokes Bay, one at Bognor and one in Poole. The final passenger train ran in October 1989, and now all traces of the line have totally disappeared. The first diesel train ran on the line in 1960 but I have been unable to find out any information regarding it. But I am glad to tell you that the steam locomotives which hauled the trains for over thirty years are still running. After the Southsea Railway and the Bognor Regis circuits were dismantled (the Stokes Bay line only lasted for 1 complete season and everything was moved down to Poole)  the locomotives – Victory, Vanguard and Valiant – were bought with the intention of rebuilding and using them elsewhere. This did not happen and the locomotives were carefully dismantled, packed and stored in wooden boxes. Then several years later along came Stuart Ravell, who owns the Kirby Green Light Railway in Lincolnshire and he purchased the locomotives in 1990 and rebuilt them. He has a 1 ^½ mile track running around his land which he opens to the public about five times a year for charity. Mr Ravell does not charge for the rides but encourages people to make a donation to charity and in so doing the railway has raised thousands of pounds for deserving causes. So I am informed that the former Southsea locomotives are all still in fine fettle and working.

I have many happy memories of riding on this railway especially when my family went for a Sunday walk along Southsea Seafront, I even have photographs of it! I also remember spending many happy hours floating about in the motorboats which chugged their way round a specially constructed lagoon right next door to the line. I must have cost my parents a fortune in fares!

Keep in touch

Peter

gsseditor@gmail.com

You Write:


Douglas babies

March 1946: the first national maternity survey

In 1946 a survey of all the mothers who gave birth in the first week in March in England, Wales and Scotland was undertaken to learn about the social and economic costs of childbearing. Health visitors visited the mother at home to ask about her ante-natal and post-natal care and about the family's social and economic circumstances, the baby's weight and their survival during infancy was followed up.

Concern over the falling birth rate and the health of the population were reasons why the survey was undertaken. As it turned out that this was the beginning of the post war baby boom. Information was also needed to help assess how efficiency of  midwives and obstetric services, both in preventing infant deaths and in promoting the health of mothers and infants. The survey found that not all mothers had access to pain relief in labour and this led to changes to allow midwives to administer gas and air. The survey also found that 26 in every 1000 babies died within the first month after birth. In 1946 babies born to mothers in the poorest economic circumstances weighed less at birth and were almost 4 times more likely to die in infancy than babies born to the most economically advantaged mothers.

This was the first group of people in the UK to live most of their lives with access to a National Health Service (NHS), which was created in 1948.

Dr James Douglas who was responsible for the survey was able to obtain funding to follow up 5362 of the babies. The first follow-ups, at 2 and 4 years, were designed to study growth and health in relation to social and economic circumstances and care. Between 6 and 31 years there were 15 follow-ups. The study found, for example, that for children with similar test scores, the children from more advantaged homes were more likely to pass the 11+ and be offered a grammar school place than the children from less advantaged homes.

In adolescence and young adulthood the study was particularly concerned with how education, childhood health and the home environment shaped future choices in occupation and respiratory disease. The study found that members who, as infants, had experienced chest illness or had lived in crowded homes were more likely to suffer from respiratory symptoms and chest illness in their twenties.

Now all the survivors are 70 and have received a special  birthday card from the Foundation.

Were you a Douglas Child? I missed becoming one by one day as I was born on 28^th February 1946 

On this day 1^st April 1960-1965

On 01/04/1960 the number one single was My Old Man's a Dustman - Lonnie Donegan and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Wagon Train (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. 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 01/04/1961 the number one single was Wooden Heart - Elvis Presley and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) 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 01/04/1962 the number one single was Wonderful Land - The Shadows 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. The big news story of the day was First military satellite TV broadcast.

On 01/04/1963 the number one single was Foot Tapper - The Shadows and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. The top rated TV show was The Budget (All Channels) 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 01/04/1964 the number one single was Can't Buy Me Love - 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. The big news story of the day was British troops in Cyprus fist fights.

On 01/04/1965 the number one single was The Last Time - Rolling Stones and the number one album was Rolling Stones Number 2 - The Rolling Stones. 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.