Web Page  No 2152

26^th April 2015                                 

Top Picture: National Benzole Sign

 Middle Picture: State Express 555

 Lower Picture: Coalite Poster

Bottom Picture: Lissett Nylons

Things from the 1950’s that are not around Today.

Recently I was given a Programme from the Festival of Britain, held on the South Bank of the Thames is 1951. Whereas the articles are interesting, I found the advertisements of great nostalgic value. So with the programme on my desk I will take a look at some of the products we no longer see today.

To start with cigarettes: now who remembers State Express 555 (what did the 555 stand for I never did find out? This was a brand that was made by Ardath. Then there was Players Medium and Senior Service plus Craven A, but what did these four brands all have in common? They all sold a range of their cigarettes in round tins of 25’s. Whilst talking about numbers when as lads we decided to try smoking we could buy Weights, Woodbines, Players and Senior Service in little packs of five cigarettes, if you can find a shop keeper to sell them to you. To light there cigarettes the adults needed a Ronson petrol lighter, I suppose you can still buy them somewhere but with the introduction of butane lighters and the disposable lighter the traditional Ronson lighter has disappeared from the counters. Actually the other lighter that became well known in the 1960’s was the Zippo lighter, both were American Products and both were owned by the Zippo Lighter Company. Now there is something that has almost become extinct and that is the Tobacconist shop, these shops such as Finlay’s and Dunhill which specialised in different types of tobacco, cigarettes, pipes and other smoking accessories and for some reason also walking sticks.

Back to the advertisements.

Do you remember the Adonis with the winged hat that was the trade mark of National Benzole petrol?

Now looking at the home environment; in your open fire or all night burner the smart thing to burn was Coalite. This was a brand of low-temperature coke which was used as a smokeless fuel. The title refers to the residue left behind when coal is carbonised at 640 degrees Celsius. It was invented by Thomas Parker in 1904. In 1936 the Smoke Abatement Society awarded its inventor a posthumous gold medal. Coalite was darker and more friable weighed less than coal, making it an ideal fuel for open domestic fire grates. Drawbacks were its tendencies to produce an excessive amount of ash causing our parents with the problem of ash disposal; but it was quick to burn and give off a lot of sulphurous fumes.

Moving on we all used Cussons Imperial Leather soap, Mum had Prestige cooking utensils and knives in the kitchen, while Dad had his His Masters Voice radio, record player and records and at bedtime we drank Ovaltine and Horlicks, Bovril and Nesquik.

Cars such as Riley, Lanchester, Wolsely, Humber and Triumph have all disappeared as have the British motorcycles Francis Barnet, Aerial, Sun, Norton, Matchless and AJS.     

To keep us amused and "out of our parents' hair" many of us were given a variety of board games and maybe a complete games compendium which usually consisted of snakes and ladders, Ludo , tiddlywinks, draughts, Old Maid, Donkey and a pack of cards. Another one of the standard items that every child seemed to have in their toy box was a paint box with little brushes and tiny "blobs" of different-coloured paints each the size of a postage stamp, in separate compartments. Do you remember the brushes in a jam jar of foul-looking liquid that was often knocked over onto the floor ??

 Does anyone remembers a game called "Escalado" (fixed to the dining table you turned a handle to make a sheet of cheap linen "wobble" in order to try and get tin horses to race down the sheet of "linen"?? Another activity which damaged the dining table was "ping-pong,” those metal screw brackets that fastened the net on either side of the table certainly left some very nasty marks and scratches on the surface of the best dining room table.

Another favourite was a Magic Set: a whole box of magic tricks that were so tricky that none of them worked. I remember very clearly a plastic carnation that was pinned to my jumper, and a tube which ran down inside my shirt sleeve to a little "squeezy" bag of water in my pocket.

More standard toys for boys were Dinky Toys, tin soldiers (the new plastic ones were never so good, but at least their heads didn't break off), marbles, conkers and "jacks." The Girls always seemed to be skipping or drawing lines on the footpath and playing hopscotch (I never really got the hang of that game).

But children grow up and as I reached age 13/14, my toys and stamp collection were giving way, by the end of the 1950s anew hobby MUSIC. But that is another story

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

You Write:

News and Views:

On this day 26^th April 1960-1965

On 26/04/1960 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.

26/04/1961 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.

The On 26/04/1962 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 26/04/1963 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 26/04/1964 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 26/04/1965 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 2150

19^th April 2015                                 

Top Picture: Rationing poster

Middle Picture: A Golden Treasury of Bilk LP

Bottom Picture: Washing Boiler

Baby Boomers

We are of that post war era that is affectionately called the Baby Boomers, I myself was not born during the war, but in February 1946 however growing up in those times I still have strong memories of of the events and daily life. How about you?

This was the time of the Ration Book (I have still got mine) and Identity Cards (and I’ve still got that as well!). It must seem very strange to the young mums of today to realise that their mum’s were only be able to shop in the shops they were registered not just anywhere as it is today. I can still remember accompanying my mother to the shops on her daily trip to do the shopping. She had her ration book registered Frank Vine the Butcher and Parry the grocer on the south side of the Havant Road in Farlington and Bannisters the corner shop in Lealand Road. Later on when rationed eased a little she ventured to GA Cooper the pork butcher and Pinks in Drayton and Sidney Slape the fishmonger. I remember Slapes fish shop for three reasons, one buying a pint of cooked shrimps for Sunday tea, two, this is where my mother bought the Whale Meat! I always thought it very strange that she would go to a fishmonger to buy meat. I don’t think we had it very often but I definitely remember her buying and cooking it. The third thing was going in to buy some Rock salmon which she would cook when she got home to feed the cat with. How that fish stunk the house out when it was on the stove. However whatever you ate the most important thing was the ration book this was guarded at home like the crown jewels.

Having a grandmother who lived in central London until 1952 and with my father away with the War Department in Ceylon, every holiday we took the coach from Cosham to London Victoria Coach station, stopping at Hindhead on the way. It is from these visits that I have some vivid memories of bomb sites and all the piles of rubble that went with them along with them, the building sites and hordes of workman all trying very hard to rebuild the capital. That is not to say that I do not remember the bomb sites in Portsmouth and Southsea especially those around Buckland and Commercial Road, I most certainly do.

At home we were fed what was called filling food such as bacon pudding, braized liver and casseroles often followed by jam roly poly or semolina pudding, this meal had to keep us going from lunch to tea time with its bread and butter, Shipham’s Paste and tinned fruit topped with Ideal Milk. Breakfast at the start of the day was always cereals or porridge and very often prunes and/or a  boiled or poached egg but in our house a full fried breakfast was only ever served at weekends.

It appears to me that at that time the average person did not expect as much as the folks do today. Like many of you I remember that things at home were normally very basic. Fitted Carpets and central heating were luxuries as were washing machines (mother always boiled the ‘whites’ in a galvanized bucket she put on the ring on the gas stove and she would never wash woollens in anything other than Dreft!) and dish washers were out of the question as were cars for a long time. To get about we all travelled by train, bus and coach and oh how I hated that terrible roadside café at Hindhead. Does anyone else remember it I wonder? 

When things got a little easier my mother started to buy things from a couple of mail order catalogues which a friend of hers ran. For some reason these catalogues became known as ‘club books’. The whole family would look through the books and I remember that the first LP I ever bought came from the Kay’s of Worcester catalogue and was ‘A Golden Treasury of Bilk’ by the late Acker Bilk, it cost me 21/- and I had to pay 1/- a week to pay it off. This must have been in 1961. So long ago!

There we go again memories mainly from the 1950’s this time

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

You Write:

Jonathon Writes:

A most interesting episode on your Blog. The comments from Griff are particularly revealing. I know my wife Carol was extremely disappointed that she "failed" the 11 plus. She didn't fail anything. She actually ended up going to an excellent school. If as Griff says there were not enough grammar school places and they were being super selective it explains a lot. Also those new Solent Road photographs are very indicative of the skewed demographic of boys and girls. In the one class photo it is 75 % girls. So opening the Southern Grammar School for Boys didn't help them very much did it?? My first car was a Ford Anglia 100, the one before the sloped back window 105. It was a three gear side valved engine with a deadly windscreen wiper system. It was run off the engine vacuum and the faster you went in the rain the slower the wipers went.......who thought that one up. It was such a bad system it failed when I took my first driving test.....unluckily in the rain. Visibility through the screen became so bad that my driving tester pulled on the handbrake and failed me on the spot. 

News and Views:

Ronnie Carroll, a former UK Eurovision contestant who was due to stand in the 2015 general election, has died at the age of 80.

Born in Belfast in 1934, his biggest hit was Roses are Red.

He represented the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1962 and 1963 with Ring-A-Ding Girl and Say Wonderful Things, finishing fourth both times.

Mr Carroll was due to stand as an independent in the election in the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency.

He had previously stood unsuccessfully in elections under the banner of parties such as Make Politicians History.

In the Haltemprice and Howden by-election in 2008, he failed in his mission to get no votes, gaining an almost respectable 29.

Born Ronald Cleghorn, he was married at one stage to That Was The Week That Was star Millicent Martin.

Ronnie Carroll died last Monday following a short illness.

On this day 19^th April 1960-1965

On 19/04/1960 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. The big news story of the day was Brasilia becomes Brazil's new capital.

On 19/04/1961 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.

On 19/04/1962 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 19/04/1963 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 19/04/1964 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 Liberal Party Political Broadcast (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 BBC2 goes on air but is soon blacked out.

On 19/04/1965 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 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 2148

13^th April 2015                                 

Top Picture: Standard 10

Middle Picture: Dormobile Van

Bottom Picture: Triumph Herald with the bonnet open

Car Tales

What was your first car? Can you remember? Mine was a dark blue Standard 10 registration number 9295 BP. Not exactly the peak of comfort or high on the list for street credit but it got to and from my first job. This car was very basic with no fitted radio or windscreen washers, but the fitting of one solved the second problem. I fitted a Wipac pump action windscreen washer and then screwed the pump onto the centre of the dashboard, now this solved the radio problem because I could hang a small transistor by its handle onto the plunger of that pump and then place a portable radio aerial onto the passenger window, it worked most of the time. I owned the car for about two years and it seemed that I spent most of my spare cash on accessories; fog light, spot light, reversing light and wing mirrors, in fact everything that we take for granted on the modern car. My second car was a grey Triumph Herald 186 COU with a 948cc engine, a little better for my street cred this one!

Do you remember the cars like the Zodiac or Zephyr or Cresta which were fitted with a bench front seat which sat three people? Because of the bench seat these vehicles were fitted with a column gear change.  The seats were made either of leather (this was from the top of the range selection) or for the standard car a form of plastic. They both looked fine but one of the big problems was that they were very, very slippery. In those days seat belts were yet to be fitted to most cars so it was almost essential that you carried two front seat passengers whenever you went out, that way the three of you could wedge yourselves in, because if you didn’t every time you took the car around a tight left hand corner you found yourself sliding further and further away from the pedals and steering wheel. 

I never owned one of these cars myself but I do remember driving a Dormobile delivery van when I worked part time in Drayton’s record shop, R.A.Fraser, this was after school at weekends and during the school and college holidays. After I had passed my driving test I was allowed to make deliveries and collection in the company van. This van was the bain of my life! One day I was returning to the shop after making a delivery in Paulsgrove and as I approached the clock roundabout in Cosham I saw an opportunity to pull out into the traffic and onto the roundabout. I pulled away in second gear and swiftly changed up into third gear when I heard an ominous crunch and clatter and the gear lever froze. I limped the van onto Spur Road and looked back and there on the road in the middle of the roundabout was a selection of springs and linkages from the vans gear change mechanism. Whilst I sat there with my foot firmly on the clutch, I dared not turn the engine off, a passing policeman saw my dilemma and kindly stopped the traffic, walked into the road and retrieved the wayward parts. On returning to the van he presented me with the pieces and said that he thought my boss should get the van serviced and repaired as far as I knew it had recently had passed its MOT test but I could have been wrong. Having thanked the constable I then limped the van all the way from Cosham to Drayton stuck in third gear, I can tell you that this certainly caused some hefty traffic jam and Mr Fraser was not best pleased either!

One other car story. For just over a year I worked in Worcester and having just got engaged I would travel back to Portsmouth to see my fiancée, yes it was Pam and yes we are still married. At this time I was driving my second Triumph Herald, do you remember the bonnet on these, rather like the ones on the frog eye Sprites, lifted forward so you could gain complete access to the engine compartment. One fine summers evening about 11.00pm I was travelling along and was happily coming down the steep hill just outside Cheltenham with my headlights full on and somehow both bonnet clips came undone and the bonnet lifted. All of a sudden I was plunged into complete darkness; I could not see a thing, here I was lucky on two counts. One I had the driver’s window open and could lean out just far enough to see a bit of the road ahead and bring the car to a halt. The second bit of luck was that I was the only thing on the road! This really scared me and so the very next day I went to the local Triumph dealer and had lockable bonnet catches fitted and from that day on I never, ever drove the car at night without checking that the bonnet catches were locked. Stay in touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

You Write:

Griff Writes:

Well, that finally settles it I am still as thick as ever. lol    All I can remember about the 11+ exam was that I was scared stiff of it and that a promise of a shiney new bike would not be coming my way and it didn't !

              Mr King's 4th year class at Solent Rd. was not the nicest place to be I would suggest for an 11 year old. Anyone remember undertaking practice paper's?   I certainly don't.  Did we do any class revision?  I know my Dad ran through a few arithmetic problems a week before the 11+ with me.

              It really didn't make a lot of difference really because I found out some information on this 11+ exam from a retired headmaster when I was in my 20's. There was no pass mark for Portsmouth Schools.  The places available were so limited for grammar schools that all they had was a top end limited cut-off point for selection of the really brightest A*  pupils plus a recommendation from their form/head teacher

 Placing's had got so bad Portsmouth Education had the newly built Southern Grammar school opened as quickly as possibly ahead of building schedule and I think I am right in saying it actually opened in the year we all took our 11+.

So after ALL these years does anyone actually care about their status after the 11+?   I certainly don't. We went to a good school that was Manor Court.

News and Views:

On this day 13^th April 1960-1965

On 13/04/1960 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 13/04/1961 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.

On 13/04/1962 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 week was Georges Pompidou becomes French Prime Minister.

On 13/04/1963 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 13/04/1964 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 week was Telstar broadcasts live TV pictures to UK from Japan

On 13/04/1965 the number one single was The Minute You're Gone - Cliff Richard 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 2146

5^th April 2015                                   

Top Picture: Concentration!!!

Middle Picture: Teachers Info Book

Bottom Picture: Remember these terrible questions?

The Eleven Plus

From way back in your memory can you drag forward some of the knowledge that you were expected to have back in the 1950’s when you took the 11 plus exam. Their very name still deeply divides opinion. For some, the Eleven-Plus exams, which determined whether a child would go to a grammar school or the secondary modern, set the educational benchmark. For others, they were hated symbols of a segregated, two-tier schooling system.  So, sharpen your pencil, open your notebook and try the test courtesy of the Daily Mail.

The answers are in the You Write section

GENERAL ENGLISH

1. Make adjectives from these nouns: beauty, slope, glass, friend, doubt, expense, delight, sleep, danger, sport. 

2. Write these lines of poetry in the usual way, putting in capital letters and the correct punctuation: the evening is coming the sun sinks to rest the rooks are all flying straight home to the nest caw says the rook, as he flies overhead it's time little people were going to bed. 

3. Choose the correct word from those in brackets: 

a) She gave the (fare, fair) to the conductor. 

b) I am (confidant, confident) of success. 

c) Why does she (die, dye) her hair? 

d) His sister has (wrote, written) him a letter. 

e) The screw fell off because it was (lose, loose). 

4. Fill in the relative pronoun in the following sentences: 

a) That is the coat .......... my brother took away. 

b) The man to .......... I spoke was very disagreeable. 

c) The boy .......... ball I kicked was offended. 

d) The man .......... does his duty is always brave. 

e) He asked me .......... I intended to do. 

5. Each of the following sentences contains one error. Re-write the sentences correctly: 

a) This is not an Infant's School. 

b) I am told that Tom Jones's brother have won a scholarship. 

c) The bishop and another fellow then entered the hall. 

d) When the dog recognised me it wagged it's tail. 

e) The matter does not concern you or I. 

f) Talking to my friend, the bus passed me. 

COMPREHENSION

Read the following:

'You are old, Father William,' the young man said, 'And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head  -  Do you think, at your age, it is right?' 'In my youth,' Father William replied to his son, 'I feared it might injure the brain; 'But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, 'Why, I do it again and again.' 

'You are old,' said the youth, 'as I mentioned before, 'And have grown most uncommonly fat;  'Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door  -  'Pray, what is the reason of that?' 'In my youth,' said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, 'I kept all my limbs very supple. 'By the use of this ointment  -  one shilling the box  -  'Allow me to send you a couple?'

Now answer these questions:

a) Father William was certainly a queer man. Mention two queer things that he did.

b) When he was young, Father William thought that one of his pranks might do him harm. When he was old, he changed his mind. Why?

c) What does 'incessantly' mean? What is a back-somersault?

d) What does the word 'supple' mean? How did Father William keep supple? Do you keep supple in the same way?

e) What signs of old age did Father William show?

ARITHMETIC

Read the following:

1. 3,755 is multiplied by 25 and the result is divided by 125. Write down the answer.

2. A motorist leaves home at 10.15am and drives at 32 miles per hour. He stops for lunch from noon to 1.45pm and then continues his journey at 30 miles per hour. How many miles has he travelled by 5pm?

3. An aeroplane uses 100 gallons of petrol for a flight of 150 miles. How far could it fly using 40 gallons?

4. Write in figures: twelve thousand and twelve.

5. A race started at 23 minutes past three and finished at 23 minutes to four. How long did it take?

6. Simplify:

a) 1,000 - 10

b) 25 x 12

c) 615 divided by 3

d) 0.5 + 0.75

e) The fractions 4/5 - 7/10

7. Of 800 people living in a village, half are men and half women. A quarter of the men leave the village to join the army. How many more women then men now remain?

8. Multiply 7,296 by 479.

9. Which of these numbers is divisible by 4 without any remainder: 214, 230, 226, 224, 218?

10. Add all the odd numbers between 12 and 20.

GENERAL INTELLIGENCE/KNOWLEDGE

Read the following:

1. The letters ERBDA are just the letters of the word BREAD mixed up. Now, straighten up the following:

a) AAANNB is a fruit which comes from abroad.

b) ROHES is a large animal.

c) GRATEAMR is a girl's name.

d) DWEBORRA is an article of furniture.

e) SAIRINS are used in Christmas puddings.

2. Select and write down one of the answers below which makes the best answer to the following: 

A woman who had fallen into the water was dragged out in a drowning condition by a man, but she did not thank him because:

a) She never felt thankful for small things.

b) She did not know the man well enough.

c) She was feeling better.

d) She was still unconscious.

3. Complete the following by giving words expressing sound and ending in 'ing'.
e.g. the humming of telephone wires.

a) the ................. of leaves

b) the ................. of anvils.

c) the ................. of brakes.

d) the ................. of stairs.

4. In each of the sets of words given below there is one word meaning something rather different from the other three. Find the different word in each line and write it down:

a) alike, same, similar, somewhat.

b) pigeon, duck, goose, swan.

c) bus, conductor, passenger, driver.

d) this, that, the, those.

e) firm, rough, solid, hard.

f) desk, book, cupboard, drawer.

g) spade, earth, sand, gravel.

h) pretty, nice, charm, lovely.

i) justice, merciful, pitying, forgiving.

j) tumbler, cup, mug, jug.

k) fishing, rowing, climbing, swimming.

l) scarlet, blue, red, pink.

m) sewing, cotton, needle, calico.

5. Each of the following sentences here can be made into better sense by interchanging two words. 

Re-write the sentences correctly: E.g. Milk like cats  -  Cats like milk.

a) Our black cat had a retriever with the fight next door.

b) The sea went to the family for a swim.

c) The shepherd whistled by the gate and stood to his dog.

d) A was stung by Joan bee. 

e) Sailors have to climb able to be. 

Stay in touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

You Write:

ANSWERS

You are getting off easily as in addition to the above, students were asked to write essays on subjects as varied as: 'The bravest deed that I know', Eggs, Everest, The Gothic, Queen Salote, The Maoris, and 'What life must be like as a cat'. 

GENERAL ENGLISH

1. beautiful, sloping, glassy, friendly, doubting, expensive, delightful, sleeping, dangerous, sporting/sporty

2. The evening is coming, The sun sinks to rest, The rooks are all flying Straight home to the nest. 'Caw', says the rook, As he flies overhead, 'It's time little people Were going to bed.'

3. a) fare; b) confident; c) dye; d) written; e) loose

4. a) which; b) whom; c) whose; 

5. a) This is not an Infants' School.

b) I am told that Tom Jones's brother has won a scholarship.

c) The bishop and another gentleman then entered the hall.

d) When the dog recognised me it wagged its tail.

e) The matter does not concern you or me.

f) While talking to my friend, the bus passed me.

COMPREHENSION

a) Two queer things that Father William did were to stand on his head and turn a back-somersault at the door. 

b) Father William changed his mind because he is sure he doesn't have a brain to injure. 

c) 'Incessantly' means repeatedly, without relief. A back-somersault is when someone jumps over backwards. 

d) The word 'supple' means flexible. Father William kept supple by using an ointment. 

e) The signs of old age that Father William showed were white hair and growing fat. 

ARITHMETIC

1. 751

2. 153.5 miles

3. 60 miles

4. 12,012

5. 14 minutes

6. a) 990 b) 300 c) 205 d) 1.25 e) 1/10

7. 100 more women

8. 3,494,784

9.224 

10. 64

GENERAL INTELLIGENCE/ KNOWLEDGE

1. a) banana; b) horse; c) Margaret d) wardrobe; e) raisins 

2. The best answer would be d) 

3. a) rustling; b) banging; c) screeching; d) creaking 

4. a) somewhat; b) pigeon; c) bus; d) the; e) rough; f) book; g) spade;  h) charm; i) justice; j) jug; k) climbing; l) blue; m) sewing 

5. a) Our black cat had a fight with the retriever next door. 

b) The family went to the sea for a swim. 

c) The shepherd stood by the gate and whistled to his dog. 

d) Joan was stung by a bee. 

e) Sailors have to be able to climb. 

You Write:

Anida Writes:-

Your piece on South Parade pier certainly stirred the old memory    cells!


The Laughing Policeman is one of my earliest memories and was   guaranteed to make me laugh along with it just as the song did on    'Uncle Mac'.  As for the metal tape machine the one on Ryde pier   has  gone down in family history.  These machines caused an early form of whiteboard blindness rendering an inability to spell, a         friend who shall remain nameless but she knows who she is! earned herself a lifelong nickname from her attempt at her name whilst    waiting for the ferry to take us home after a long hot day on the      beach at Whitecliff Bay.
If you were in the sea near the pier when the ferry arrived the wash was excellent for making the rubber tyre bob up and down!

Much later
we would spend Sunday evenings on the pier listening to the trad    jazz bands, I say listening as we were not allowed to dance and I    was told off on many occasions by the heavies.  It was nowhere      near as good as the 'Rendevous' on the Saturday but as you say, all  the big names were to be seen there.


Sadly I understand the pier, although still standing, is not what it     used to be.

News and Views:

On this day 5^th April 1960-1965

On 10/04/1960 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 The Budget (All Channels) 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 10/04/1961 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 £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 10/04/1962 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.The big news story of the day was Film director Michael Curtiz and ex Beatle Stu Sutcliffe died.

On 10/04/1963 the number one single was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows 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.The big news story of the day was Atomic US submarine sinks killing 129.

On 10/04/1964 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 Labour Party Political Broadcast (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 Beatles have 13 records in US chart.

On 10/04/1965 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.