Memories

My dad used to drive buses from Ponders End garage on the 69 route between Camberwell Green and Wormley, the Queens Head.

The bus had an outside staircase and an open drivers cab, he was frozen during the winter months.

The bus was made by AEC, a photo of a model is attached.

In the summer of 1943 I was camping with 1155 squadron of the Air Training Corps at RAF Harwell airbase.

Four US Air Force B17s came in together one day Heavily damaged after a sortie. The names of the planes I remember to this day: Ruptured Duck, L'il Abner, Impatient Virgin and Oklahoma Okie.

The planes cam straight in coming to a halt beside the tower where ambulances were waiting for the injured. I believe there was a possible fatality.

The Festival of Britain opened in London and the rest of Britain officially on the 3rd May 1951.

We went to the South Bank in London shortly after the festival opened, there was thousands of people, it was packed.

We saw the Skylon and photographed it from directly underneath where there was a mark on the floor. This gave you a direct view from underneath looking upwards.

My first school was St Patrick's just around the corner from Cameron Street where I used to live, but that closed (I think) just after my first year.

We were moved to St Columbas School on Walney Island which was a little further to travel. I was given a penny a day for the bus but always walked, spending the penny on sweets.

In my formative years in the 1950's I was a good catholic boy serving at the altar at St Patrick's church in Barrow-in-Furness.

I used to get up and assist as an altar boy during early morning mass which was attended by Vickers Armstrong's shipyard workers on their way into work.

When I was young I remember spending at least two summers at Pontins Middleton Tower near Morecambe in Lancashire. The main building was designed to look like an ocean-going liner and was called the SS Berengaria.

I remember it was the most liberating place, I could wander around to my hearts content, there was plenty to do.

I can remember mostly though, spending time in the amusement arcade, looking for pennies and spending them in machines that sent metal balls bouncing around. The grand prize for getting the ball in the right hole was your penny back and another go.

The Beatles released their first single "Love Me Do" in the UK on the 5th October 1962.

The Beatles single "Please Please Me" reached number one in the UK on the 22nd February 1963

On the 22nd March 1963 The Beatles released their first album "Please Please Me" in the UK.

My second year of secondary school was spent at Ulverston Grammar School because the family had moved out to Swarthmoor just outside Ulverston. I used to walk to school in the beautiful countryside; took me ages.

I joined Edmonton Grammar School in my third year of secondary school after moving from Ulverston Grammar School in Lancashire in 1966.

Since it was my third secondary school in as many years I was relieved to be able to get down to some serious school work for the next few years, well try anyway.....

A couple of years after the 1966 World Cup, I had a friend at Edmonton  School called Roger whose dad had a large stockpile of World Cup Willy badges left over from the World Cup.

He said they were being kept for a rainy day when they would be worth their weight in gold. 

I wonder where they are today, being sold on ebay?

On the 2nd march 1969 Concorde, an Anglo-French plane, took off from Toulouse for a short flight.

The pilot, Andre Turcat, said "Finally the big bird flies, and I can say now that it flies pretty well".

The Boeing 747, the world's first "jumbo jet", enters commercial service for launch customer Pan American Airways with its maiden voyage from John F Kennedy International Airport to London Heathrow Airport. 

 During my sixth form at Edmonton County I do remember spending an awful lot of time playing Solo Whist. It seemed to have been a bit of a compulsion amongst us. I think it was JS who encouraged us to skip PE and learn whist.

I remember props and cops, going a bundle and other esoteric terms (I've never found out whether they were the correct words).

TR would go out and fetch us chips from the chippie down the road. It was very good of him, he had probably the first motor scooter amongst us.

Although not the actual car I owned, because we didn't have cameras in those days, the photo shows what a Ford Anglia Estate looked like.

The Ford Anglia was THE car to have as a young bloke but, unfortunately, the estate version was not. But, it was cheap at £75 fully taxed.

I drove Dave K in it well out into the countryside until we ran out of petrol. The petrol guage said half full of course, but alas it was at best optimistic.

Rolls-Royce goes bankrupt and is nationalised. 

A new stock marked index called the Nasdaq debuts.

The United Kingdom and Ireland both switch to decimal currency.

Anti-British riots take place throughout Ireland. The British Embassy in Dublin is burned to the ground, along with several other British-owned businesses.

The British Army kills 14 unarmed nationalist civil rights marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland.

The Government declares a state of emergency over a miners' strike.

The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union.

The pilot episode of the longest-running comedy series in the world, Last of the Summer Wine, is broadcast.

Skived off work for a day and had to have an excuse to give to dad - went to the RAF careers office somewhere near Aldwych in London and six weeks later I was boarding a train for RAF Spitalgate in Lincolnshire and square bashing for six weeks. Never regret it

I worked at Owners Services Ltd during the 1970s firstly as a operator on their IBM 370 mainframe, and then as the Systems Programmer.

I had taught myself the IBM assembler language during long nights on shift and tried my hand writing a Star Trek game. 

One night I ran the game on the console of the machine and got rather carried away. It just so happened that some of the holiday costing programs failed that night, and the next day the post-mortem began. The programmers couldn't find their error messages on the log since it was covered in short range scans and phaser bursts!

I thought I was in deep s**t with the boss Peter W, but instead he offered me the job as Systems Programmer, for which I am eternally grateful!

Mind you, he sure got work out of me, I used to spend weekends on this machine with it all to myself! Thinking back, I probably drove the company into the ground because of the electricity bills!

One of my favourite television programs at this time was Blake's Seven, real sci-fi escapist stuff.

My particular favourite was Servalan, the woman that was Supreme Commander of the Terran Federation. Dressed in black leather she looked a real dominatrix.

I remember my Amstrad with a green screen, playing games like Tony Daley's Decathlon and programming BASIC. The tape noises used to freak me out a bit, particularly if it stopped loading and the screen was blank...

I was 4 at the time..!

Pan Am flight 103 was destroyed by a bomb mid flight killing 243 passengers and 16 crew members. Fragments of the plane came down over the town of Lockerbie in Scotland killing 11 people.

A Libyan was convicted of the bombing and served imprisonment in Scotland.

Baring Bank was brought down by the dealings of a Rogue Trader, Nick Leeson .

The trades were made on the Singapore Monetary Exchange during 1992-1994, culminating in a short straddle across the Singapore and Tokyo exchanges betting that the markets would not move overnight.

Unfortunately the Kobe earthquake struck early in the morning of the 17th January 1995 sending Asian markets into a tailspin.

Leeson left a note saying simply "I'm Sorry" and fled Singapore. Baring was made insolvent 26th February 1995.

I took a concorde flight with British Airways whilst I was working for a certain US Bank. They had a special offer at the time, flight out by concorde, back by 747.

The cabin was surprisingly cramped, the noise was terrifying, and there was no movie since the journey time to NY was too short!

I was also surprised, that when we left the UK coast westwards, that the pilot opened the throttles up and I got the same sensation of acceleration as I got when we first moved on the runway, a big kick in the back!

The first novel in what was to become a seven-part series by J K Rowling was released.

The second novel of J K Rowling's series of Harry Potter books, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was released.

I was on a Project Management course somewhere out in deepest St Albans. We were doing a group exercise on something or other in the library of the fine old building we were in.

I noticed someone familiar (from the tele) sitting in the corner with what looked like a journalist, and as they both got up to leave, I intercepted them and shook hands with Nick Leeson.

He autographed my course notes with the ironic words "Good Luck, Nick Leeson".

 I guess this was sometime in 1999 after his release from prison.

The third novel of the Harry Potter series by J K Rowling was released.

I actually quite enjoyed working for Woolworths when I was 16. Worked on the tills for a while and quite enjoyed it. Best thing to do though was to work on the shopfloor on Saturdays, helping customers, and hiding in stockrooms.

We used to have walkie talkies which were great fun, particularly when playing the cuddly toy voices down the mic to everybody working, and the customers on the tills..!

Song: Daft Punk - One More Time. We used to listen to this over and over on a Friday when stocking up.

The fourth novel of the Harry Potter series by J K Rowling was released.

Large parts of England and Wales were hit by an earthquake measuring 4.8 on the Richter scale.

Buildings shook for up to 30 seconds in parts of the West Midlands, Wales, North Yorkshire, London, and Wiltshire.

I remember being at the top of the house around midnight when the whole house shook. Considering there was complete silence, it was completely surreal having never felt anything like it.

The house shook pretty hard: I thought an aeroplane was about to hit the house...

Yes, I remember the earthquake very well, after all it doesn't happen too many times in ones lifetime in this part of the world.

I was sitting up in bed, watching the television, very late. I felt this very strange lateral motion, a kind of swaying from side to side.

My wife was asleep, so I woke her and said we've just had an earthquake. She mumbled something, so I let her sleep on.

I went upstairs to my son who was playing computer games and he looked a little shocked!

The fifth novel of the Harry Potter series by J K Rowling was released.

Myself and Chris had a great day out watching Spurs play at Chelsea by means of corporate hospitality. We were treated like VIPs, free food and drink and a great view of the game.

Spurs lost 4-2 but it didn't spoil the day.

The Airbus A380 manufactured by the European corporation Airbus, and the largest passenger airliner in the world, made its maiden flight on 27 April 2005 from Toulouse France. Singapore Airlines was destined to became its first customer. 

On the 6th July 2005 London was awarded the honour of hosting the 2012 Olympics by the International Olympic Committee.

I remember watching the result on television, sure that Paris was going to get the games. In fact, I remember thinking that a London-Paris bid would have been good.

I was very pleasantly surprised when they announced that London had got it, the television showed everyone jumping for joy in Trafalgar Square.

One of my many visits to Carcassonne in the Languedoc in France. It has this wonderful medieval castle dating from the 13th Century or thereabouts.

Carcassonne is in the land of the Cathars with oodles of history.

Iraq's former leader, Saddam Hussein, was hanged in northern Baghdad for crimes against humanity.

The seventh and last novel of the Harry Potter series by J K Rowling was released.

Northern Rock PLC was officially transferred to state ownership Feb 22nd 2008, five months after the global credit crisis felled Britain's fifth largest mortgage lender and sparked the nation's first bank run in more than 150 years.

At the end of the runway, we waited, not long,

And then the two engines, burnt into song,

We gathered momentum not like a jet,

But graceful, and slowlyl, till airspeed was met.

Up from the tarmac we flew purposely,

To fly cross the midlands, Warwick castle to see.

My mind wandered back to years far gone by,

To Vienna, where kept these old planes in the sky.

We flew them to Belgrade and Budapest,

To Sofia, the U.K, and Bucharest.

Oh how the memories came flooding by,

I sat there with many a tear in my eye.

Not with fright or of fear, but the joy I'd been given,

By a wonderful present from Glenda and Stephen.

After administrators failed to find a buyer for the troubled company, Woolworths closed 200 stores for the last time.

Glen, Steve, Chris, Becky and I,

Went to Biggin Hill, to see the show in the sky.

Up lanes long and narrow, to see

the team red of arrow, and the

delta wing vulcan fly by.

Spitfires and hurricanes a lancaster too,

Gliders and biplanes and a MesserSchmitt flew.

Noise was abundant and the air full of cheers,

but Chris found it hard on his poor old ears.

Back to the car park all full to the brim,

down through the lanes so narrow and dim.

Then on the way home I thought with a sigh

What a lovely day out for you four and I

England beat Australia at Lords for the first time in 75 years to win the Ashes.

Me and Bex went on our first 'luxurious' holiday together to Mauritius. It was unforgettable. Crystal clear water, amazing reefs, white sand, amazing spas, amazing room looking towards the beach.

Would love to go back.

The world's largest, most powerful particle accelerator went into action today, the 30th March 2010 opening up a new era in the hunt for new particles.

The LHC is based in Cern, the European Nuclear Research Organisation, on the outskirts of Geneva.

Previous attempts prior to this date have resulted in damage or lowered achieved energy levels.

The volcano Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland erupted causing airspace in North-West Europe to close with major airline disruption for 6 days.

Had a really great day out with the horses at Julie's horse sanctuary on Walney Island with the family.

The weather was very hot, we did some real work with building fences to contain one of the more hyper-active/randy ones, "Blaze", and we had a lovely time with the little shetlands.

The photo is of my mum with her adopted shetland.

Me and Bex went with James and Ellie to Crete.

Went for some drinks in the sun early evening with Alex. Cool bars and cocktails. Had 1 too many and was rather ill when I got home - Bex looked after me... Long Island Ice tea's are not good!