What it all boils down to is we weren’t mollycoddled !

 

Received an email today that I thought you might like to read, these are not my words but reflect on many occasions the way us pensioners look at things when the world around us gives cause for utter bewilderment in the state we have got ourselves into in this country.

It read something like the following:

Were you born in the 1930’s 1940’s, 50’s or 60’s ?

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos. . . . . 

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.

Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.

We had no childhood lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC, Subway or Nandos. . . . .

Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn’t open on a Sunday, somehow we didn’t starve to death !

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and ON ONE actually died from this.

We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy Toffees, Gobstoppers, Bubble-Gum and some bangers to blow up frogs with.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because . ………..

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING ! !

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day but we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we had forgotten the brakes.

We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii, X-boxes, no video games at all no 900 channels on SKY, No video/dvd films, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet chat rooms . . . . . . . . . BUT !

WE HAD FRIENDS ! and we went outside and found them.

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no Lawsuits from these accidents.

Only girls had pierced ears!

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time ……..

We were given air guns and catapults for our 10^th birthdays, we rode bikes or walked to a friends house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them !

Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes and throw the blackboard rubber at us if they thought we weren’t concentrating . . . . .

We can string sentences together and spell and have proper conversations because of a good, solid three R’s education. Our parents would tell us to ask a stranger to help us cross the road. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. THEY ACTUALLY SIDED WITH THE LAW !

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

 

Thanks for stopping by, please call again.

 

Is it me, or is it getting colder ?

Chiddingstone Kent

The old bones I think are getting soft as age creeps up on me, that wind to me seems more bitter than ever this week. So I don’t want to venture out, my snug little home is too much of an attraction, so I stay indoors and wait for the sunshine, hoping better days are ahead.

The tantalising aroma of freshly baked bread from the kitchen drifts into the lounge and makes my tummy rumble along with that distinctive smell of percolating coffee. Listening to the wind whistling round the eve’s and rustling the trees out the back of where we live, I realised there was a smile on my face this morning as the reflection back to the time when work was the order of the day no matter what the weather was like.

Snuggling down into my favourite armchair, it was time once again to get out my well-worn pencils, to do what I had always hoped I could do when working long hours in the past, those last few years when working I dreamed of the day when retirement came to just sit and sketch some of the fantastic memories of the life I had led, the places I had been to, the people I had been so fortunate to have met and laughed with.

I wanted to jot down the little incidents that I found pleasure in remembering, purely for my own gratification; there are so, so many.

Going through the box of photographs I came across one of Chiddingstone and I remember sitting in the beautiful church grounds one afternoon there, drawing the building opposite next to the Post office, going through my old sketches I found what I had drawn that day. There is a little bit of artistic licence in what I have drawn so I hope the residents of this building can forgive me, but basically it is, how it is, a treasure of our heritage that must be kept for the prosperity and our grandchildren.

But getting back to to day I have been doing a little more to the train drawing of last Wednesday (6^th) it’s a long job but I am enjoying doing it.

Thanks for stopping by, please call again.

p.s. I had thoughts today of another memory of Ellington Park which definitely requires a drawing!

A very pleasurable experience.

Up a little alley, off the beaten track.

Up a little alley hidden away from the hustle and bustle of a busy town, we were escorted back, upon entering the foyer, to a few decades ago; the welcome was obviously genuine, the service of the staff was part of the experience of dining out. We were treated to excellent food and a small tipple, all presented to us in a first class manner from a waiter that discreetly attended to our every need.

I could have stayed there overnight, but instead contented myself to sitting in the window seat to capture a scene of such tranquillity with my pad and pencil, there was no anxious looks from the staff to vacate that seat, in fact they seemed to encourage my activity as the picture took shape, offering to open the curtains wider to let in more light.

I hope you like the end product.

 

Thanks for stopping by, please call again.

Thanks for the memory Michael.

Before the concert in the Bournemouth gardens.

A fine spring evening with the sound of the ocean gently lapping on the shore of the beach a few yards away, we sat on a freshly refurbished bench in the gardens of Bournemouth that had been beautifully planted out with spring flowers, devotedly attended by a couple of very young people who obviously enjoyed their task as they both stood back to admire their afternoons work before packing up.

We were waiting for the concert to start in the B I C behind where we sat. No graffiti to be seen anywhere, not even a sweet paper littering the freshly mown grass, I felt as if I had gone back in time to the Edwardian era as two young ladies strolled towards us obviously waiting like we were for the B S O to treat us to a night of our favourite music.

The elegance, deportment and beauty in their dress was mirrored by many in the gardens that evening; it was strange, I felt part of something very rarely seen these days; I was young again, remembering a time when language, manners and appearance made you feel good and meant everything.

I had thought, many times, it had all disappeared in this material world we live in today, but that night I found a world that was for a few hours, a brief snapshot of the past.

There wasn’t a sketchbook and pencil that night because we both had evening-wear on but the memory of those two young ladies stayed with me, and I have tried to sketch one of them that stood quite close to where we sat as she admired the flowers in the gardens, my thoughts I remember, how lovely, how feminine, what have we lost over time? Her scent mixed with the flowers as she stood there made that evening listening later on to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra playing Strauss so perfect.

 

*********************

 It is not all lost in the past, viewing Michael’s pictures of the Winter Gardens interior brought back memories when the refinery of the ladies in evening dresses and all of us gents in tails and white ties danced to Joe Loss and Ted Heath till the early hours there, these memories of those times I know are for us oldies who lived through a period in the fifties and sixties that was splendid and refined and so graceful. It seems to me living so far away now; at least one of the fine buildings in Thanet has been kept up to the standard I knew it by.

I hear the Blue Danube being played in those beautiful surroundings and see the Viennese Waltz being danced by couples on that enormous dance floor with the chandelier-lights catching the sequins on the ladies dresses, circling round to music that will never ever be lost over time.

Going through the glass doors to the balcony overlooking Margate harbour and into the estuary, was where I had my first real kiss that meant anything, it was I remember to my utter joy, reciprocated, accompanied to the music of a Lilac Waltz that drifted out across the water on a night of a million shining stars, winking at us from up above in the heavens.

Thank you for the memories Michael, so greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks for dropping by, please call again.

 

        

 

Did I go to art school?

Definitely No !

No art college Brian for me, my Dad, bless him, insisted when I was fifteen I had to have a proper job as he would put it. Serve as an apprentice earning a living with responsibility and not dependent on the State in any way.

He taught me perspective and encouraged all of us children to follow a pass time of some kind or another, but to go to art school he considered a ‘cop out’ from the main aim in life for a grown up, he considered that was to provide for his family and children with a proper job.  

My Dad always had encouragement for us all though in what ever we did, with me it was my music, my dancing and also the sketches I did even as a child. Both my parents insisted we all went to church every Sunday which involved choir practice for me, this of coarse introduced me to the choirmaster at that time, his name was Mr Wraight and he played the organ at St Marks church in Pysons Road offering to my parents one day to give me lessons on the piano which Dad found the money for one way or another.

I remember what we all called Wraight’s Alley off Chatham Street (Eagle Hill, you would know it by) he was, I believe the owner or manager of a large coach works down there.

Mr Wraight’s hobby was oil painting, which he carried out in his front room where the piano was. His paintings were unbelievable, I have often wondered as I got older where all his pictures went, but I remember the piano lessons ‘went out the window’ so to speak when he found I was more interested in art than music at that time. So you could say I was schooled by a Master, which he definitely was.

I never told Dad and I don’t think he ever found out that my lessons were taken up with drawing and sketching instead of doing scales on the piano. Ever since those heady days I can’t be without a sketch pad and pencil something my dear wife has learnt to live with, what that truly talented man gave to me as a foundation, has given me so much pleasure over the years adding to my very full life, the relaxation and calmness it creates has given me a peace in times of intense pressure from every day life that only immersion in a subject that needs to be studied gives you.

Thanks for your interest Brian; I hope this explains things a little more.

Thanks for stopping by.

A Sketch in progress

The sketch so far, not finished yet.

Tunbridge Wells Engine sheds (I think 1959 or 1960)

I haven’t finished the sketch, you could say its work in progress, but I did promise to post it this week, so this is as far as I have got and there is quite a lot more to do.

Can anyone suggest a number; I’m not a train buff, but appreciate the engineering needed to construct such magnificent movement and power.

I think it is what was called a ‘Standard Tank’ because many years ago I fired one of these out of Tunbridge Wells down to Brighton in the summer holidays for a few weeks, see photograph, I’m the one on the right at the back without a hat on. The fascination of anything mechanical has always fired my imagination (sorry about the pun) even in those days my sketchpad was in constant use, what ever happened to those sketches I really don’t know but I remember the pad I used being covered in coal dust, I’m sure you can imagine, being a very dirty job my hands were always black, but it didn’t stop me passing many happy hours by the track side drawing what was around me.

Like I have said many times, the memories of those times, were exciting and although hard work, bring only joy to what I have lived through in my life. 

 

Thanks for stopping by. 

 

A much needed project.

Small Faceplate and Banjo

Side View

Underside of Table

Table in situe

Bits I used out of the scrap box

Table Drawing

I have neglected the workshop these past few weeks but now the fine weather is starting to show and spring seems to be in the air, all I want to do is get outside either sketching, gardening or in the workshop with the doors open. The winter pastime of sitting in front of the computer is now relegated to the still dark evenings when the television has nothing to offer, (Friday was an exception to this, wasn’t Brenda exceptional, such a talent, and to think she comes from our hometown, and a few doors away from where I was brought up.) what happens when we turn the clocks back in a few weeks time is anybodies guess.

So, something I have been meaning to do for a long time now has occupied me for the last couple of days out in the workshop, so I must apologise to all for not posting during this time.

Many years ago I was I suppose fortunate enough to purchase an old woodturning machine, in the many years of my working life I had often wondered if I could turn my hand at turning a piece of wood into something of use.

Wandering round a local market one weekend tucked away in the corner of a stall was a very rusty old machine that had obviously been neglected over many years, it was in bits, presumably for easy transportation and now forgotten by the stallholder with piles of books and a lot of other paraphernalia covering it from view. With trepidation, because money was rather tight in those days, I cautiously asked him ‘how much’ and was surprised to hear him say £80 and there were a few chisels to go with it. Bearing in mind I had previously looked at machines on sale and found them to be way out of my reach price wise, the cheapest being in the range of three to four hundred pounds even in those days and dismissed the venture out of hand until I had come up on the pools, or a very distant relation that I hadn’t heard of left me in their will a sum of money.

I remember thanking him and walking away out side to think, ‘where can I get £80 from?’ Needless to say with the help of the little lady in doors we came up with the money and I have never looked back, spending many hours repairing and refurbishing that machine to its former glory to the envy of many since. It was a Myford! Beautifully engineered in the first place to a standard that today is totally unheard of, ‘British Made’ and built to last. But . . . . . . . . . . . .

I soon discovered the accessories needed to complete many of the operations in turning cost more than the machine, this is still the case today with the modern machines on sale and being made in far away countries are not in any way finished to the standard of my old Myford. So I set about making all the bits and chucks to fit my machine, a task that I have enjoyed over many hours, giving satisfaction to a hobby far greater than I could have dreamed of. For those that are in the know, I have even acquired a compound slide that is extremely accurate, some saying that it is cheating, but my lids fit to a thousands of an inch ……every time! Even the chisels I have made, collecting pre war old discarded ones and turning them into whatever shape that I needed at the time, making brand new boxwood handles to a shape that fitted my hands. To say I haven’t bought parts would be wrong and telling porkies, but the first thing I ask myself is ‘Can I make it? And if I can then that is the route I take, keeping my precious savings for a rainy day.

Something that I have been meaning to make for quite a long time now is a small table to fit into the ‘banjo’ on the bed and it had to be accurate. I have an old ‘Picador’ 14” sanding disk with an ancient twin tub motor attached (Pre 1960) that has served me well over all this time, but its big and also heavy kicking up a lot of sawdust so its wise to use it outside because of the dust. Turning a small 3” aluminium faceplate to fit the headstock with a sacrificial hardwood front I found it necessary to have a small table in the ‘banjo’ to hold the work I was sanding, this is the project I have been working on these last couple of days.

Any questions, please feel free to email me. I have included one of my primitive drawings that I made before starting; everything used was out of the scrap box and didn’t cost me a farthing, (that’s old money, the real stuff )   

For those of you that are interested in my sketches, I have started one that is taking me a little longer than normal, and will post it sometime this week when it is finished.

 

Thanks for stopping by.