Oxbridge and ex-Public School staff ran our school on Public School lines – as closely as one could for a day school. We had PT every day, vaulting over boxes, doing running somersaults, walking the high beam and everything one can imagine doing in a fully equipped gymnasium, including a shower afterwards. We played seasonal… Continue reading Secondary School Part 1
Month: February 2007
Glenlea And The Doodle-bug
My mother was living in a house called Glenlea in Dulwich. It was a huge house standing within its own grounds and had been taken over by whatever Department of the War Office was responsible for receiving, training and returning Dutch escapees from German occupied Holland, who wished to become saboteurs and Resistance Fighters. A… Continue reading Glenlea And The Doodle-bug
Social Mores And Comic History
Social Mores. I have previously written about religion, but this spate of worldwide brutality and lawlessness, causes me not only to take a wider view of religion but relate it to some extent to our current problems. I wrote that I had been an interested believer until I was rudely awakened. At which point I… Continue reading Social Mores And Comic History
The Big Bang and a view of Edinbourgh
The Big Bang I relate this because afterwards I found the incident in a way, rather funny, and contrary to all I had been led to believe about the imperturbability of the Navy in a crisis. We were sitting at lunch in the Chiefs’ and POs’ Mess. The table ran fore and aft of the… Continue reading The Big Bang and a view of Edinbourgh
The Era Of Cycle Accidents
I am accident prone and wont to make snap decisions. At fourteen I bought my first bicycle, second-hand, for a pound, and learned to ride it. It was a heavy, characterless brute, with only one gear. A month later I went on my first real journey, to visit an aunt. She was out, so I… Continue reading The Era Of Cycle Accidents
The 30s, I write, You compare Part 3
Snobbery & Transport In the 30’s the middle class had aspirations of, if perhaps not ‘ectually’ moving up a class, perhaps being accepted as an appendage to the upper classes. This involved display, like a cock pheasant in the spring, only it was even more prevalent among the females who were the prime movers, having… Continue reading The 30s, I write, You compare Part 3
Empire Day and the LCC
When we first heard the King’s speech on the wireless, it was really a celebration of the Empire and its reinforcement, tightening the ties. My first recollection of Empire Day, although I know it was celebrated in most schools in England, was when it was celebrated in Livingstone. Unsurprisingly it was a ‘great day’, which… Continue reading Empire Day and the LCC
The New Industry Has Gone Crazy
Still on the Blog, the piece I entitled New Industry, can currently be read under October. I now am forced to comment yet again, due to the passage of time and what I believe to be the rubbish that is being talked. I Start with David Attenborough’s apocalyptic programme. Some three weeks ago on TV,… Continue reading The New Industry Has Gone Crazy
Taking Responsibility
I’m not sure if irresponsibility has exactly the same connotation as not taking responsibility or indeed negligence. I propose to assume they do. Banking. On Tuesday the sixth of February, Watchdog on BBC1, TV, presented a piece which irrefutably showed that some major Banks are considering that if money is withdrawn, using a valid pin… Continue reading Taking Responsibility
In Praise of a Lost Art
The making of a ‘Prick’ of tobacco. The ration was supplied in leaf form, as the name implied, with stalks and all, and I intended to turn this mass of dried cabbage into a plug of tobacco, which could challenge any in a tobacconists shop. Just writing that has made me realise there are few… Continue reading In Praise of a Lost Art