Smoke Tests

Smoke Test No 1. Today inspection and testing has become remote, highly technical, and mostly computer driven. In my Dark Ages every thing was hands on, mucky and tediously prolonged. Pipes are now checked with robots and cameras. I have always found it strange that smoke really does issue from a sewer up through the… Continue reading Smoke Tests

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A Minor Diversion and the TOPO

During the 50’s we owned a series of cars but the most idiosyncratic was, without doubt, the Morris Minor 1000. Sitting with the driving seat fully back I found my knees were somewhere near my chin, so the matter of using the clutch caused my knee to make the little signal arm come out and… Continue reading A Minor Diversion and the TOPO

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Stealing

Shoplifting I have great sympathy for those who have absentmindedly taken something and walked out of the shop, only to be nailed. I have walked into the street many times with a book, a birthday card, you name it, unpaid for. The interest in other products I didn’t buy in the end, distracted me and… Continue reading Stealing

The First day Afloat

Travelling since early morning, provided with food vouchers, eating on the run was difficult. The trains were full, and one spent the journey uncomfortably seated on a suitcase, while guarding a small case and kit bag, with a hammock in the guard’s van, At big junctions there were barrows selling sandwiches and tea and there… Continue reading The First day Afloat

Victoria Falls

In the then Northern Rhodesia. On film today it is certainly majestic, but to see the immensity, the rush of water, hear the noise and feel the constant rain of the spray in those simple, uncluttered days, is an unforgettable lifetime’s experience. We had an enormous American car, called an Overlander, with a soft, collapsible… Continue reading Victoria Falls

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The 30s, I write, You Compare

Life and Standards I have always believed that until 1939. when Hitler mucked up the world and in Britain it has never been the same, the period from ’35 to ’39, when our economy was steadily improving and we had emerged from the austerity of WW1, was the most equable and relaxed time in our… Continue reading The 30s, I write, You Compare

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Trials of Parenthood

Being unemployed at any time is not funny and in ’46 I had been unemployed for three months, and any resources I might have had had gone. I worked to reach a standard for the university entrance exam, and then I became a student on an ex-service grant of ?200 a year. I think if… Continue reading Trials of Parenthood

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Old Ned

My in-laws were generous and kind, and any member of their extended family in trouble was welcome. So it was when Ned came to stay, permanently. Ned was both a character and a knowing old devil. In his late eighties when I first met him, tall, stooped, severely rheumatic, lame and rheumy of eye, he… Continue reading Old Ned

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Sex & Child Abuse

I often wonder if young people, with shiny new degrees lecturing us on TV, in dictatorial terms, with such conviction, have really had any experience of the problems they are allegedly solving. I have met a number of those problems head on, at a time when they were not thought to be so. From the… Continue reading Sex & Child Abuse