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Showing content with the highest reputation on 04/21/2023 in all areas

  1. 30 years ago a friend of mine was flying in a light aircraft with a friend on a special mission to take a liver to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for transplant surgery. They were quite close to their destination when the engine failed, it was pitch black and about midnight. All they thought of was to find somewhere without lights to get down ‘safely’. Unfortunately they came down in the Forth. They had to swim quite a distance to the banks and Royal Navy divers recovered the sealed box containing the liver. Both pilots survived the ordeal and the transplant patient made a good recovery.
    3 points
  2. Phil’s narrow escape with a weir bought to mind my dice with death. A work colleague was into micro light flying so I went to watch him one weekend. He had only a single seat ‘kite’ but another fellow had a much more sophisticated craft which looked like an actual plane but very lightweight with tubular construction and not much covering but tandem seats and I was offered a place. We took off and started to climb but after 30 seconds the engine died. The pilot turned and we dropped back to terra firmer clearing a hedge by a whisker. The head came of the Rotax 2 stroke twin and one of the pisto
    3 points
  3. Tub butter was a favourite with my mother. She wouldn't have the word 'margarine' uttered in the house! Not even for cooking/baking purposes. I well remember sitting in my push chair, watching Norman who kept the grocery shop at the bottom of the road patting butter into shape with two wooden paddles and then wrapping it in greaseproof paper. Same with cheese, cut from a large block with a cheesewire. No shrinkwrap in sight. Lovely smells, too.
    2 points
  4. I knew Ferryman very well, long before my flying days. He was an old acquaintance of my father. He once had a crane hire business where they were lifting the John Player launch into the Trent at Gunthorpe and they dropped it from height onto the bank! We had our wedding reception at his pub, the Springfield, on the Epperstone bypass, just after he had converted his house into a pub. He used to fly a helicopter from his back field using petrol from beer barrels he filled at the nearby garage. He was the instructor who sent me on my first night solo with the reassuring words ‘I’m too f*****g sca
    1 point
  5. Sounds like Carry on Nurse.
    1 point
  6. Having just taken off we weren’t very high Phil so there wasn’t much chance to pick a spot. I’m 6 foot tall and back then just over 14 stone and it was a very tight squeeze to get in the craft and the thought of having to get out quickly was concerning. However you’re right. If you walk away it’s all good. Your first solo sounds interesting. I’d love to learn to fly but my pockets aren’t deep enough. I used to go up with Gordon Ferryman occasionally who I believe you knew.
    1 point
  7. We will have to call you CAT mayfield it looks like you have nine lives for sure.
    1 point
  8. We always said ‘any landing you can walk away from is a good landing!’ A large chunk of the private pilots’ practical course is to practice forced landings after an engine failure (obviously you don’t switch it off but just close the throttle to tick over) It’s not too difficult during daylight to find a suitable field but when you’re doing a night rating you’re told to aim for a spot where there’s no sign of any lights and hope for the best! On my first night solo I was in the airfield circuit when the engine blew a gasket and started to sound rough. Drinks all round in the club bar that n
    1 point
  9. Danish Tub Butter came in Barrels to Marsdens.....weighing 112 lbs or 2 'Firkins'' Firkin heavy too. when we carried them from a lorry to the shop cellars...to keep the butter cool......
    1 point
  10. For those of you who would like to know what happened to Marsdens and Farrands.......they were taken over by this company in the North-east......late 60s
    1 point
  11. Seeing the various lights in these posts reminded me of another old thread about paraffin parking lights which were used for on-street parking. My dad had one which had to be filled and put out every night. https://nottstalgia.com/forums/topic/2959-the-parking-light-thing/?tab=comments#comment-26192
    1 point
  12. I hang my head in shame. I don’t know why I’d turned the fuel tap off in the first place. My fellow sailor was also a pilot!
    1 point
  13. Who proof reads, these days? Come to that, who can spell correctly? I'm appalled by the basic mistakes to be found on the BBC website nowadays. Clearly, no one proof reads their work. Spelling is abysmal. Often, the writer doesn't know the difference between there and their or as and has. A major culprit is 'benefitted' which is always being trotted out. As for the correct use of an apostrophe... No cha'nce.
    1 point
  14. Aren't you going to also tell us that the lady in the foreground is Beryl who you took to the Palais in 1962 ?
    1 point
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