firbeck

Mk 2 Golf GTI, it was amazing, and courtesy of my ex wife's advertising company, all free as far as I was concerned. Red with every extra, possibly an unadmitted bit of Thatcherism, but that was life in Essex 30 years ago. Went up to see my brother once, going on the Kimberley by pass some cluckheads in a Ford Escort decided to try and wind me up, no chance, two fingers and 125 mph, but, they tried it on. Slammed the amazing brakes at the Eastwood Junction, hopefully the youths ended up in the canal.

I recall our German teacher was a Miss Scott, Mr Green taught Russian. For those of us who were good at French in year1, we were given two options in year 2, either Russian or German. I chose the latter, the alphabet was the same as ours and I thought it would be helpfull to be able to watch the plethora of 1960's war films without having to resort to the subtitles. It also proved interesting 10 or so years ago when I went on a business trip to Bavaria, the look on their faces in a bar when I started to reply in German was very amusing. Nice people the Germans, lovely country too esp

Yeah, to quote, ' He f***** off quick' an expression we all used to use .

Mate, the world seems to have to survive on mobile phones! Tomorrow I catch the train for a few days in Kidderminster with my ex BGS girlfiend from 45 years ago, we are going to attempt to climb the Clee Hills on Saturday!! But that isn't the point, catch the Tube or any train or go anywhere and people are just obsessed with their phones, they stumble along pavements, talk in cars 'Big Time'', sit on a train these days and people are just obsessed with phones, sod that, too much to see and contemplate out the window of the train, has the world gone mad, have people completely lost their i

Just stop the pathetic, useless morons benefits, but then the system doesn't work like that, it punishes the innocents, I know from experience. Anyone driving around Bullwell, if they see him and think they can get away with it, drive up the pavement and, well, do the world a favour.

If anyone is interested in seeing Flying Scotsman and Tornado in action on the Severn Valley Railway this last weekend, just Google 'Flying Scotsman at the Severn Valley Railway'. FS was teamed up with the 9 coach LNER teak train, it needed to be in LNER colours to look right; but it did in a sense. Some of the footage is a bit crap , but persevere. I'm off to Kiddy in a couple of days, perhaps FS and Tornado will still be lurking somewhere. By the way, the bar at the SVR terminus is fantastic, I'll get off the London Midland/GWR train at Kiddy and wander over the carpark for a pint

I feel very guilty about starting this topic, but, well, somebody was inevitably going to do it. I think Mick does an amazing job, I'm quite happy to make a donation, I didn't realise how much it personally cost him. Yes the new format is cool, still a few issues though! Waking up early this morning I picked up the thread on Barton buses, well it was 4:00am, couldn't really concentrate on that superb video. Decided to have a look when more compus mentis, it ain't there, things appear then vanish, sure I can hunt for it, but.................

I regularly travel up to the West Midlands by Chiltern Rail from Marylebone, now the centre of travel to Birmingham Snow Hill and Moor Street rather than Paddington. Ex GCR Marylebone is probably the nicest of London termini, very small and laid back. Chiltern Rail trains are really smart compared to the crap we have to endure in East Anglia. I was amazed at my first journey up there to note that Banbury still had lower quadrant semiphores and GWR signal boxes. On my last journey 3 weeks ago, these had all gone, replaced by colour light signals. Interestingly, I travelled from Kidd

Went into Marks and Spencers on my way home from work at B&Q this evening. Went to buy myself a bottle of their lovely cloudy lemonade, couldn't find it, why, because their shelves had been stocked up with Christmas stuff! It's September for Christ's sake, last week we were experiencing temperatures of 34C down here in Essex, has the world gone mad, no, just exploitation by the corporates. I gather B&Q will be receiving their Xmas stuff in a couple of weeks, that'll be nice!!

I recall at Firbeck Junior, the evil head who I'm convinced was a paedophile, I'll not mention any names. Then when she thankfully left she was replaced by Mr Lomas, he could be a strange bloke at times, his form of 'Capital Punishment' was a slap on the legs in front of the whole school, clearly it was just an act of humiliation, I don't recall him being proud of what he had to do. At BGS you had to do something really serious to get the cane, Harry Peake used to have one on clear view in his room, but in my 7 years at the school, I hardly ever visited the Heads room probably only 2 or 3

Did you realise it was more or less a biography of J G Ballards early life, the book is a stunning read.

Empire of the Sun, a young Christian Bale, the attack on the Japanese airfield. 'Horsepower, P51, Cadillac of the skies, I can taste the oil and cordite in my mouth.........etc What a scene, the P51 pilot doing the wing waggling slow flypast was the late lamented Ray Hannah of Duxford fame, Plantfit will know who I mean.

TBI, what years were you at Mundella, did you know my brother John Truman, a great bloke, known as Truzz, his little 'organisation' of pals were known as Fuzz, Buzz and Truzz.

I saved everything up for our last athletics day grading at the end of the fifth form, I took most people apart in every event, my sports teacher was astonished, serve him right, his words at parents meetings were that Peter was uncoordinated and dissenteressed, proved him wrong.

The trouble with school athletics and sport at school generally was that if you were good at anything you lost your Saturday off to get involved in school sporting activities. I wasn't having any of that, I was such a busy person outside of school, so many adventures to be had!! Besides as I said on my BGS ramblings, there was an elitsm at the school, if you were good at rugby, you were assumed to be good at everything else.

I call this ageism!! Getting old, sure, but a few months ago, by chance, I got back together with my first love who was at BGS, we hadn't seen each other for 45 years. We've both had incredible life experiences over the years, but that initial spark between us has remaind somehow. We've just spent a long weekend together, we climbed the 1300ft high Malvern Hills, listened to a violin duet play Bach in Hereford Cathedral, had fun.Old age for me now is one of adventure and new horizons, I look forward to a new life ahead.

I come on here, find a recent topic then it vanishes. I was just about to reply to a new topic about getting old, got interrupted by an incoming text message, go back to Nottstalgia and the thread has gone, where to? and not knowing the exact title I can't find it again. Also had PM's that mean nothing to me and tracking them down comes to nothing. What the hell is going on, what was the point of changing the old format, that was easy to read and had continuity, this system seems to have a random format with topics just going off into the ether. It doesn't work for me and noting a me

Yes, I went to see Judi Dench as Joan of Arc, have the programme somewhere. The most memorable performance I saw was probably the Hollywood actor Robert Ryan playing the role of Othello at the Playhouse, he delivered his lines as if he was in his usual role as a cowboy gunslinger!!! I went to so many performances at the Theatre Royal and the Playhouse, I can't remember them all, I recall a show at the Theatre involving Harry Seacombe and Jimmy Clitheroe hitting each other with fish while being drenched with buckets of water, then Lonnie Donegan as Buttons in a panto doing his stuff at the

Yes they did, I drove one on batteries when I was involved with the Trolley Bus Museum many years ago.

I've been looking back at some of these posts, quite interesting to reflect on teachers and pupils. I recall Mr Beardsworth the school caretaker, he was always in the boiler room playing poker with his assistants and swearing profusely, Bilbraborn and I used to peer through the boiler room windows and listen in! Wasn't the boiler room under the changing rooms.

I remember Mr Bristow as being a nice bloke, he never taught me but I recall after I left Portsmouth Poly without completing the course, I needed a reference for the architects company I was about to join. I phoned up BGS and Bristow happened to be the new head. The next day there was a knock on the door and there he was, he handed me an envelope containing a glowing reference and wished me good luck, Williams would probably have ignored it.

Did that turn up as there was no mention on their website.

Wow, this is a very heavy thread, I recall going to see 2001 at the Odeon with my friend who was out of his head on 'acid' LSD to the unitiated. It was a very confused experience. I have the film on DVD and find it somewhat overblown and overlong, I find it uncomfortable to watch, a true child of the 60's, an attempt to be sooooo profound, at what cost! My favourite and possibly the best ever science fiction film is the directors cut of 'Blade Runner', based on the book 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep'. Awesome film, Roy's release of the dove at the end of the film was, well, amazing

We have a lovely arboretum in Braintree, the warden lives in a Victorian house on site and many volunteers wade in to help. There is a cafe etc, etc, even a kingfisher lurking round the pond. What has happened to all the birds in the managerie up there, haven't been for years.

The Bluebell Railway is in Sussex, not far from London and with the biggest collection of steam locos outside of the NRM, and their rolling stock is pretty awsome and of the correct period and place, why go all the way to Scotland to film the trains and get it wrong. The BBC must have thousands of of employees, clearly not a railway historian and looking at the dickheads on those railway programmes last week, they haven't a clue.