tomlinson

I'm probably wrong, as usual, but wasn't the gents' hairdresser near the old John Barleycorn pub, Nuthall Rd, a Widdowson?

Dandy, Beano, Radio Fun.

I suppose the the most arduous day trip would be that one featured in the old Audie Murphy film, 'To Hull And Back'.

I was in a shoe shop a while back with the wife who was trying on shoes. As usual it was a long job so I sat down myself. I then noticed another woman standing on one leg trying on shoes herself, so I offered her my chair. Her companion, her mother I think, said, "No, you stay there. She's younger than you." I 'brained' her on the spot. Other signs of age; after diagnoses by the doctor, he/she ends his/her comments with " ------- for a man of your age" and I appreciate a comment by Bruce Willis who said, "You know you're getting old when hair grows where you don't want it".

Didn't half hurt when you set them off with a finger nail though!

One good thing I have found about getting old is the humour of it all. The realisation that the 'machine' is running down and finding the results ironic and at times comical! Another is the ability to savour the enjoyable and rewarding past and linger over the pleasurable present. The one sad thing? In the world today, not wishing to be young again.

Fairy Nuff for working on the National Elf Service. (Puns old and intentional). It's this or Media Studies I suppose.

Send your bank details and I'll do a transfer.

And if there was fluff under the bed, 'Somebody's coming or going'.

Full moon. Turn your money over.

Hand written letters. (Not many anyway)

Having thought a bit more of this, I remember what I think was my first book. It was one of those thick card publications for children and was about two coal miners, appropriately enough. What has always stuck in my mind is a picture of them having breakfast. Bacon and two eggs each!!! A luxury of the time!

True. I somehow recall I'd given up smoking a pipe and sarted having gin with the orange juice!

Of all the memories that you have about anything, which are the earliest? I remember being chased, in fun, by my mother on Tunstall Crescent, Aspley, and wondering how it was she could run faster than me without effort. I also remember being at the 'clinic', Aspley Lane, for Clinic Orange Juice. Lovely stuff it was too!

If it was raining heavily, we'd say it was 'sileing/seiling' it down, which I was interested to find is in the dictionary as dialect. Whose I wonder?

Men also wore 'winkle pickers' and I'm told that a copper once asked a lad if his toes went all the way to the end of his shoes. The lad asked the copper if his head went all the way to the top of his helmet.

The TBI was also a good venue for jazz in the 50/60s.

My sister, who still lives in Nottingham, uses one one I hadn't heard before. 'To-do-ment', meaning a fuss.

'Mardy' was another one I haven't heard for ages, meaning childish, petulant.

I understand the difficulty. How about some film titles. 'A Bridge Too Far?'

Must have been a yank out on the pull!

In the early fifties when times were particularly hard, I often heard the phrase, 'We'll all end up in the workhouse', which seemed to show them to be a still recent memory. Not so long ago I mentioned this to a doctor who said, 'Yes, and they still exist but under another name'. Hmmmm!

Going further down the road, away from the Trent Bridge end but on the same side as the Slipper, there was another pub which featured a trio/quartet which was so bad it was brilliant. It was like something from a Goon Show. No offence to anyone who may have been a part of it!

#1140 Thanks for taking the trouble I should have taken myself. At the time I heard the expression used I was very small and noisy myself!

If there was a row going on, it sounded like, 'Billy Ball's Tap Room', whatever that was.