EileenH

If you actually get to sleep all right and you feel well when you wake perhaps it isn`t insomnia. Perhaps you`re getting the sleep your body needs. I must say I`m impressed at your activity when you do get up. You must have a pristine house! The thing is with housework - you can dust and polish and scrub and sweep and have everything looking great and six months later it all needs doing again! Tchah!

I read the number of planes wrong there. I read it as over six hundred and eighty thousand jumbo jets in the air! Crikey! Lorra jets. Then I realised that 747 was the type of plane. Dim old me. Still, lorra jets, eh?

Oh, I see what you mean. I suppose being restricted to rails makes them a bit inflexible in terms of routes. Can`t really be diverted to where the busiest places are or away from road problems can they?

Aren`t they very good? I`ve never been on one.

Cunning eh? They`re the best kind of plans. Whooooo! Can`t wait!

So that`s the fountain! And the view behind it just as I remember from my childhood. That could almost be me crossing the road with me Mam!

Fascinating! Thank you for this! There`s the number 40 trolley that whisked us up Wilford Road to town! I remember the destination board read, "Wells Road" and there it is at the end of the line. If we wanted to go to Woolies etc we asked for 'The Fountain'. Sometimes wondered why there wasn`t actually a fountain there. Ee - `appy days!

When our car needed its first MOT my OH foolishly took it to the main dealer where he`d bought it less than a year previously. They failed it on a brakes thing with a mega-expensive repair to be done. When Derek asked how it`d deteriorated so much when they`d sold it as perfect and he did such low mileage they assured him that he hadn`t done ENOUGH mileage to ensure that the brakes remained in good condition. Eh? We didn`t go there again.

This is very sad. I lived in Calverton at one time and loved to go into Arnold to the shops and market. Most people from out of Arnold would go on the bus, though, rather than drive. So the carparking charge would be an issue. (Going back thirty years though)

Gosh yes! I was watching a man throwing a stick for his dog on the park when the dog misjudged his catch and took the stick end-on down his throat! Blood? It was choking in it! A chap in a car stopped for him and they whisked him to the vet. Often wonder how it went on.

Crikey! Do you have to pay? We had the council round last year and they did it for nothing! At least, I didn`t pay anything - - -

The local council should be able to deal with a wasp nest. Contact the Environmental Health Dept and they`ll let you know.

Great place! And, as I`ve recalled before, when the Twist came out we weren`t allowed to do it because the movements were too sexy! There`d be a tap on the shoulder and, "Now then, stop that!"

I went to see The Blackboard Jungle at the Bonington in Arnold but the door staff wouldn`t let anybody in who looked as though they`d get up and jive in the aisles. Only 'mature' couples and families could get in. Swizz! As for the Beatles at the Odeon. I saw them when they were ostensibly supporting the Big O but of course they were huge by the time the concert came on. It was a great night that ended in tears. At the beginning of the night many of us handed in autograph books and albums at the box office hoping for autographs. This was customary! At the end of the show hundreds of us cro

37581 and I can remember when the co-op on Wilford Road, the medders, went 'self service' in the early 50s when I was about 9. I couldn`t understand how you could serve yourself without people nicking stuff. When you went in you handed your shopping bag/basket over a counter. This was put into a sort of cage and you were given a wire basket to get your shopping. Then you brought your stuff back to the counter, paid, and swapped back to your own bag.

There must have been a mad sweeping and cleaning session after our Saturday afternoon sessions to get the place clean for the evening shows. I don`t remember carefully putting sweet papers and crisp packets in my pocket to take home. We would wade through inches-deep drifts of rubbish to get out. And I bet many a skirt/trouser seat would be stuck on a blob of unnoticed chewing gum.

We used to go to the Imperial on Wilford Road (the medders)in the 40/50s. There`d be a cartoon, a feature film - usually a western - a regular showing of a silent film from the cinema`s stock - usually Charlie Chaplin - and a cliff hanging serial. There`d be much shouting, swapping seats and throwing of orange peel and other small missiles. Heroes were cheered, villains were booed and any suggestion of smooching was greeted by hooting and 'yeuk'ing. It started as the 'Tuppenny rush' but went up to threepence in the early 50s.

M2M, Were those pictures of your father? Was that a quote from him?

Oh! I didn`t know that. At least, I`d vaguely heard of the pipeline but it`s seldom mentioned in news/discussion progs. That makes things horribly clearer.

Yes, Poohbear. I hear what you`re saying about money spent on the war machine. I can never understand how things like the Air Ambulance and the Lifeboat service can be charity funded! The world is just FULL of stuff that I don`t understand.

I must admit that this is a war that I don`t understand. Why are we there? Who are we fighting? The USA funded and armed the Taliban when they were fighting the Russians, didn`t they? Presumably the 'Taliban' are Afghans? How do the 'Allies' know who they`re fighting? Do the 'Taliban' just melt away into the villages and hills when they`re not Talibaning? If we don`t know what the aims and objectives of the war are, how will we know when we`ve 'won'? And if there was, for example, a horrible set of British nasties in England and the Afghans and Pakistanis came across to bash them for u

Loppylugs - I was so sorry to hear of the loss of your dear friend. Have you thought of homing a rescued greyhound? We`ve had three of these over the years and now wouldn`t have any other breed. They`re gentle, come beautifully trained and are real couch potatoes! They only need a couple of 20 minute walks a day. The Retired Greyhound Trust would give you further info. but you`ll need grieving time first.

Thank you for these answers. I have his address from the census, in Kirkby in Ashfield, but just wondered about his life as a trades union secretary in the 1800s. As for slum clearance etc. (Don`t these threads meander?) As somebody born in the Medders in the 1940s I would dispute the 'improvements' made when the whole area was bulldozed. Funnily enough, (well I found it funny) when I told my grandson in Carlton that I`d been born in the Medders he looked impressed and said, "Cool!"

A lot of my Nottingham Ancesters were listed as Framework knitters in the censuses and one GGGGrandfather was a Trades Union Secretary, presumably in the same industry as he was a FWK in an earlier census. Does anybody have any idea how I could find out any details of this?

I don`t remember getting regular pocket money when I was little - and sweets were on ration anyway. I got my comic money on Beano day and my Grandma gave us a threepenny bit each when we went to see her after Sunday School. We`d sit in a row on her settee and when she got her purse out we knew it was time to go. When I was 10 or so I remember getting two bob a week and when I was fourteen I started babysitting for a neighbour and looked after her four kids while they went to the pub Sunday night. I got four shillings, a bottle of pop and two Park Drive.