colly0410

My sense of humour got me into trouble when I was a squaddie: I was laughing on parade, of course I got spotted & put on a charge (that stopped me laughing I can tell you) I was fined £5, that was a lot of dosh in 1977. I phoned Dad to tell him what happened & he said "serves you right for getting caught." Lots of sympathy of Dad, NOT.

I love being one of the bad lads.

One Sunday night all the shops were shut & we couldn't find a 2 bob for the telly, Dad removed the back of the telly & bypassed the meter: Result free telly for rest of the night. He made sure he un-bypassed it before the bloke came to empty it to make sure enough money was in it, naughty Dad didn't want to get into trouble. .

Thanks for the link Zab. I'd love to go into space, don't suppose I ever will. The only time I've experienced weightlessness was when coming up Hucknall pit when the emergency brakes came on & had a bit of a float. Oh yeah I was scared to death, bit of a chicken me, cluck cluck.

Yes I remember Foo-Foo, his enemy was Go-Go if I remember right. I used to go to my mates house to watch it because out telly didn't get ITV. I was glad when it conked out & we got a proper telly that DID get ITV (had to put 2 bobs in the damn thing though) ..

When I was based in Munster-lager in Germany (late 70's) we were threatened with big trouble if we fed 5p's into the jukebox in the Naafi, mind you some naughty soldiers did it with civvy fag machines, not me though I never smoked..

Stayed on a caravan site at Brean Somerset a few years ago, it was 20p coin for a shower, £1 for a bath, £2 for the washer, 50p for tumble dryer, you needed a pocket full of coins. It was £1-25 a day for electric but that was not metered. Oh yeah the iron was free...

Always seemed to have enough money, just the wrong coins, I was usually traipsing round with a half crown or 10 bob note.

I remember traipsing rounds the shops when I was a kid in the 60's living in the Meadows asking if they'd got any shilling (5 pence) coins for the gas & electric, & 2 shilling (10 pence) coins for the telly, often they'd say they didn't have any, but you knew they did. Sometimes we'd be sat in the dark until we found a bob for the electric or have a perfectly good telly we couldn't watch because we couldn't find a 2 bob. Glad we don't do that now...

If I did something stupid (that happened a lot) Mam would call me a daft turnip, e.g. "you don't do it like that you daft turnip." If anyone was rushing around she called them a scopodittle, e.g. "she's running round like a scopodittle, I wish she'd calm down." Mam was born in Sheffield & moved to Symomds Yat when she was a teenager, she moved to Nottingham when she was in her 20's, No one I've asked has heard of a scopodittle.

When I was on an army exercise on Luneburg Heath Germany, some of the lads thought they'd seen a a UFO & it was coming towards us. It turned out to be a helicopter with it's searchlight on. Panic over. Mind you it was a dark night & not many street lights in that area. Oh yeah & we'd been on the Lowenbrau, lol..

I've been told I almost died of whooping cough when I was a baby, they said steam from the kettle saved me, how I don't know. I can't remember having any childhood illnesses, but remember a few jabs. I had jabs in both arms when the army sent me to Germany, I did some moaning & whinging that day.

Thanks for posting, I enjoyed it, shame it has to go..

I remember when doing my army signalers course, I learned that a Marconi 1/4 wave aerial needs good earth conductivity or a ground plane, I bet the salty sea acted as a good earth. I wonder if that's why there signals traveled so well? I don't suppose there aerials were very tall compared to transmitted wavelength, so would have used loading coils &/or capacity hats.

Thanks for that link Mick, I'd never noticed it before..

I could always tell the difference between AM & FM, I used to flick from one to the other (in mono) when radios 1 & 2 was on both bands, I preferred FM unless it was hissing due to low signal. I've never heard stereo AM so can't comment on it, I expect selective fading would mess it up. I've connected the audio out from my Freeview (digital TV) box to my hi-fi & usually listen to digital radio that way since my FM aerial blew down, sounds good to me..

As far as I can remember all pirates were on medium wave (or AM as it's called now) & the ground wave seemed to travel well. The sky wave at night would have traveled a lot further & interfered with distant co-channel stations. I expect foreign governments would have got upset about this & that's why they had to go. I remember 270 was affected by selective fading at night when the ground & sky wave came in together & messed up the carrier & side-bands, it caused a screeching sound like radio Luxembourg used to make (the Luxembourg fade).

Hmm, I never liked Radio 1 as much as the pirates, I felt a bit naughty listening to the pirates, it made me feel like a bad boy. Mind you to be fair I did like the top 40 on Radio 1.

I used to love listening to the pirate radio stations in the 60's. There was: Caroline, Radio London (big L), England, 390, 270 & probably others I can't remember. Mam used to write to 270 for requests, she was always getting her name mentioned, & even I got mentioned when it was my birthday, I thought I was famous. Then the government banned them & spoiled the fun...

colly0410, you must have been a hard so and so to have survived all those good hidings...lol. Yeah I did get a few slappings, mind you I deserved most of them, lol. Mam used to say you're never to old to get a slap. She passed away 19 years ago & I still miss her, I loved her so much...

No one ever got hurt back then, apart from me when I got a good hiding.

When I moved to Bestwood Village the local kids said "knock on that door & run, it'll be fun" I didn't know the Village copper lived there, but they did, the rotten toerags. He told Mam & another good hiding followed.

Strewth I wasn't that bad, Mam would have killed me. I was fessing up my Meadows crimes at work when a Lady who lived on Wilford Grove told us she used to pour milk through letter boxes (She looked very ashamed). That must have honked when it went sour..

One of my favourite pastimes when I was a Kid on Glapton Road was knocking on doors & legging it, all nearby streets were fair game. You had to know which entries were dead ends, you didn't want to get trapped up one of them, (I was never big enough to be able to climb over the walls). Of course the peeps got fed up & told Mam & a good hiding soon followed. It didn't stop me though because it was so much fun, it was worth the odd slapping. :)