Jill Sparrow

And Ford's...for liberty bodices! Can just make it out.

Yes, Mary. I think it is he. Don't know why he is always referred to as Dr because be was a surgeon. He operated on my grandmother in 1947.

Perhaps it's an age thing but I am frequently assailed by triggers that bring back my childhood memories. Smell is one of the most deeply embedded senses we have and it's often via catching a whiff of something that a vivid memory comes back. The other day, I caught a hint of something from long ago. It brought back an image of my mum spring cleaning the bathroom with Flash powder in a box. The powder was green and sparkly and it played havoc with her hands because she couldn't work in gloves. It had a very distinctive smell. These memories often bring tears, not of sad

No, Margie, you're not losing the plot. I have exactly the same thoughts. Number 4 Garden Street still exists in my head exactly as I knew it when a child, even though it was demolished more than 50 years ago. I often dream about it too. Same goes for The Manning, even though I hated the place. No matter what is on the site now, it will always be as it was...in my head. I even become fascinated by old buildings which were gone before I was born or which I never knew. For example The Grange, which stood near to where Pianoman lives. Perhaps it's just my obsession with the past. As

My great uncle, Thomas William Sparrow ended up in the Gordon Boys' Home in 1893, after the deaths of his mother and stepmother. His father, my great grandfather, emigrated to Canada after leaving his eldest son in the Gordon Boys' Home and his youngest, my grandad, in the Silverwood House orphanage in Beeston. The records of the Gordon Boys' Home are held by Nottinghamshire Archives but not available to public view. The archivist kindly extracted information for me. Thomas was trained as a baker, living for a while in Somercotes. He died on 30 November 1917, fighting in The Great

There was a lot of corporal punishment at Berridge but I never fell foul of it None whatsoever at Manning...just psychological warfare there. Much worse! Only way to survive was to keep a low profile and live in your own head. Have done so ever since. Perfectly sane, I am....it's everybody else,

Me too. Loppy! Or a solitary moggie in my case!

Have you always been a masochist, our Ben? Got to be easier ways to earn a crust!

The penultimate one looks as though she's had a few too many! Not our Margie! Unless she's been fibbing about her age!

Or, in Ben's case, a world without females!

Not a George Orwell fan then, Ben? He allegedly named it after a room at The BBC where he worked. My favourite Orwellian novel is Animal Farm! No surprises there!

I shall be living in a hermitage with many moggies. The world can get on with its crazy ideas. I don't want to know!

We now have male maternity wards in this world..all for diversity me! Certainly. Let blokes have the babies...and everything else that goes with it. They can have my share and welcome!

Remember my mum buying deckchair canvas from Cravens in Hockley. It was rolled up in brown parcel paper.

Was not Barnes Wallis involved with the design of the R101. Geodetic design before he turned his attention to the Wellington bomber, etc. It's one for Chulla! Apparently it was R100 which was a Vickers project and thus the brainchild of Barnes Wallis. As an aside, I once worked with a girl whose family had lived best door to Wallis. Although elderly by then, he used to help her with her maths homework!

Too right, Trogg. I'm not exactly sweetness and light first thing in the morning at the best of times but deny me my coffee and I'd likely go for your jugular, At least they got what they wanted first shot! I am needle phobic...not that I get any sympathy. Better now. Breakfast scoffed!

Starving blood test this morning. No breakfast, no coffee...in short, nowt! Quick trip round Morrison's. Could have eaten every loaf in the bakery but, no, have to come back home and take my thyroxine...then wait 45 minutes before anything else passes my lips! Ground coffee, yogurt, granary toast and honey coming up!

I don't share my cheese with anyone...except the cats who do appreciate a taste now and then. I have a nice ripe camembert which I shall sample with a good red wine later this evening after another day battling with the bathroom ceiling! Grrrrrr! Hope your mum has a lovely birthday, Nonna.

Don't apologise, Trogg! My age is on my profile for all to see! It seems that Gerrard and Lindley's are two separate entities. I do vaguely recall my mother mentioning, while we were watching the 1963 fire, that it had happened before.

That would be the fire I watched as a child. Thanks.

Must have been a different fire, Trogg, because I wasn't born until November 1957. The fire I remember occurred in the early to mid 60s.

I'm confused here. Was Gerrard's also known as Lindley's? As a small child, I remember watching a serious fire from a bedroom at the back of our house in Bobbers Mill Road and seeing the flames lick around a tall chimney. My parents said it was Lindley's factory on fire. I was also told that my paternal grandma, the volatile Kate Hudson, had worked at Lindley's as a girl but she was a silk worker. Perhaps it had once been used for textiles? I do recall my sister going on a trip to Gerrard's when she was at Peveril. She came home with lots of free samples but

Yes, indeed, CT. I have a photo somewhere of the two of us when we were toddlers, taken in his grandma's garden!

I wonder if she sees herself as the new Audrey Hepburn? Dress by Givenchy, former actress, looking to carve a niche in the charitable ambassador field? Sadly, there's only one Audrey Hepburn and her life was more tragic than most people realize but something shone out of her that few others possess. That's why she's one of my icons.

Won't be any worse than David, Prince of Wales in the 1920s, telling out of work Welsh miners that "Something must be done!" After which he went home, put his best togs on and went out on the town. The man was a hypocrite and we should thank the avaricious Wallis for his abdication. Don't get the idea I'm left wing! . I'm not!