Jill Sparrow

My favourite is Ganesh because I love elephants and I hate the way brainless human idiots hunt them for ivory. Lets have lots more elephants and a lot fewer people!

#3746 I liked the ad for I think it was Terry's All Gold. When the lid was removed, half the contents was jewellery! I remember being very disappointed when my mother got a box for Christmas in the early 60s and all it contained was chocolates. The power of advertising, eh?

#60 He was ahead of his time, indeed!

I lost interest in Milk Tray when that SAS chap stopped the delivery service, FLY!

#3742 "And all because FLY2 loves Milk Tray!"

#58 Elvis died on the lavatory. Nuff said! I believe astronomers worked out some years ago that Christ's birth probably took place in September, given that there were only ten months in the year in those days?

#3740 I'm pretty good at resisting temptation but I have to give in now and again or I'll become a bit too saintly for my own good. Visiting Morrison's when they've just taken a batch of loaves out of the ovens and they're all warm and squishy is too much for me and I go a bit mad with throwing it all in the trolley. I resisted the cheese scones and the chocolate chip cookies though!

#86 As long as you're not going to dress up as the Dick Emery character Mandy, Ben! You could get yourself arrested!

#3734 Doughnuts, donuts...however you spell it, I shouldn't be eating em, Loppy. Putting too much weight on. Don't have them very often and they are nicer than soggy brandy snap! Noticed that Morrison's are now packing their doughnuts in a box emblazoned with the union flag, as opposed to calling it the union Jack. My daddy always taught me it could only be called a union jack when flown aboard ship. I don't know whether that's true but it made to difference at all to the amount of calories in the custard filled doughnuts!

#3731 If you've got Kunzle cakes at 5p each, I'll be round, Ben! Had to make do with Morrison's doughnuts (that's donuts to you, Loppy!!) but they're not the same!

My aunty Emily from Garden Street went every year, without fail, to see the Goose Fair open. It was also a ritual of hers to buy packets of brandy snap. I always left mine until it went soft as I preferred to eat it that way.

#3723 Not only would they have to be impeccably dressed, Ian, they would all have to look like a young Errol Flynn!

My knitting looks more like lace...lots of holes. My grandmother's cousin, who lived in Garden Street, tried to show me how to make lace using a lace pillow and bobbins. It was fascinating. She had, prior to her marriage in 1918, worked at a small establishment in Lambley and did something called 'chevening' which was finishing socks and stockings by hand. She could make anything with wool or yarn but was often the subject of family jokes because her idea of economy went much further than most people's. When garments such as jumpers and cardigans were worn out, she woul

#77 No, Loppy, I don't still have one...just pulling Ben's leg! I marvel that Ben's legs are still attached to his liberty bodice....I mean, his body! I hired my gown for graduation but couldn't wear the mortarboard. I had too much hair in those days, all piled up on top of me 'ed! The photo used to hang on my parents' sitting room wall and people used to ask if it was Princess Margaret!!!!

#3717 Perhaps we ought to suggest that Ben opens a shop, selling all these items at 1960 prices. Then we can all pile in and cram as many products as our greedy little mits can possibly grab into our shopping baskets, to the great benefit of our pockets. Quids in! Oh, and if there's anything we don't like or which doesn't suit our fastidious tastes, we can complain loudly and moan that what we've got for a fraction of its present day price isn't acceptable! Hang on, there's a parallel here somewhere. How about it, Ben?

Those who can, do. Those who can't, criticise. It has to be said, there are some very ungrateful bu99ers on here!

#74 Many large Catholic families felt it was expected of them to "give" a son or daughter, or perhaps both, to the church. Similarly, many of the landed gentry seemed to follow the custom of designating one of their sons to become a member of the Anglican clergy, who would often become the next incumbent of a living which his family owned. They called it continuity of Christian faith. I call it nepotism! How many of these Parsons actually had any belief I don't know but I suppose their rationale was that someone had to do it.

#71 Now where did I put my gown and mortarboard?

#70 I sometimes wonder how many of those women were pressured into entering the relgious life and the same applies to priests. What they are doing is making a vow to turn their back on normal, basic human, animal instincts and, clearly, recent reports in the press evidence that many of them failed badly. Perhaps, not surprisingly, this led to women who would rather have had married and had children becoming bitter, twisted and vengeful. Not the type of people who should be teaching!

#66 If they don't, I'm not going either!

#63 That's interesting, crankypig. I've never had any contact with nuns personally but I remember asking Malcolm (my former colleague's name) whether he thought they had meted out harsher treatment to him because he wasn't a Catholic. He replied that he didn't think so because all the pupils were treated like this! I remember the articles in the NEP about the closure of the convent and its subsequent conversion into apartments. As I've often said about the similar treatment of former General Hospital buildings, I would not want to live in such a place! Why

#3703 Margie, you have no idea...and you don't want to have any idea or I guarantee you wouldn't sleep at night...of what these sick people do with photos and young people. As someone who has contact with the subject because of my job, I am certainly biased against Facebook etc. I never cease to thank my lucky stars that I'm not a young person growing up in this day and age and that my parents cared about me. There are many who don't!

#61 They can't all have been vindictive and I'm relieved to hear they weren't!

St Valentine's Day cards and Cadbury creme eggs next week! Nothing's special any more, its one big, year-long, relentless consumer-fest! I'm opting out.

#58 This reminded me of a chap I worked with many years ago. He was on the verge of retirement then. He told me that, as a child, his parents enrolled him at St Joseph's preparatory school on Derby Road, Nottingham which was run, I believe, by the nuns from the convent at the back of St. Barnabas Cathedral. His family were not Roman Catholics but they wanted him to have a good preparatory education and enrolled him there as a day boy. He explained that the humiliation and cruelty he and the other children were subjected to by the sisters had instilled such fear in