Jill Sparrow

I don't know the first thing about football, FLY!

Is you impressed by my football knowledge, our Ben?

Jock, Jock, Jock, Jock and, er ..... Jock?

There was a Spitfire in the Market Square in the early 70s. My father took some photos of it. I've still got them somewhere!

Looks like Carni owes CT a very large cream cake!

It's snowing here. I'd have thought it was too cold. This weather is getting on my nerves. I suppose it is only February but...where's spring?

I agree, nonna, but the environmentalists are gunning for stove owners. So many people have them now. I suppose it's summat else we'll either be taxed on or told we can't have! I'm certainly making good use of mine at present!

I thought the ceiling had been preserved as it was an important artifact. The Oriental Cafe was a regular haunt of my mother's when she worked in the offices of Radio Rentals above Toby's on Friar Lane in the 1940s. She and her three best friends, Noreen Biddulph, Brenda Moll and June Tomlin were often in that Cafe when they should have been at work! One day they were drinking coffee in there at 10 am when their boss walked in. He bought them all cream cakes and never said a word about skiving from their duties. Mum loved the Oriental.

No pain, no gain?

It is impossible for us to comprehend today, the devastation those conflicts inflicted on British families, many of whom lost sons, daughters and husbands in the hostilities, not to mention civilian deaths. It's not fashionable nor politically correct to talk about it now but it's still too recent to have passed from public consciousness. I well remember the bitterness of my relatives who suffered, loss, POW internment or lifelong physical and mental disability as a result of those wars. What I do know is that I have tremendous respect for those who stood up to a power which tried

I learned about the first world war from my grandfather, Ted Sparrow, who lived through it and, unusually for an Old Contemptible, never stopped talking about it. Similarly, my father never shut up about the second world war! Both were convinced they were actually part of the same conflict and Ted, like many of his comrades, felt it was a huge mistake not to march into Germany and bash the Hun to the point where they could never cause any further trouble. The Armistice wasn't popular with those soldiers.

You're welcome to it Margie! Minus 6 here at present.

Same here, FLY! Everywhere is covered in frost and ice so, add the fog and it just looks like a white out. Blackbirds are enjoying a breakfast of cat food! Moggies aren't too impressed though.

We're doing the same with a trip to Berridge in March. Good luck with your project!

Yes, Loppy. I agree. Mine is a multi fuel stove but the heat is much longer lasting than central heating, gas fires, etc. This morning is freezing cold, ice everywhere but just tipped a couple of logs and a bit of smokeless fuel onto Clara the Clearview, as she's known, and off we go from last night's slumbering warmth. Moggies love it. We'll soon be told we can't have em any more though. Bad for the environment or some such tripe!

Many years ago, I asked to see the admissions book for The Gordon Boys' Home in Nottingham. The archivist said it was locked until some date in the far distant future but she could search for me. That was free. However, I had to prove I was related to Thomas William Sparrow, my great uncle, who was admitted there as a child. The information was retrieved from the bowels of the earth and was worth having.

Staddons was part of my childhood. Linen, beds, furniture. I still have 2 bedside cabinets that came from there many years ago.

Mine too. Excellent piece of kit, especially this weather.

My great grandparents lived at 24 Suez Street in the Little Egypt area of Basford. I remember going there in my pushchair but the house was destroyed in the early to mid 80s. However, some of the original street remains. This area was our old friend Newbasfordlad's point of origin. I've never seen an image of Suez Street as it originally was either.

Drifting back in time, as we tend to do on this site, I was thinking about my earliest experiences of visiting a hairdresser. Her name was Olive Wibberley and she lived at the first 3 storey Victorian villa on Radford Boulevard, roughly opposite Wordsworth Road. Olive was a single lady who lived with her mother and the front bay windowed sitting room served as her salon. She displayed an oval glass sign in the window: Olive, Ladies' Hairdresser. My mother liked Olive because she was scrupulously clean and all the combs, brushes, etc were meticulously placed in a steril

But you're still driving the ladies wild, Ben!

Whatever happened to free speech?

I don't know whether she still drives but I think she's given up changing wheels and fan belts as per her ATS days. One's robes get dirty!

30 day ban? Yikes, good thing our Ben's got a sense of humour or else I'd have been frogmarched off NS for pulling his leg!

That's probably Philip's rationale. Too stubborn to ask HMQ to run him about! Well, that's me in The Tower for the foreseeable future!