Jill Sparrow

#4 You can't over emphasize the importance of taking life with a pinch of salt. It's essential if you don't want to be stressed out, frustrated and bitter!

#53 All this and a liberty bodice too! What more could the ladies want in a gentleman's sartorial elegance. After all, he's top drawer, you know...he told us so in Cribs, Cots or Pods!

#50 Sounds like my sort of place, Ben! Did you wear a straw boater with a band round it?

This is tragic, if true. He'd just met up again with his lady friend from years ago and was really enjoying life. Bless you, Firbeck. You'll be remembered.

#48 Some of their smoked salmon isn't bad and fruit and veg can be ok but it does vary. Personally, I don't like veg and fruit packaged in plastic. Prefer to see it loose, so tend to buy from either a good market stall or Greengrocery shop. Some years ago, Aldi had some decent wines. Don't know about now, as I've been a member of a wine club for a few years and purchase through that. If there was a Marsden's locally, I'd shop there. I believe one of our members used to work there...or have I got that wrong?

There were a lot of things in kit form, ie everything you needed to make the product pictured on the box, in the 60s. I remember Promise, lemon meringue pie. Think they did other desserts as well. Birds trifle kits etc. Probably full of the now banned hydrogenated fats! Smash dried potato and Marvel milk was, I suppose, only like the stuff available during the war. Don't remember seeing any powdered egg though.

#225 Gerraway, Ben! Ya never! My father always ordered the Christmas pork pie from somewhere on Denman Street, at least until 1964, as mum, my sister and I always went to visit our relatives in Garden Street on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. There'd be home made elderberry wine, mince pies etc and then dad would arrive, having broken up from work for Christmas. He'd collected the pie and whatever he'd ordered for Christmas dinner on the way. He was very particular about his pork pies! Then we'd walk home together in the dusk, over the cobbled streets. Very

Can't see our Ben in Aldi, somehow.

#215 I've heard of Branston's but not Bramwells. Is it new? I take it Marsden's didn't stock it, with them having only high class stuff....and staff!

#216 Vesta also did chow mein in a box. Everything inside had the appearance of shredded cardboard. Desiccated noodles. All had to be hydrated and then cooked. Tasted like....soggy cardboard...but it was the novelty value, I suppose!

He loved mustard too, Merthyr, but it was always brown sauce on Christmas morning, either HP or, appropriately enough, Daddies! Ben will know the prices for both! Ta, Ben!

Welcome, d'Artaignan, to Nottstalgia, where I'm certain you'll find much to interest you and to share with members. My father, a Beeston lad, was also a pork pie and brown sauce on Christmas morning devotee. He always ordered a whopper of a pie and collected it on Christmas eve.

Reminds me of the Anthony Trollope novel, "He knew he was right!" One of the most boring books I've ever read!

#33 Reckon you've always been a snazzy dresser, ain't ya?

That would have been Peter Ustinov, Chulla. It was one of his best known jokes!

#220 Stan, no one on this site has done more moaning, complaining and generally droning on about the horrors of their old alma mater than I have! It amazes me no one's told me to shurrup!! I find it cathartic and its way cheaper than going to see the trick cyclist once a week. You carry on posting. We all enjoy reading it and it imparts a sense of solidarity to those of us who didn't enjoy our school years!

#130 The slides and other photos belonged to Caroline Isabella Fryar, the daughter of Mark Fryar and Louisa Mary Strelley. There have been marriages between the Barber and Strelley families centuries ago, I believe. Caroline was a cousin of Ruth Barber, later Haslam. The Haslams were also coalmasters in Derbyshire. Ruth Barber was the grandmother of Richard who rescued Caroline's photographs and papers at her death, as the auctioneers had bagged them up be destroyed, having removed all her antique furniture for future sale. In my humble opinion, they should

#86 Hope she didn't sing!

#84 Wasn't the dreadful Ethel Merman in either the film or stage version of Mame? Just the sound of her voice makes me want to commit suicide! Aaaarrrrggggg!

They don't want any damp squibs!

In the late 70s when I worked at BJ&R, Friar Lane was literally awash with solicitors. Perry Parr & Ford, Rotheras, Ashton Hill, Fraser Brown White & Pears, Leman & Leman...to name a few. Now, they all seem to have been swallowed up by the bigger practices. These were family firms which had been established since late Victorian times and the procedures we carried out there were equally antiquated, long before the days of computers. It's not so very long ago but the changes are enormous.

#34 Standard school issue gramophones they were Ian. We had one at Berridge. We used to skip around to Danse Macabre by Saint Saens...more suited to the Manning I'd have thought, but there it is. Also had a huge square of teak with a round speaker in the middle of it for schools' radio broadcasts. "Find a space, children, and stand still!" Then it was a case of imagining you were a giant/elf/tree/seed in the ground...or whatever the theme was that week. Your teacher was probably slurping a mug of coffee while all this was going on. Didn't have cop out lessons like that

#83 Fascinating photo, Cliff. Thanks. My office there looked out over Maid Marian Way but would originally have opened onto the gable end of the, by then, demolished block.

#848 Employing agency temps who clearly won't be able to cope with the job (obvious after 4 or 5 days) but refusing to get rid of them for weeks, thus preventing staff from getting through their own workloads due to having to prop up temporary workers who are being paid more than they are! Spending money on trendy furniture no one ever uses/fancy perspex framed notices that announce "kitchen", "toilet" etc when it is obvious what these places are. At the same time, people are using clapped out laptops which break down or half the keys don't connect but are told there is

#79/80 Granby Chambers, yes. I'd forgotten the name. I didn't know BJ&R had been there so long! Is there any mention in street directories of its use further back. I always wondered if it was a hosiery factory as people said?