Merthyr Imp

That must have been the Lincoln to Grantham line - closed in 1965 if I remember right.

Something my mother used to say (this was in Lincolnshire) was: 'He knows how many beans make five!' Meaning someone who couldn't be fooled, or knew what they were about. As a child this used to puzzle me and I would ask her: 'Well, how many beans DO make five?' But she would never give me a straight answer.

Thanks for the tip-off about that. I must say Six-Five Special seemed a lot less cutting edge than it did at the time! Hands up who spotted the ex-boxer Freddie Mills in one of the clips shown. My hero was Tommy Steele, and I've still got this book:

Gosh - I've just seen the price! Our pub must have been doing good business at the time.

This was my first car! It would be a collector's item now. I don't know the maker, but I daresay Austin would get a cut from the sales. It was originally green , but we repainted it red - it was probably still green at the time of the photo as it looks a bit battered. Solid metal, not like kids' pedal cars of more recent times, although you had to be careful of some of the edges against your knees (no long trousers in those days!). The boot and bonnet both opened - the latter to reveal an imitation engine, and the headlights worked from a switch on the dashboard. What looks a bit like a sp

We had one of these (all black though) when I was about 9 or 10, to be precise in the 1959 to early 1961 period. Note the rearward opening front doors which was the norm in those days, and regarding hand signals, etc, there were no indicators of the modern type - remember those little orange semaphore arms that cars had? In this photo you can see it in its slot between the two door windows. It makes you wonder just how visible those were. As I remember they had a little bulb inside, but the light must have been hardly visible in daylight and surely not very noticeable at night either. O

Yes they're trolleybuses, and at the back they looked like the picture in Michael Booth's posting on 5th May and didn't have doors at the front. Hope that clears it up!

I only know of the ice hockey team of that name.

No - here he is: http://www.knightfeatures.com/KFWeb/content/features/nonkffeatures/UM/Ferdnand/Ferdnand.html

Yes - wasn't it actually 'Ferd'nand'? He wore a sort of pointed hat, and I don't think there was any text, it was just the drawings - a 2 or 3 frame strip. Speaking of the Post, how about the characters that used to appear in the heading of the Football Post? See below a scan of my copy of the Post Football Guide for 1964-5 which shows them. They represented the nicknames of the teams that were covered in the paper. In case anyone's not aware, they were (from left to right): Chesterfield - 'The Spireites' (a man with a crooked hat like the church spire) Lincoln City - 'The Imps' (someone

A small window was removed at the back of the driver's cab on the left, and the idea was that he had to turn more than half round in his seat so fares could be collected from people as they got on. As catfan says, not a very successful idea.

I thought this was the vogue: http://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/vogue.htm

Er - yes, but they weren't trolleybuses and had nothing on the roof. The diesel engine was transverse at the back as with this later version: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23207961@N07/5602140903 Another thing is that the trolleybuses were never painted in that livery style - they were all green with the three narrow cream bands: https://www.flickr.com/groups/trolleybus/pool/johnmightycat/page2/?view=lg

You're possibly remembering the early Daimler Fleetlines introduced in the early 1960s (which were not trolleybuses!): http://www.flickr.com/photos/8050359@N07/3377317864/

Now you tell me.

We had to do Shakespeare for O Level so did one of his plays every year working up to that. English Literature O Level was one Shakespeare play (Twelfth Night in my year), one 'modern' play (Saint Joan by G.B.Shaw) and one novel (Far From the Madding Crowd as I mentioned before)

At High Pavement (1961 to 1966) I remember in the first form the first book we had to read was also Three Men in a Boat. We also studied the Sherlock Holmes stories, then I remember The Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham), The Invisible Man (H.G.Wells), Coral Island (R.M.Ballantyne) Kidnapped (Robert Louis Stevenson) and Hard Times (Dickens - and it was a hard time reading it!) For O Level it was Far From the Madding Crowd (Thomas Hardy). The first three of those, plus Sherlock Holmes, have remained among my favourite books to this day. Almost of those could be considered classics, or - ex

That would have been Brickplayer. I never saw one myself, but it used to be advertised in the Meccano Magazine. http://www.architoys.net/toys/toypages/brickpla.html

Yes, if you could see Woolworth's in Derby you must have been going from one station to the other. Surely it would have been from Friargate to Midland, from where you could get to various seaside places - may have been Blackpool, or how about Llandudno? So would it have been more convenient from where you lived to get a train to Friargate and change stations in Derby rather than go to Nottingham Midland and set off from there simply changing trains as necessary without having to cross Derby town centre?

Here's another photo of Broad Marsh as it existed at that time. I can date this to the first half of 1970, as NCT Leyland Atlantean no. 527 was new that year, and I changed from my Instamatic to a 'proper' camera in the July.

In the late 1960s/early 1970s I worked with someone who used to say 'Just going to see if the train's in the station'

I'm not sure just how it was oriented (forgotten!). You could be right. All I can say is that it was at the time when the original semi-circular layout of Broad Marsh bus station had been replaced for a few years by the 'straight' version next to the viaduct as seen in this photo of Barton's Bedford VAL no 989. This is the type of vehicle, of course that featured in 'The Italian Job'. Not many were built.

No - it was definitely Huntingdon Street. Below is a photo of Barton AEC Reliance no. 934 (with home made lower front end) taken at almost the same spot but from slightly further back. And the photo below is from further back still. A Red & White Motor Services Bristol RE. What that was doing in Nottingham I don't know - possibly on an Associated Motorways service, but it was VERY rare to see a Red & White in Nottingham (they were a South Wales company). You'll see the little church/chapel in the background - part of it can just be made out in the photo of 469 (along with the tre

Here's a couple of my photos: 469 parked at Huntingdon Street in the late 1960s 474, I think at Broad Marsh, sometime in the eatrly 1970s I don't think I travelled on one, but imagine them being rather cramped - especially if you were going all the way to Skegness, which service they were used on at one time.

I've just been reading through this thread an' it's bin tekkin me back. Someone mentioned children using the word 'puddywinks' meaning something easy or simple. In my day it was puddywinkles, or sometimes easy puddys, or just puddys for short. I've come across those lists of Nottinghamspeak expressions before. How about: mekkit guh bakkards - put the car into reverse snote tuh duh wi me - it isn't my fault knee-ow - no wotcher on about? - what do you mean? sup wi yo? - what's the matter? gerraway wi yuh - I don't believe you gerraht! - I don't believe you! I sometimes like to conf