Merthyr Imp

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Everything posted by Merthyr Imp

  1. According to information I've found, 'Scots Guardsman' was withdrawn by BR on 1st January 1966, and reached Dinting in May 1969. I can't really date my photo except to say it was probably 1966 or 1967, as it was taken with my old Brownie 127 camera, and I'd begun using an Instamatic by 1968.
  2. But wait - compare these two photos and see what appears to be lurking inside the Council House: (The first one is taken from monstermoviemusic.blogspot.com the second is from www.skyscrapercity.com )
  3. He should have stayed at Wigan. He's only a squad player at Chelsea - not the promised land after all.
  4. According to the book of Deuteronomy - chapter 34, verse 6 - 'Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died.' I wonder where you get your figure of 800 from? Surely you're not saying something in the Bible is incorrect?
  5. Well, I've looked up a few things: It seems the book 'Stranger at the Pentagon' was not written by Harley Andrew Byrd, but by a Frank E. Stranges - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-at-Pentagon-Frank-Stranges/dp/0965578607 It appears that the book contains a reference to a report or something by Harley Andrew Byrd who was involved in 'Project Blue Book', which was the US Air Force's study of UFOs which ran from 1952 to 1970. There's plenty about it on Wikipedia, and I note the conclusions reached when the project was wound up: No UFO reported, investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force ha
  6. I see - so this connection between a fictional film based on a 1940 story and something that is said to have happened a full five years after the film was released is just your opinion, without any basis in fact? Are you able to answer my other question - what book are you referring to that was written by someone named Harley?
  7. A couple of points here - what book are you referring to that was written by someone named Harley? Also - have I got this right? - is it your contention that the US government prompted the making of the film in order to prepare the populace for an real spaceship landing in Washington that they knew was going to happen five years later? According to Wikipedia: 'Producer [of the film] Julian Blaustein set out to make a film that illustrated the fear and suspicion that characterized the early Cold War and Atomic Age. He reviewed over 200 science fiction short stories and novels in search of a
  8. In my grandma's day it was 'a peck of dirt before you die' - and she lived to be over 90. (I must admit I'd forgotten how much a peck was and had to look it up - about 2 gallons, I understand)
  9. TYAFANS - could you explain why you include the 1951 feature film 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' in your list?
  10. Can't be sure, but it looks to me like a painting done from a photograph (with the hay cart scene added in by the artist) rather than a colourised photograph. Yes, I would have said the Lune Gorge - between Lancaster and Carlisle. It is 6100 'Royal Scot', as it has the nameplate on the smokebox, and as BulwellBrian says, it has the bell it received when it visited America in the early 1930s. So that dates the scene - maybe mid-1930s. What makes it somewhat relevant here is that 'Royal Scot' (in rebuilt form) was shedded at Nottingham towards the end of its BR career, and of course it the
  11. Yes - nobody bothered with a cap after the first form. The other thing was, starting out all shiny and new in the first form you had a smart satchel to carry your books (and sandwiches!) in, but then you soon conformed with the majority and acquired a shapeless khaki haversack to lug around instead.
  12. This is the view looking down Marshall Street, Sherwood taken in about 1962/63. Not a very inspiring photo, but it does have a couple of points of slight interest. One is the old-style street light that can be made out on the left hand side near the parked Austin A40. I think the lights were electric rather than still gas at that time. There was another street light just behind where the photo was taken from - outside our shop (part of the blind over the window is visible on the right) on the corner of Hood Street. Also, the cobbles in the guttering of the street can be made out, showing th
  13. Very likely related to Brian then I would say..
  14. I think Jaswant Singh had a younger brother there at the same time. I don't remember any other children of an ethnic or immigrant background - well, apart from Brian Nowicke (spelling?) who may have been of a Polish family, although I don't remember him having an accent.
  15. And these days they wouldn't have names like Brian, Keith, Ronald, Janice, Helen etc.
  16. As I've mentioned on another posting in the St Anns thread recently, I was at Blue Bell Hill from the autumn of 1959 until leaving, aged 11 in the summer of 1961. Below is the photo of Class 4 taken, I think, in spring 1960. Miss Woods was the class teacher. For the last year we then moved up to Mr Lowe's class, a gentleman with a withered hand. The headmaster was Mr S. P. Leigh. Other teachers I can remember were Mr Tennyson, Miss Barker, who took the infants, and Miss Gascoigne, who became Mrs Watson during my time there. We also had a visiting music teacher who was blind, but who had no
  17. That would be more than a week's wages in those days.
  18. In my day (1961 - 1966) it was always sung to close each end of term assembly, and it was a tradition to sound the 's' at the end as a hiss - 'consulamusssssssss'. I seem to remember that because the headmaster ('Albert') objected to this hissing the song ceased to be sung on those occasions.
  19. Bubblewrap is right. Although unable to find anything in a quick look through the book jimmy87notts mention, it rang a vague bell with me, and I found it in 'Rail Centres; Nottingham' by Michael A. Vanns, published by Ian Allan in 1993. It's apparently still available on Amazon:- http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rail-Centres-Nottingham-Michael-Vanns/dp/0711021708/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365065537&sr=1-4&keywords=Michael+Vanns I think Bubblewrap has a later edition. In mine this map is also, as he says, on page 45: The accompanying text is:- 'During the 1880s, Nottingham C
  20. I've skimmed through the book and not been able to find that reference - can you say what page it's on, or at least which chapter?
  21. Gee Dee also had a shop on Mansfield Road at Sherwood - other side of the road to the Metropole and a little way down the hill towards town. We moved to Sherwood in summer 1961 at the same time as I finished at Blue Bell Hill school, and I used to go to that Gee Dee's to buy Matchbox toys. I think I've still got some 1959-61 era Meccano Magazines at the back of a cupboard, but I sold off a lot of the later ones from the mid-1960s on Ebay a few years ago.
  22. So the premises with the Guy vehicles that I remember were a printing works? I couldn't remember at all - it was just the lorries or vans, because in those days of exposed radiators on commercial vehicles they had the radiator cap with the Indian chief on as seen here:- http://www.ephotozine.com/user/bradpete-31611/gallery/photo/guy-bus-radiator-cap-4390135 Interesting what you say about the small proportion of pupils going to grammar school - I was one of those myself (he boasted). I remember at the end of my time there, aged 11, having to take an exam 'to see if you'll be going to the Hi