Chulla

#5. Jackson was at the Crane School reunion last March, chicly dressed and wearing a beret - very Left Bank, I thought and very nice. Here is a photo of her and katyjay taken at the meeting.

Got your PM Andy. Assume meeting at around 4 o'clock plus is still OK?

Here are a couple of photos that dad coloured. He is in India, and mam and me are probably at Jerome's studio. Just look at me then and at my avatar now - see any difference! If anyone is interested I will post lots of photos of his signwriting on lorries and vans in the 1960s. Some are of firms that no longer exist. I would put them on a new thread called Commercial Vehicles, and hope that it will sponsor others with such an interest to contribute. Old lorries and vans have a fascination like old railway engines.

I'll see if I can get there - all this talk of free coffee has got my juices going. After the radiotherapy will there be a smell of toasted whatnots?

I have mentioned before that dad used to colour photographs. For this he used a book of tints, which I still have. This book went with him to India and was used for colouring photos that mam sent out to him, and also for other things. Below is a Christmas card that dad produced for one of the officers, who kindly let me have it after dad had died. I see great sentimentality in this card, sent to a man's wife thousands of miles away during the war. There was no leave from India, they were there for three years.

#24. I wonder if that was one of the 'comfort' girls that the Japs left behind. lol #3 plantfit. Dali is an acquired taste, but I like quite a bit of his work. Mrs Chulla and me went to St Petersburg in Florida to visit the Dali gallery there. They have 65 of his paintings.

Dad served as a Chindit in Wingate's second expedition in 1944, walking for four months through the jungle with his platoon to find Japs. He produced a couple of commemorative boards about those times whilst a member of the Burma Star Association. This one shows the list of the Naga villages that they passed through.

I'd better come clean about my football experience. In 1949 dad took me to Meadow Lane to see County play (I have forgotten the name of their opponents). We went to see Tommy Lawton play and stood on Spion Kop. Lawton didn't play, and County lost 1-0. The following year I went with a pal to see Forest play Everton. Capel and Collindridge (sp) in the team. They won 1-0. Whilst still at school I went to see a schoolboy match at Meadow Lane. And that's it, my sum total of attending football matches. 65 years have past and I have never once had the urge to go and see another match. Oh, and I love

It must have been interesting to see how he painted the football stand. Those large letters would have to have been drawn complete first. He probably used a large compass with a piece of chalk on one end so that he could draw radii - I have such an implement of his. It must have been quite a bind having to climb up and down all the time to move the ladder along AND up and down. Actual painting was probably with a five- or six-inch brush. Dad never expressed any interest in art; certainly not post-war, apart from such odd things like the Disney characters. I did see two watercolours that he pa

I am almost welling up after reading the appreciative remarks about dad's talent. He came from an era when there were lots of people like him, and who people never really acknowledged. He was just an ordinary man who never flaunted his talent, never earned a lot of money, whether working for a firm or for himself. Before the war he worked for a decorating company, and apart from domestic work there were decorative work in churches, and such places. His greatest work that I can remember were the tailboards of Redfern's mineral water lorries. He designed them and painted the bottles of pop with

Oh no!!!, I forgot I tode yer I was going to the Concert Hall. I shall have to alter my appearance to make me look less like Errol Flynn.

Thank you all for your nice comments about my dad, Ronald Birch (and katyjay's dad). His normal workaday was signwriting. He studied this for eight years at the Nottingham Art School. He won a number of competitions, the most prestigious being First Prize for the Intermediate Signwriting class in the National Competition for the years 1932 and 1933.The two photos below show him writing the main stand at Lincoln City's football ground in 1966. Note the size of the ladder! Working at these heights up a ladder was made illegal later on. The other picture shows one of Shipston's drays that he wro

Michael. I was teasing you and other Forest supporters - I thought you would realise that, without me having to append the suffix lol. Why did I quote Shakespeare? It just seemed a suitable taunt from someone who was trying to reveal the side of him that never gets revealed by his adherents. It's only football, part of the entertainment industry and of no proper relevance to real life.

#38 Annesleymagpie - according to your avatar you were born in 1865!

In Canada in 1937, the Dionne quintuplets were born. A big sensation at the time. Dad did sepia tone sketches of all five of them, of which the one below show two of the babies. He was a signwriter by trade, as well as a decorator, gilder, glass-writer; in fact anything to do with paint. Sadly, he never made any effort to pursue the artistic side. I have many examples of his signwriting - photos of lorries and vans. If he was alive today he would probably be out of work. Signwriting is almost a forgotten trade now, with computer graphics and printing being widely used. You cannot stop prog

I was recently reading an old thread about a lady who sold the Evening Post in the Square, and was also a talented artist. Fynger, in his post No.#31 in the thread said that she used to paint Disney characters. This reminded me that dad used to like doing the same. When our daughter was very little he drew and painted two Disney characters - Minnie and Mickey Mouse - for her bedroom wall. They are reproduced below. I have made this a separate thread in hope that other members like art, or artistic endeavour, and might like to contribute.

I knew that my post would rattle a cage somewhere (that's why I said it). As Shakespeare once wrote: The evil in men liveth on, the good is oft interred with their bones. I don't smoke a pipe any more, I vape.

Brian Clough - wasn't he the manager in charge when Forest got themselves relegated?

Have checked the National Archives Board of Trade records and there is no mention of them. So, looks like they were not a Limited Liability company.

Thanks Cliff, all's well now - at last!

I'm with firbeck on this one. Re the above New Content page, when I click on to this I have only got the one entry. I never had more than three while I have been a member. I have to trawl through the different threads to see what has been added since I last looked. I thought there must be something wrong and now I know that there is. Will someone please sort this out!

carnie, and anyone else interested, I have never signed-in or signed-out, and everything usually works OK. I just click on the Nottstalgia address that is in the listing of my usual website visit addresses.

If after singing carols outside of a house there was no response, you could sing the verse, preferably through the letter box, 'Hope you have a turkey hanging on a string, Hope the bogger chokes you for making us sing'. Then run away.

The aerial picture is nice. What interests me is the square of buildings to the right of the Trinity church - corner of Milton and Parliament Streets. There appears to be a nice garden in its centre.

Malcolm, Who knows if your grandfather new mine. The records of my grandfather's service went up in smoke when the building housing thousands of them was bombed in the next war. I have my grandfather's medals, among which is the Silver War Medal, awarded to those invalided out to wear and so prevent stupid women from giving them a white feather.