philmayfield

For years I’ve been drinking ‘proper’ coffee, grinding the beans and brewing it in a cafetière in the traditional manner. Recently, after having seen a commercial on TV, I tried Taylor’s of Harrogate coffee bags. It’s proper roast coffee in a bag, hermetically sealed in foil. I must admit it does taste genuine and it cuts out all the faff and disposal of the grounds down the sink. I like the ‘Rich Italian’ strength 4. I think I’m going to drag myself into the 21st. Century! I do have a fancy espresso machine but it sits on the shelf with all the other gadgets that seemed like a good idea at th

Could be a basket case!

They have pedal bins so why not pedal laundry baskets?

I must have travelled along it most days for twenty five years and often wondered about the origin of the name.

Thanks for your research Jonab.

Graham’s still with us but getting a bit frail. He’s living in a five star care home in Harrogate (as Graham would!) Beside cycles he was big into buy to let. A mutual friend went up to see him last week and he’s doing OK.

My old friend at Netherfield, Graham Read (‘The Cycle King’), was always very busy selling bikes right up to Christmas Eve. As soon as the shop closed he was off with the family to a five star hotel in Harrogate for the holidays.

I remember speaking to one of our Jewish accountancy clients many years ago saying ‘I don’t suppose you bother about celebrating Christmas?’ ‘Oh yes we do’ he said. I wouldn’t want to disappoint the children!’

My cousin, Brian Burton, lived at 50, Norton St. when he got married. That would be in the 50’s. I also remember Wyche and Coppock, the dinghy builders at Norton St. Mills. I saw one of their boats, a National 12, in Albert St. Antiques, Newark, last week. It looked like new and I was very tempted!

Our accountants, Blythens, used to be at the top end of Gregory Boulevard before they moved over to larger premises on Haydn Rd. opposite the Meridian factory. They were just up the road from HATRA, the Hosiery and Allied Trades Research Association. Those premises were taken on by Kirk, Cree and Jepson, latterly Page Kirk, the chartered accountants. Ken Kirk, the senior partner, now consultant, used to be my old boss at Hubbart Durose and Pain on Park Row. His professional partner, Ann Jepson, now dead, lived at Hoveringham and was secretary of the South Notts Hunt and this role was taken ove

I didn’t start using Parrs until around 1977, maybe later, so you would have left by then. The George Hemsley I mentioned was a director of Smith Dennis before he joined PCS.

It was at the Canal St. premises that I first got to know them. Ken Woods came to visit me with a sales pitch and I used Parrs for all our accounts processing including payroll. Later Ken and Rod Bishop set up their own Apple agency, one of the first in the UK and we moved over to Apple computers using their programs. Their firm, KRCS, still exists to this day and I was there with my daughter last week getting her iPhone fixed. Ken is still the MD.

'Streetwise' ! I think the country lasses were well acquainted with the birds and the bees!

He was a director along with Ken Woods and Ron Calvert.

Also, funnily enough, the Newark Conservative candidate in those days was Peter Jenkins Jones, the Nottingham solicitor, who lived next door, on Hazel Grove, to George Hemsley who I believe you knew at Parr Computer Services.

Our members were from a wide range of occupations and not all were Conservative voters. I do remember the car treasure hunts, usually in the wilds of Lincolnshire, a trip to the police HQ at Epperstone, a visit to the AA headquarters on Derby Rd and a trip round the caves of Nottingham. These were organised by the secretary who is now my wife so it was a marriage bureau as well! To say it's only a few miles away, and I pass it regularly, I have never been in the Cross Keys in all of my 57 years in the Trent Valley. I do remember driving past there some mornings and seeing the blood from the ab

Yes, it was just a ‘youth club’ for the older ones. You had to make your own fun living out in the sticks but we had lots of it!

Thanks Jill, I was beginning to think I was an oddity. Perhaps I am but in other ways!

As a Puritan my imagination doesn’t stretch that far!

You have to take them out to sleep? How gruesome.

I belonged to the Trent Valley Young Conservatives. That brought in all the villages along the valley from Hoveringham to Kelham. Our meeting place was the Bromley Arms tea rooms at Fiskerton on a Monday evening and then in the bar. It was in no way political, just a social gathering of 20 to 30's for fun and frolics. We were part of the Newark Division where the monthly meetings of the officials (I was treasurer) took place in the constituency office in the corner of the Market Square. It continued in the Queen's Head! We did have the odd speaker, games evenings and various jollies but polit

Why would anyone want a tattoo? Why would they want body piercing? I must live in a different world!

I’m resisting the temptation not to look!

Barn dances - Young Conservatives. We had jazz and beat groups and rolls in the hay. What’s not to like!

Tonight it’s from Mansfield. I suppose that means clearing the garden of mattresses first!