Oztalgian

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Posts posted by Oztalgian

  1. Christmas was when we usually got a "big present". Two years really stick in my memory, one when I got a Flying Scotsman train set with automatic level crossing gates that I could not get near for my Dad and Grandad playing with it nearly all of Christmas day and the year I got a Trent Tourist bicycle with three speed Sturmey Archer gears operated by a twist grip gearchange, really cool.

    Yes Compo, Even today I have to take care to put the right garlands in the right places as the kids, all grown up now with children of their own, always make me change them if they are wrong. Some of the baubles are forty years old and have to be in the right place on the tree and it is always sad when you find that one is broken.

    • Upvote 2
  2. Mary1947,

    I know exactly what you mean about the light bulbs, I remember dad saying that the bulbs were

    connected in series and if one was "gone" then none of them would light up. So began the search for the dead bulb(s). Also remember the special bulb that made them flash on and off. I agree a long way from the programmable LED's we have today.

    We never had turkey in those days it was always a chicken that my granddad had fattened in his henhouse

    and after dinner fighting with my brother for the wishbone.

    We also had pork and I loved the crackling.

    I was always hopeful of finding a silver threepenny bit in the pudding

    Not being a lover of chocolate I used to look forward to the nuts which only seemed to appear at

    Christmas, Brazils, Walnuts, Hazelnuts

    Happy Memories

    • Upvote 4
  3. Just got back from visiting family interstate and find that we have had a planned interruption to our internet connection and that the so called "smart" TV's upon turning on decided to do a full scan of all free to air digital channels (47 found). I have just spent the last 2 hours getting rid of all the useless shopping, marketing, lifestyle and foreign language broadcast stations on both our TV's.

    Why can't the plonkers who program televisions and associated "boxes" use the opt-in methodology instead of pushing all this dross and then us having to waste our time opting out.

  4. #26 Merthyr Imp #27 MargieH

    Yes the reason that we used to stop was to find the horse shoes. I think there were three sets and as a kid it was an amazing distance between take off and landing.

    The other stop we used to make was the Boston Stump and for some reason I remember my dad telling me that there was 365 steps to the top.

    Can't remember seeing any notices about mines or barbed wire entanglements on the way to the coast in the late fifties.

  5. Apart from sneaking a swig from jugs of Shipstones that my granddad used to send be to the off licence for, ugh.

    My first real pint was Mansfield Bitter as a 15 year old whilst wagging school and playing snooker one lunchtime at the local Miners Welfare. I was caught by the headmaster who asked "What are you doing here?" to which I stupidly replied "Playing Snooker". If you think that I got the cane for this you would be wrong as I respectfully suggested to the headmaster that the school council might like to know where he spent his lunch hours.

  6. #130

    Come on Chulla even you would not call bawdy rugby songs poetry, but they are much more fun than the poetry I learned at school.

    Whilst we are on the subject here are some others that I remember from my rugby playing past

    If I were the marrying kind

    The sexual life of the camel

    Swing low sweet chariot

    Eskimo Nell

    Ivan Scavinsky Scavar

    My god how the money rolls in

  7. #2 Catfan

    One hundred and forty five pound fifty, bl**dy hell that's three hundred and ten Aussie dollars.

    Thankfully we don't pay a licence fee here and it appears from comments that your programs are as bad as ours, endless "reality tv" shows, certainly not my reality. Mindless American crime and violence and incessant station promos on our ABC (BBC)

    Recent additions to the tv menu here are a channel devoted to food, one of the first programs was about eating bulls testicles and penises, what a load of bollo**s. Another one is a competition about BBQueing food and not a beer in sight reality tv my a**e.

    There are some quality programs, usually from the Beeb.

    Probably why my favourite tv channel is YouTube.

    • Upvote 2
  8. The last verse of Cargoes by John Masefield

    Dirty British coaster with a salt caked smokestack,

    Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,

    With a cargo of Tyne coal,

    Road-rails, pig lead,

    Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

    Sadly not many cargoes for the British coasters these days.

    • Upvote 2
  9. When we first arrived "Down Under" forty years ago this week it was really strange walking round the shopping centres in shorts and a T shirt in a temperature of 100 deg listening to someone singing "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas".

    Still not fully used to it after all this time but we do still have the traditional Christmas lunch with all the family. The seafood and steak - Surf and Turf BBQ is Christmas eve usually around the pool.

    Over the last few years it has become a bit of a tradition to have Christmas in July when we have turkey and all the trimmings in the middle of our winter.

  10. A couple of questions.

    As kids Mum and Dad used to take us into Nottingham on the B8 or Trent bus to Huntingdon Street then a walk to Slab Square (why was it called that) and then on the trolley bus to the Trent Embankment for the fair or a cruise on the river. I seem to remember when you got on the lower deck at the front in the middle on the wall behind the driver was a large round "thing". Anyone have any idea what it was?

  11. The greengrocer that came round our village had one of those BOAC observation coaches like this

    http://www.old-bus-photos.co.uk/?cat=226

    The inside was fitted out with racks to hold the vegies and far more interesting for me as a youngster they also had confectionary etc.

    They came round on Friday evening and the big decision was either a packet of KP salted peanuts or Smiths Crisps with the little blue bag of salt. Sometimes if you were lucky two bags of salt. We were then allowed to watch The Army Game whilst eating our treats. If I remember they cost tuppence.