Tag: 1960’s

I have a radio like this…

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We bought an old radio 30 years ago, and it still works! It’s a vaccum valve radio. It only picks up long wave signals, so I can listen to radio 4 and the shipping forecast. We have a 1960’s one too with a huge battery and a large dial to tune into different stations and a big grill on the front.

It’s amazing how these relics of a bygone era can last for decades. OK if they were on all day they might break down, but I think its marvellous. Nowadays people would gut the insides and bung in some Bluetooth speakers and headphones. But I prefer a traditional mechanism. Life needs relics to remind us of our past. It’s only around 100 years since the end of the first world war. And some people born then are still alive. Go back 20 X 100 years and you are back in bible times. We think it’s ancient, but it’s not really long ago compared with deep historic time, like the millions of years ago that the dinosaurs existed.

Chequer board

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A collaged image of a draughts board and chequers. I thought it had a slight look of a 1960’s pop music set. With this image hanging down as scenery behind a band like the new seekers, or Freddie and the Dreamers. I could imagine it on a black and white TV with microphone stands, guitars and a drumkit just waiting to be played.

Nursery Rhymes

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I think seeing the white rabbit picture this week pushed some memories forward from the back of my mind…

Some of them I haven’t recalled since my childhood, and I don’t know if anyone else remembers them. I can remember two fully…

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water,

Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after.

Up Jack got, and home did trot, as fast as he could caper.

He went to bed, to mend his head with vinegar and brown paper!

And…

See-saw Marjorie Daw

Jenny will have a new master

She shall earn but a penny a day

Because she can’t work any faster!

These are memories from the 1960’s. Boy I feel old. I wish I could fully remember Oranges and Lemons, said the bells of St Clements. Or George Porgie, pudding and pie…

It’s funny what you have contained in that greyish pink blancmange called your brain. It can hold information that has slurped about inside it for decades. Like I think I know the triumvirate in the Russian revolution was Kaminev, Zinoviev and Trotsky (I learnt it for history and it stuck).

Memory is strange and sometimes randow. But as they say, we are our memories, and our experiences teach us how to manage life.

Still light

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5pm sky. Less than a month after the shortest day, and this afternoon I noticed there was still light in the sky after 5pm.

Why does it matter? When I was working and doing a 9 to 5 job I hated starting and finishing the day in the dark, particularly in the evening.

There was an experiment in the 1960’s when the UK kept British Summer time throughout the year. It only lasted for about three years, but it was much better to walk home from school in daylight. The Royal Society for the prevention of accidents? (I think), worked out it was safer for children because in the evening people were tired and there were less accidents when children were more visible when walking home.

For me, when it starts to get lighter in the evening I feel less gloomy, my spirits lift. I’m pretty sure I don’t suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. (SAD). I can’t imagine how bad it must be for people that do.

Now I’m looking forward to Spring despite the rest of the winter to come.

The Cavern and the Beatles

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When the Beatles were famous I was a child. By the time they split up I was still not very old. One of my earliest memories was hearing them on the radio. ‘Help’, Love me do’, ‘Yesterday’, I can still remember a lot of the words and tunes and I really feel nostalgic when I hear their songs.

I was a bit older when I heard of the Cavern Club in Liverpool, Merseyside. I never went there but cavern came up as a word prompt for a friend and suddenly I remembered where I’d heard the word. So I looked it up on the Internet (where I got the photo). The original club opened in 1957 as a jazz club. They didn’t like rock and roll but when it was taken over the Beatles started to play there in 1961 (they were previously known as the Quarrymen). Apparently they played there over 270 times. The club itself was a cellar with a curved arched ceiling. It closed in 1973 and was demolished so a railway line could be laid. The Cavern club did reopen but I’m not sure if it still is open.

Well done Captain Kirk!

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The drawing of Captain Kirk I did years ago. Now William Shatner, who played him in the Star Trek sci-fi series in the 1960’s, has flown up in a rocket and reached the edge of space.

60 miles up, a ten minute flight. But he’s 90 years old and he has done it! The oldest person/ actor/ sci-fi star to hitch a ride above the Earth. Well done x

Memory of Dolphin Island

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About fifty years ago I used to watch ‘Flipper’ on the TV. A 1960’s show it was all about the adventures of a dolphin called Flipper. I didn’t know then that there was more than one dolphin and I think I remember reading they were not well looked after during filming?

I remember finding a book in the library called ‘Dolphin Island’ by Arthur C Clarke. It had the effect of waking an interest in science in me. I remembered a boy being shipwrecked and rescued by dolphins. He ends up on a Pacific Island and goes through several more adventures until the inevitable happy ending.

Recently someone mentioned the book so I decided to order a second hand copy. What I got was bitter sweet memories. The book was a lot shorter than I remembered. I read it in a couple of nights. The adventures that had been in it are now seen through older eyes. Where I had been on the edge of my seat, the tension was no longer there. It was still interesting, and I would love to know if there is any chance of finding a dolphin language. But I don’t think I will re-read it. This is an old fashioned Children’s Book. Give me 2001 a space odessey any day.

Exterminate

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One thing I am missing on TV is Doctor Who. I’m old and I watched the original series back in the 1960’s from behind the settee. The creatures that scared me the most were the Daleks and the Cybermen.

The sets they filmed on were a bit wobbly, but then you suspended disbelief when you were a child, in the same way that some if the special effects on Star Trek were a bit naff with polystyrene rocks….

This photo was a few years ago at a railway station where someone had bought the dalek and a model of the tardis. Strange but true.

X

Memory (car toy)

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Talking about artefacts, here’s one off my bookcase. It’s a Spectrum pursuit vehicle I think, based on the vehicles in the 1960’s TV show, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. I was a fan as a child of Gerry Anderson Supermarionation puppet shows. They including : Four feather falls, Supercar, Fireball XL5Captain Scarlet, Thunderbird, Stingray and then with live action included Joe 90 and UFO and Space 1999. There are probably more. I don’t remember seeing all of them, especially the first two. I think I got into science-fiction from watching them.

Memories cheer me up.

Tiny Train

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A 2-6-2, 3MT, Graham Farish, British Railways, mixed traffic, ‘n’ gauge railway engine. Modeled on a steam engine built in about 1962 during the last day’s of steam trains in Britain before they were axed in favour of type 2 diesel engines.

My hubbies latest train for his n gauge railway layout. It’s a very fine engine and has a very delicate mechanism. He’s happy. X