time flies

I’m sorting through cine film and pics I took in the early 60’s with a view to completing my film making efforts for that era. Amongst my group of friends I was the only one taking colour pics let alone 8mm cine in the early 60’s so I have some interesting stuff that they might want to see.

The fact that I was the only one using cine or taking pics was not because I was well off. On the contrary. It was just different priorities with scarce resources. A 3 minute cine film would cost me half of my weekly wage of £7.

In the last posting I was wondering where my first love Julie, was now. I happened to be searching the electoral roll, for which I paid £3.95 for an hour’s use - and I took a long shot and tried for a couple of others - to get my money’s worth, so to speak. Well, I was amazed that I was able to find Julie in one go, and I had a pleasant conversation with her husband of 40 years.

I then did a second search for Barry, whom Julie knew too, and I found him living just 30 miles or so from me. We had a couple of amazing conversations with each of us having the same and sometimes different memories of those times. No doubt we will meet soon.

The whole point of that exercise was to see if they wanted copies of the cine on DVD. Barry featured in most of the stuff up until 1963 and in fact the only reason that I appear on film is that Barry was quite a good cameraman - an important point when film cost was the equivalent of £80 for 3 minutes in todays wages.

The pic above from left to right. Me, Julie, Barry.

Julia Wendoline Green from Slough was my first love. She was sixteen and I was 3 years older. We went out together for 4 and a half years. It ended when I had to declare a new love, Christine, whom I married in 1965.

It broke my heart breaking the news to Julia - or Julie as she liked to be known  - just as it probably broke hers. Whether it was the right thing to do, well, I will never know. The marriage to Christine lasted 25 years. Julie and I were undoubtedly heading for the altar if events had not happened. Would it have lasted, would we be growing old together? Probably not, I’m not easy to live with.

Has Julie had a happy life with Myles Taylor her soldier husband? Did she have lots of babies and subsequently lots of grandchildren? Can’t help wondering. There’s one thing for sure, I would not recognise her now, nor her me. Time will have taken it’s toll on sweet sixteen and handsome young nineteen.

Things were different in those days, so no we didn’t. Girls wore cast iron knickers then, and Christine, my wife to be, was no exception. It all seems a bit silly today when you consider just ten years later the girls were at it like rabbits. Those ‘girls’, now in their mid fifties will confess to multiple pre-marital sexual relationships or encounters, I know, I’ve had a few of them. Unfortunately the bloom of youth had long passed by then, because it was when I was in my fifties that I ’sowed the wild oats’ that I couldn’t when I was young.

As for Julia Wendoline Taylor (nee’ Green) I have quite a lot of cine film footage of her in the bloom of her youth and it would be nice to send her a video of it all. She never saw it in the first place - I didn’t have a projector until later.

The Daily Express published an item about 1976 because 30 years on we have another long hot summer. The interesting part was the comparison of a few typical prices:

• 1976                                                      2006            x Factor
  
• Average House Price

  £12,415                                            £190,051           15.3
  

• Loaf of Bread

  23p                                                        £1                   4.35
  

• Petrol

  18p per litre                                         98p                  5.44
  

• Beer

  25p                                                     £2.40                 9.60

In 1970 we bought a 4 bedroomed detached house with double garage for £6,500. I was earning around £2,500 a year with company car supplied. So, for just under 3 times my earnings I could buy a house. Mortgages were no problem. With average house prices coming upto £200,000 here in the South West I pity the young people today.

Furthermore the new house we bought in 1970, in Wells, Somerset, had a large front and back garden. The back garden I landscaped and built a swimming pool with patio areas, rockery, garden pond, lawns, and a huge vegetable garden. We sold the house in 1978 for £23,000 in order to move to the ‘Good Life’ in Cornwall. That was a mistake and another story.

Today the average new houses are built so close together you could NOT swing a cat between the houses and only just, in the garden. In fact it must be hell in the summer when windows are open and the noise from families packed 30 to the hectare (just over 2 acres) are playing music, screaming kids etc.

There’s no doubt about it the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s really were the Golden Age, never again to be repeated. Then along came Thatcher and society changed in all ways for the worse although we didn’t really think so at the time as the previous Labour Government had made a mess of things too.

If it was possible to turn the clock back and change things these are some of the things I regret and either would do differently or not do at all:

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When will she ever learn that I will not, repeat not, ever be going to my brother’s house at xmas. Having said that, I would, in certain circumstances, if it made her happy in her last years. The reason it won’t happen is that he is a sanctimonious person who thinks that everyone else should apologise to him whilst he can do and say what he thinks regardless.

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When will they learn that repeating a lie over and over again does not make it the truth. In ‘When Will They Ever Learn #1′ I said that one of my grandchildren had called ‘their other grandfather’ pervy. Those were the exact words yet the xDiL is telling her children that I called her father a paedophile and that I am evil.

I suggest that those who distort the facts are the evil one’s and will pay £100 to anyone who can find the word paedophile in ‘When Will They Ever Learn #1′

Oh, and before anyone suggests it, the article is exactly as it was written and has only been edited when I changed PFD to xDiL as a small conciliatory gesture.

It seems to me that she ‘protesteth too much’ and that I have hit a raw nerve. Who knows? It certainly makes one think, doesn’t it? And while we are on this subject what inference can we put on ‘dirty old man’? This is what she was calling me (and telling the children) before I retaliated.

Seems that some people think they can say what they want and we all should just meekly take it. Well, it doesn’t work like that. What she says is, as usual, based on lies. What I say is based on truth as told to me.

Are there other dimensions? You had better believe there can be other dimensions. Eminent scientists are researching the String Theory or M Theory in which there are purported to be 11 dimensions. They are using huge atom smashers to prove the existence of ’sparticles’ which are a central point of the string theory. It doesn’t matter too much if they don’t however, because what it does prove is that nothing is written in stone as far as the laws of physics are concerned after all.

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From the previous posting ‘Are we a six cylinder engine’ how many cylinders are you firing on?

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Like a six cylinder engine needs to fire on most cylinders in order to run we need to spark on all or most cylinders in order to have a fulfilled and happy life. A lot of people will not, for one reason or other, for mainly reasons of personality or circumstances be able to fire on all cylinders but will be able to achieve a level of contentment in their life that they find satisfactory. The six cylinder engine would also be able to run albeit, somewhat inefficiently with just four cylinders sparking.

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click on the link http://www.thediet4u.com to lose upto 1lb a day without hunger.

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I said it was a roller coaster ride with Nicky. What follows is something I wrote at the time for a little ‘light relief’ about events that took place on the evening of Nicky’s 46th birthday on 22 February 1996. I ought to point out that at this time were ‘just good friends’ and did not have an intimate relationship.

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Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

 I arrived back from Ireland on 31st August 1995, having had a very ‘difficult’ holiday with Penny. On checking in at my office, early evening, Paula - my holiday relief manager - briefed me on occurences during the last 2 weeks.

Nicky had been admitted to Flat 2 with her daughter Amy a week ago. Paula then introduced Nicky to me. She was an attractive woman in her mid forties. Blonde hair, engaging smile , about 5′ 4" tall and slim with it.

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Penny came back into my life as a ‘friend’. After several months of not seeing her she popped up out of the blue or perhaps it was something to do with setting up a community. We were all into that concept at the time. 

I told her I was going on holiday in my bus and she asked if she could come as she could do with a holiday. I agreed and she persuaded me to go to Ireland. She said she would pay half of the ferry fare, she didn’t have much money and really couldn’t afford much else. I didn’t mind because if I was going somewhere anyway I would have been paying the cost of diesel etc anyway.

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I was manager of the homeless hostel and the committee thought I ought to go in for councelling training. I was one day a week so it was a break from the mainly drug crazed hostel residents. They also had Catherine counsel me on a weekly basis.

I supposed it helped me to let off steam, so to speak, mainly about the ever so middle class committee members. Catherine invited me to a party where those involved in counselling, teaching or training, would be in attendance.

It was on this occasion in 1994 when I met Penny who was also training to be a counseller. Penny who was in her mid forties was attractive and slim and shorter than me - all the attributes that may be attractive to me.

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I have memories of many years ago that are just like snapshots. I think the earliest ones from the age of 2 up to about 11 are of the snapshot variety. Anything after that may have more depth and detail.

I asked my mother what I was doing on VE day today, the 60th Anniversary. She needed coaxing because her long term memory is deteriorating. Her short term memory is almost gone altogether. (more…)

The most important thing parents have to do is to raise their children to adults without screwing them up. What happens to children especially those under ten, because that’s the most impressionable age, stays with them for the rest of their lives.

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My father had two brothers and one day way back in the mists of time there was a fall out. His middle brother fell out with the eldest and from that day on there was no contact between them or their mother. I had cousins that I never knew about and always regretted that because our family was not very big and I had no other cousins. I always thought that family feuds like this are silly and should be solved, until now.

My brother David is ten years younger than me and he fell out with both myself and my son four or five years ago over very little indeed.

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I said in an earlier entry ‘Remembering Grandfather #2′ that my parents had no respect for my grandfather and used to upset me as an 8 year old with their disparaging comments and put downs. I took him as I found him and he was good to me.

I remember him with affection and deeply regret not contacting him in his last years. Now I’m a grandfather and the same thing’s happening to me.

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