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.

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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Well, the project I started in Busy As A Bee #2 has basically been a failure. Just a couple of sales but nothing more. In the meantime I got into a new hobby - model rocketry and that has led to a new venture which I have great hopes for. I’m steaming ahead making products for the hobby and at the same time utilising skills I have had since 1958, but that’s another story.

I find model rocketry or ‘hobby rocketry’ is an ideal recreation for me. Not only that but making nose cones and things in glassfibre is right up my street - especially considering that I feel I can bring new ideas in.

I have set up another blog site that’s all about the hobby and my efforts at launching rockets and hoping they will come back in one piece. Trying to get the perfect pic is something of a challenge too!

Talk about ‘Time Flies Like A Banana’, I have had one or two rockets that flew like a banana but I’m learning.

I have been so busy in the last day or so that i haven’t got down to posting on this site, my favourite. It’s time to get down to trying to make some money’ cos I’m fed up with being hard up, counting every penny.

So, I’m setting up a website that will sell products online, products that I know are in demand.

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The last time a ship called Queen Mary was heard sounding her horn in Southampton was in 1967 when she sailed her last voyage to Long Beach, California. It must have been 1967 when I moved to a village called Fair Oak with my wife and baby daughter. Fair Oak was just 10 miles or so from Southampton and as we lay in bed we could hear the huge blast of her horn as she sailed on the midnight tide to New York.

The new Queen Mary 2 has been fitted with the original horn so she will be heard with the same voice as she enters and leaves port for years to come. Not to be heard by us, of course. We left for the westcountry in 1970.

The old cow next door (OCND) got up late today, well lets say 8.30am is late because normally she’d be getting up at 7.00am. How would I know and why would I care? Her lavatory flush that’s how I know. Why would I care? Because it wakes me up. (more…)

I found an old set of negatives - the old black & white 120 size - in the most unlikely of place, almost under my nose in my sitting room. How they got there I don’t know. I held them up to the light and I almost jumped with joy. Lo and behold there was the only negative, the original, the only picture ever taken of my first car. The print of this I can vaguely remember floating around in years gone by. That I would ever find the negative was as likely as George W Bush putting together two consecutive coherent sentences.

The picture must have been taken by me in 1958 with my father’s folding bellows type Agfa camera.

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