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Postbag
Enjoy pages and pages of readers’ letters about all sorts of topics relating to Britain past and present, as well as responses to items that have appeared in the magazine.
Dream holiday
In 1950, I was nine years old and we spent our holiday at Margate in a bed and breakfast run by Mr and Mrs Ridpath. On one occasion I was allowed to bang the gong in the main hallway, to call the other guests down for breakfast. Just tap the gong once, I was told. But how can a young man do that just once? I banged it about six times. It sure got the other guests down at some speed. I wasn’t allowed to do it again – I wonder why?
We always had to be out by 9.15am, whatever the weather, and could not return until 10.30pm, so we spent a lot of time in Dreamland. In the car park there was a model Green Line bus, which ran on a petrol engine. I never got to ride on the bus, as my grandfather thought the fare was too high just to go around the car park.
But we did have many rides on the Scenic Railway as Mum and Grandad also got a ride to look after me. We went on the river tubes, going round the make-believe caves. It was good fun if you were allowed to bump the tube in front, splashing its occupants with water.
At midday, for a treat, we had a meal in the Dreamland self-service cafe. I spent time singing on a small stage at the entrance to the cafe. I now wonder how many customers I drove away.
Mum kept a little notebook with her and would write down every penny we spent to make sure the money would last until the end of the week. They were great holidays.
Roger Stimpson, Honiton, Devon.
Easy as 1-2-3?
I am a 78 year old computer novice and, three weeks ago, I had a library book I wanted to renew online. After about an hour, I amazed myself and managed to renew the book.
This week, I wanted to renew it a second time. It took me only thirty minutes to get as far as entering my details and PIN. The original renewal had said I could use 0000, but that I should create my own PIN for the future. Unfortunately, I could not remember my chosen number for the second renewal. I was advised to contact the library staff for help. The next morning I had an email telling me to use 0000 again. This I managed successfully and also invented another PIN. I have now written this on a sticker attached to my PC.
I am still wondering if it would have been easier to jump on the bus with my OAP pass, and go to the library myself.
But then, there is the new entrance to navigate and a row of self-service machines.
Bernard Kelly, Northampton.
Cold potatoes
My father, A. G. Bullen, was an engineer by trade, and managed an ammunitions factory during WWII. One of my earliest memories is of sitting in a pram outside his greengrocers shop in downtown Willesden, London; I never did get to the bottom of how he migrated from engineering to greengrocery. This was in the early 1950s, and I was only two or three, so went with them to the shop every day.
Certain memories have stuck with me, such as Dad’s long, white apron tied around his neck and waist. There was a high glass counter to the right as you went in, with a row of biscuit tins in front. Discounted broken biscuits were a particular crowd pleaser, as rationing was still in place on some items. There were huge piece of gammon, which Mum had boiled in the back room, sitting in pride of place on the counter, ready for Dad to carve for customers wanting slices of cooked ham.
The outstanding memory of that time are my visits to the old lady living above the shop. Whenever my parent sent me upstairs to ‘get out from under their feet’, which was quite often, there was always a bowl of cold boiled potatoes on her kitchen table, and she would let me take one as my treat.
To this day I always boil a few extra potatoes, and when I have them cold the next day, with loads of salt and pepper, I always think of her and those early carefree years, when it was safe for my parents to leave me in the pram outside the shop!
My parents tried many new ventures over the years, and we eventually moved to Cornwall, where they owned holiday flats, then a guest house, a tea room, a restaurant and eventually a pub. In between all of this, he was also a master builder and decorator and she a seamstress. In this life they would probably have been called entrepreneurs, but in those days, their lust for life and imagination made for a very colourful and interesting childhood, which I now look back on with great fondness.
Denise Jones, Southport, Merseyside.
Packet treasure
Back in those smoky days of the 1950s, what brand of cigarette you smoked was a bit of a status symbol.
To me and my brother, David, it was crucial – not that we were smokers, being just lads at this time, but what our parents smoked was very important. Dad smoked Wills Woodbines. Mum was a bit more up-market, as she smoked Players Please, the one with a sailor’s head in a lifebelt on the front of the packet.
In those days, packets of ten were the norm. This was very important to us, because both brands came in ‘push-up’ type packets. The empty packets were seized with glee, and swiftly, with the aid of a pair of scissors, were quickly transformed into a small cardboard tank. Who needed Airfix or Blue Peter!
Squadrons of these tanks would be set out strategically on the floor of the front room, and blasted with projectiles fired from those great little die cast cannons with spring loaded guns. We usually used matchsticks, but sometimes used small flat-headed nails that had a much more devastating effect on the tanks, sending them reeling across the floor.
We often got into trouble with Mum because, boys being boys, we didn’t always collect all of the projectiles, only to suffer her wrath for potentially damaging the vacuum cleaner.
While my parents continued smoking these brands, all was fine. But then disaster struck; Mum graduated to Benson and Hedges, with its gold flip-top pack. You couldn’t make tanks out of these. They were only good for making barriers or walls.
Dad was trying to give up smoking, so packets dwindled. Luckily he only managed to switch to Park Drive. You could make tanks out of these packets, but they didn’t have the same camouflage effect of the little blue and green packets of Woodbines.
Final disaster came when he switched to Embassy, lured by the gift coupons. These were flip-top packs, and finally put the tin hat on our tank-making exploits.
Julian Payne, Letchworth Garden City, Herts.
Woolworths’ vision
Way back in the 1940s and 1950s, my nan and granddad both worked at Woolworths on Walthamstow High Street. Nan was the supervisor, and Granddad played piano in the store to the delighted public.
Living in Chingford Hatch in the 1960s, I often visited the Regal Cinema at nearby Highams Park. Around the age of 16, I made several visits there, for I fell in love with an usherette. It never came to anything, both being quite shy of each other.
After half a dozen visits to this cinema, Lesley wasn’t there any longer. I asked the manager where she was, and found to my horror that she had left! Heartbroken was putting it mildly.
One night I had a very vivid dream that she was working in Woolworths on Walthamstow High Street. The dream was so real to me, and I asked my pal Tony Barnard, if he’d take a bus ride with me to the shop, as I really believed I’d see Lesley there. Tony thought I was absolutely barmy, and whilst on our journey I was beginning to think the same!
Tony and I went in to the shop, my heart was beating with excitement, and my eyes looking at every girl behind the counters. Then, total shock; there behind the tea counter was Lesley!
Tony and I were so taken aback. Lesley gave me a lovely smile and we both said ‘hello’. The power of my mind made my dream come true. But I was so flabbergasted that I never went into that Woolworths again.
Keith Nichols, Kessingland, Suffolk.
Motoring mishaps
I started having driving lessons in 1964, at £1 per lesson. The driving school was behind Liverpool Football Club. My lessons coincided with Liverpool’s home games, so I spent more time sitting behind the wheel waiting for the crowds to cross the road than actually driving. It didn’t help when the driving instructor asked me if he could call at his house. Foolishly I agreed and ended up sitting in the car whilst he went in for a cup of tea. Out of forty lessons I only had about twenty hours of driving time.
The area I drove around had been completely flattened during slum clearances in the 1960s. When we came to a junction I simply drove straight across as I could see perfectly well that nothing was coming and didn’t realise I had to stop.
On the day of the test I had my first lesson in the daylight in a new car, which threw me completely. One of my many problems is getting my right and left confused. When I was asked to turn right I signalled right, positioned myself in the middle of the road and then turned left, much to the astonishment of the examiner. The final straw came when I was asked to do a three-point turn. Panic set in and I mounted the pavement and nearly hit the wall behind. Needless to say it took two attempts to pass my test!
When I finally did pass a work colleague told me about a car for sale. I knew absolutely nothing about cars but he assured me it was a bargain.
The next day I went along to inspect the car taking my boyfriend, Roger, with me. It was an old Standard 8. The owner had bought it from new and was really enthusiastic about his beloved car. He regaled me with tales of his travels, and had a tear in his eye when he told me he had gone on honeymoon in it. He proudly opened the bonnet to display the cleanest engine you could ever imagine. Every nut and bolt was painted a different colour and there on the garage wall opposite was a spanner painted to match! I secretly thought ‘it won’t be like that for long’. We agreed a price and I handed over my £50.
The car’s faults soon came to light. The gear stick wouldn’t stay in third. Holding onto the stick and negotiating a roundabout, the passenger door flew open every time we rounded a bend.
We had taken a picnic with us for one journey and placed it on the back seat. We hadn’t gone very far when I slammed on the brakes (which I did quite often) and the back seats shot forward. The flask smashed and the contents of the basket fell onto the floor making short work of the picnic.
The seat covers were made of tartan plastic. Quite trendy, I thought at the time, but they weren’t very practical. Roger was very patient, he didn’t criticise my driving, but just sat there holding onto the door handle looking nervous. I didn’t realise how nervous until he got out of the car. Peeling himself off the seat, he turned around and to my amazement the whole of his back was red tartan matching the seats.
We had many good times in that car but the final straw came when we were going over Shap Fell in Cumbria one windy day. A gust of wind took the bonnet right off and it went tumbling down into the valley below with Roger in hot pursuit. The adventures in the Standard 8 didn’t put him off and we are celebrating forty years of marriage this year!
Pat Wilkinson, Southampton, Hampshire.
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