'Owt else or Any Other Business

[Tizer]

My car mad father had an Austin Devon for a year or so and I particularly remember my cousin and me sitting in the back seat on journeys to Blackpool. It felt very dark and enclosed, even with the extra triangular side windows! LINK

[Stanley]

My dad had a company car during the warm a Vauxhall 10 but when the war ended that privilege was withdrawn so he bought a 1938 Vauxhall 14 which he ran until he left GGA and bought a Bedford Dormobile van for use with the shop he bought in Sough. I drove Bedford wagons when I came out of the army so we were a General Motors family for many years.
When I went farming in 1953 my boss Lionel Gleed had an Austin Hereford which had the unenviable reputation of being the car most likely to induce car sickness in the back seat. I remember the noise level being very high but was never sick.

[Stanley]

I was looking back on the site and came across this from 2005....

YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE.

Politics is a fascinating spectator sport. It provides a constant stream of examples of the pitfalls and traps which await the unwary in real life. We are watching such an example now in UK politics and it is, at the same time, frustrating and instructive to witness.

It’s the resurgence of the massive disagreement about whether it was right to attack Iraq ‘riding pillion with the US’ as the Chatham House report put it in a statement issued today. [formerly The Royal Institute of International Affairs] They have given as their opinion that the incursion into Iraq undoubtedly made the UK more likely to be attacked by fanatics. I use the single word ‘fanatics’ because I fear it is far too easy to qualify any description of the suicide bombers using the adjective ‘Muslim’.

The big problem for the Blair government is that they have invested so much time and effort into burying criticism of their actions in backing the US. Faced with the proposition that actions in Iraq have made the world more dangerous and rendered us more likely to attack as allies of the US they are forced to attempt to refute it. If they don’t, they are tacitly admitting that forecasts that this would happen before the attack, and informed opinion that this is exactly what has happened, were right. Ergo, the incursion was wrong.

In the past few days the human shields have been rolled out, all of them singing from the same hymn sheet. The refrain is, and here’s a typical politician’s rhetorical trick, ‘it is wrong to put forward excuses for the bombers’. Seeking the truth is not making excuses. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary is the latest big gun to be wheeled out of the bunker and sang his chorus this dinnertime on R4. John Reid, the Minister of Defence even had the gall this morning on Today on R4 to claim the support of history in his assertion that because 9/11 and other bombings happened before the latest attack on Iraq it was obvious that any connection with that attack was wrong.

I’m afraid that once more it was Reid’s spurious arguments that pushed me over the edge. If he is going to use history he should read it first, it might save him from digging the hole they are in any deeper. The problem is of course that many people hearing him would believe him and say ‘well, that’s all right then’.

I would recommend that they go back slightly further and start by reading David Omissi’s article, ‘Baghdad and British Bombers’ published in the Guardian on January the 19th 1991. This was based on the research David had done on his book Air Power 1919-1938 in which he traced the history of the RAF in what was then Mesopotamia and the punitive bombing of the Kurds to force them to pay taxes. He also mentions the shelling of the tribesmen of the Euphrates when they rose in rebellion against British military rule in the summer of 1920, when the British army used gas shells - "with excellent moral effect" - in the fighting which followed.

This evidence blows a small hole in Dr Reid’s interpretation of ‘history’. It has evidently escaped his notice that there are tribal elders and younger people taught by them, in what is essentially an oral tradition, who have been bombed three times by the RAF in their lifetime. It seems to me that to assert that such experiences have no bearing on attitudes towards Britain is not only foolish but a gross distortion of the historical record. At the very least, the government is on very shaky ground if this is their only defence.

They are wriggling on a hook of logic that is entirely of their own making and just as all the efforts to discount criticism of the attack on Iraq have failed, this latest attempt to deflect blame will fail as well. They rely on a failure of memory on the part of the electorate and I’m afraid that in most cases this succeeds. It is the duty of those of us with slightly more retention to raise these matters even though we will be accused of acting as ‘excusers for the bombers’.

I hold no brief for George Galloway but do recognise that when a man speaks the truth he should be recognised and not vilified. In a recent speech he said that until the nations of the West renounced armed force as a tool of foreign policy they would continue to attract opposition and terrorist attacks. I can’t understand how anyone can argue that this isn’t the case. We aren’t talking here of armed force used in genuine defence against clear and present danger. We are talking about what we used to call ‘gunboat diplomacy’ and the concomitant damage it causes. It is generally agreed that 800 men, women and children are being killed in Iraq every month due to suicide bombings. This does not include ‘normal casualties’ caused by the activities of the security forces. These deaths are a direct result of the destruction of the Iraqi army, police and security forces by our troops because it opened the window to fanaticism.

In an article in the Guardian of February 19th 2003; ‘Blast from the Past’ by Matt Seaton, Simon Schama, when asked for his view on the proposed attack on Iraq as compared to WW2 refuted any comparison and ended his piece by saying; ‘As a consequence, if you were Bin Laden, you would be thrilled about the prospect of war: either there will be a great fat target of a western presence in Iraq for several years or there will be a broken and chaotic state: either way it will be a teddy bears' picnic for terrorism.’ Dr Reid and the rest of the Blair government should have been listening, at the very least they should note this and add it to their reading list. Here we have a historian applying the lessons of history and coming to a clear conclusion which has turned out to be exactly right.

To ignore the role of past actions in Iraq when seeking reasons for the recent terrible scenes in London is worse than simple ignorance, it is wilful distortion of the truth. This is of course not a complete answer to why young men with everything to live for were persuaded to take such violent action but it is a good place to start. What is even more important is the fact that until unpleasant facts are faced, until the truth not only of history but of recent acts is admitted, there is no chance of any successful strategy emerging in the fight against such acts because whatever action is taken will be based on ignorance and short term manipulation of the truth. This is not a sure foundation for policy.

[Gloria]

I have been reading Not Authorised and there was a comment about Doc. It seems a long while since he left us to sail the seven seas, does anyone know if he’s still sailing?

[Big Kev]

His Facebook page shows he's currently living in Antigua.

[Gloria]

His Facebook page shows he's currently living in Antigua.

Oh wow.

[Stanley]

One of these days he'll pay Barlick a visit.......

[Cathy]

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Does anyone remember these drink fountains from their schooldays?
I’m pretty sure that they weren’t in the schools that I went to.

[Gloria]

No they weren’t in any school I went to, and I went to a few.

[plaques]

Does anyone remember these drink fountains from their schooldays?
I’m pretty sure that they weren’t in the schools that I went to.

Never seen anything like that Cathy. In the junior school the yard toilets were outside but the sinks and taps were inside as a row of six sinks where only the cold water worked. You had to ask permission to go inside. Secondary school was far more luxurious with access from the yard and buildings. I say buildings because you had to leave one and go outside to enter the other. Still no hot water. You learnt to hold your water.

[Stanley]

I can never remember a drinking fountain in any school I attended. I first saw them in Germany I think....
The toilet arrangements at school were dreadful, no seats on the lavatories, just small pieces of wood fastened to the rim of the pedestal. I made sure I never had to use them! I once hid in the teacher's toilet at Hope Memorial when I was in a spot of bother and I remember that their outside lavatory had a wooden lift up lid and seat! Sheer luxury!

[plaques]

A recent observation that may apply to our more mature male readers.
Buy a suit for that special wedding and in no time it shrinks and gets far too small. On the other hand do the same for a funeral suit and it stretches and is suddenly two sizes too big. Funny thing these suits.

[Stanley]

I know what you mean Ken. But I am not sure it works. I have been waiting for years for shrinkage to set in with age so I can wear all my clothes again!

[Whyperion]

coming from a line of religious thought where death (generally) is not mourned , but celebrated as part of the next step of our reason for existance , at least where a natural death in at a time of old age is concerned, in listening to the BBC TV coverage and comments this morning I realise its more how the death of another effects the living. Quite specifically I realise in the same way in my own family it is the loss of the memories that were held and could be called upon, one may not always agree with an older person's counsel, and one is reminded that Queen Elizabeth II's first prime minster was Winston Churchill , obviously known to her well before her accession and gave continuity. In the same way that discussions between the monarch and the PM are never made public, the monarch has never given media interviews - as opposed to presentations and press releases. Charles has given media interviews a lot , would this change in his role as monarch , or the the concept of a constitutional monarch remaining as the old protocols ? So while the second elizabethan age indeed has been recorded by the film, TV and print media as never before, it is a lot of personal contact and memories that go.

[Wendyf]

Can anyone advise on what metal this delicate 1940s bracelet might be made from and how I might go about cleaning it? My mum wore it on her wedding day and I'm guessing Dad might have brought it back from Jordan for her but it has been sitting in a jewellery box for about 75 years getting seriously tarnished.
Yesterday I tried my usual silver cleaning process with soda crystals and foil which brightened it up a bit but I panicked at the strong rotten eggs smell and gave up. I've just learnt that is exactly what should happen as the tarnish is sulphur!
Should I have another go, or might I be stripping off a silver coating?

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[Tizer]

It's very likely to be silver which has tarnished from sulphur in the air over a long period producing black silver sulphide. The bad eggs smell confirms it .There's lots of articles on the web about methods for cleaning it off and the most common one seems to be bicarbonate of soda mixed with white vinegar. It's easy to find advice. You could try dipping an end of the bracelet in it first to test it out. I think the tarnish layer will be much thinner than the silver plating so unlikely to expose the metal underneath.

[Wendyf]

Thanks Tiz, I'll have another go this evening!

[Stanley]

Good luck. let us know what happens, anything to do with metals intrigues me.

[Wendyf]

Good luck. let us know what happens, anything to do with metals intrigues me.

I had a try with salt and foil which didn't work at all then another go with soda, foil and hotter water which removed a bit more tarnish but it is miles from it's original sparkle. I might look at silver cleaning products.

[Wendyf]

I found this sale notice for our house whilst searching the newspapers for something else. It is dated 1784 but mustn't have sold as the Shaw family owned it until 1877 when it was bought by the Wainman Estate,

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[Wendyf]

Another question from the jewellery box!

This is my grandmother's identity bracelet. I have assumed that it's from WW2 though I'm not certain of when the family moved into Compton Street, my father was born there in 1920. My question is about the initials and numbers below the address, what do they represent?

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[Big Kev]

Another question from the jewellery box!

This is my grandmother's identity bracelet. I have assumed that it's from WW2 though I'm not certain of when the family moved into Compton Street, my father was born there in 1920. My question is about the initials and numbers below the address, what do they represent?


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Was she an evacuee?

[Wendyf]

No Kev, she would be in her 40s with a family of 4 by 1939.

[Big Kev]

I'm getting confused with generations there

It was this story that made me think that
https://source-vintage.co.uk/blogs/news ... its-family

[Wendyf]

That's an interesting story Kev. I've actually discovered the answer to the initials myself by checking the 1939 Register.

The initials refer to the Electoral District, the 40 is the number of the household on the schedule and Florrie is the second person listed in the household. She can be identified instantly from the bracelet!

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