News Year Day

I suppose it would be a significant Blogger to have a post on the day the date was 01/01/10?
Happy New Year!

We had it tough in our days ...

I was thinking today how life has become so much easier in our very own lifetimes.
Yes there are many modern conveniences we now have to reduce our past irksome chores and we can get on with living, working and relaxing in the time it saves us.

And, not all these modern appliances are electronic or even electrical either.
Take what I losely describe as 'decoration'. Even forty years ago in our homes we had and had to clean;
Brasswork, whether knobs and plates or ornamental. They needed cleaning and polishing regularly.
Ironwork, we 'blacked' and shined it with 'Zebro'.
Stonework, we scrubbed our steps and hearths then polished them with a thick red polish, 'Cardinal Red'.

These are just a few of the time consuming domestic chores our mothers had and we have only relatively recently abandoned in our modern life styles.
There are many more.


I don't think my parents ever had central heating until they moved into sheltered accommodation in the mid 80's.
Living in the country we were probably 10 to 20 years behind the time anyway.
Houses had to have supplementary heating which often was, what we now would call smelly paraffin stoves.
Always in danger of being knocked over or causing local fires by placing too near to fabric etc.
Of course paraffin also meant we needed somewhere to store it and that could mean at least a 5 gallon drum somewhere outside.
And it had to be collected unless you were lucky enough to be on the route of those delivery wagons. Remember them!

Then those portable electrical convector heaters came along and we generally lost the paraffin after that.
Funny though, the little electric radiant heater was an early contender but always a little expensive to run.
Probably a godsend for a quick warm up while dressing in cold bedrooms?

My luxury heater that I installed many years ago and still cherish is a circular built in radiant bar heater cum ceiling light in the bathroom. Despite heated bathrooms, still useful for getting out of the shower to in the colder months or before the central heating is switched on.
We've again gone a long way since putting the oven on and opening the door for a quick source of heat!  


I was born with 'Club Feet'. So I spent most of my childhood in and out of full plaster cast legs, leg irons, callipers etc.
But I managed to get in the army at 15 (told a fib) and keep up with the physical most of the time.
Now when I mention 'club feet' nowadays, younger people have never heard of it.
Although common in our days, it is no longer a birth defect.
(remember callipers and kids with big made up boots?)
Club feet was caused by the baby not lying in the womb correctly. Apparently since we have been able to see the growth of babies in the womb, the problem can be spotted and corrected before any deformation and birth!


My mum took the warm iron shelves from the kitchen range oven, wrapped in newspapers, to warm the beds up in winter.
I can still see the steam coming off the sheets as they warmed up!
Even then, getting into bed meant putting your feet under the sheets bit by bit to get used to the cold!
We would have a rag mat by the side of the bed to stand on as we got out of bed into a cold bedroom in the mornings. Otherwise it was bare feet on the cold lino floor. Then we learnt to get dressed under the bedclothes!
Yes, I remember jack frost patterns on the inside of the window panes ... 


And, we had a 'wireless'. Not a 'radio'!
And it wasn't just take it out the box, put in the batteries and switch on.
You had to have an accumulator battery and a spare which went down the the bicycle shop for charging each week. (like the old battle batteries?)
You had to dig a copper or brass rod into the ground under a nearby window and make a connection for a good earth and string up a copper 'tee' aerial.
Most stations had to be tuned in and often moved off the frequency when the wireless warmed up.
Our first convenient portable dry battery radio was an 'Echo'. (?)

Borneo days

My adventure in Borneo started by volunteering for convoy escort and was commonly referred to as 'riding shotgun'.

The OC of 98 Ordnance Maintenance Park, Major Dick Owen thought that some of us base dwellers should get out more and volunteered us for some more arduous duties since we were supposed to be on 'active duty'. Most of us thought that meant having a drink in Kuching Market on a Saturday night and getting back to camp before curfew.

Riding shotgun seemed an appropriate pastime so I duly volunteered.

So the morning of my excursion, knowing nothing about it whatsoever except I had to draw out a SMG and two full magazines and report to the Gurkha Transport office at 7:00 am.

We waited around for half an hour or so and eventually a Captain came out and said to me 'Corporal, the convoy commander is sick', 'you're in charge', 'take the convoy to 4 (or was it 1?) Royal Tank Regiment at Wong Padong'!

I think it was 'Wong Padong' I have never since found it on a map. I only know it was a forward position on the Indonesian border. It may well have been the name of a nearby kampong and no longer in existence. Or was it Simmangang ? Some information on the Internet quotes 4 RTR being near Sri Aman in the Wak Area of Sarawak. Problem is that Wong Padong Camp was probably built near a kampong in the jungle since abandoned. It is after all over 50 years ago and maps never mind memories are not quite the same ...

So without any further ado and with complete authority and as much bluff I could muster I ordered the escorts to mount, got into the lead truck and off we went with about 6 RLs driven by Gurkha drivers.

As we drove out Taneh Puteh gates and headed towards the border I found a map and the Gurkha driver pointed to a place on the map. I started to realise what I had let myself into.

In Borneo the roads had milestones and rules for convoys and patrols at certain points as we left civilisation towards the border.

We passed the Airfield and started to head out towards the border along a long road of cleared jungle on either side. Soon we prepared our weapons with magazine on, and made safe.

The roads were crude, dry but rocky and plenty of bounce so we couldn't drive that fast.

I knew the next point we would be inching towards the border and where all soft skinned vehicles would be escorted with Saladins, front and back.

So I casually said to my driver, 'Watch out for the armoured escort', to which he replied, with little concern, 'We’ve passed it!'.

So I asked why he had not stopped and he nonchalantly replied. 'They weren’t there', 'So I carried on'!

Well, having taken a few deep breaths I decided that there wasn't much point making much out of it so accepted the situation and said nothing but a shrug of my shoulders. Okay, I might have uttered an odd word like 'Shit!'

It wouldn't be half an hour later when the jungle closed in a little on both sides and my vehicle started making struggling noises and eventually stopped. I looked at the driver and he looked at me and I involuntarily said 'What's up'! His look told me he didn’t know.

So here I was on a operational 'Black' road at the closest point to the border with a convoy of six vehicles with very large crates of refrigeration equipment and a dozen or so base walla’s. And I was 21, an acting Corporal and learning rabidly.

At that point, my two little stripes grew decidedly heavy as I realised the gravity of the situation.

So I deployed 'my men' in some form of defensive position as I could imagine was needed, and the drivers worked on my vehicle.

Fortunately, the fault was soon identified. The battery leads were shortened out from the bouncing of the vehicle and hitting the underside of the drivers seat.

So with great relief we remounted and tried to make up some time before dusk which at that time of the year was probably about 4:30 pm and still some miles to go.

We managed to get into 'Wong Padong' (?) Camp just after 2:00 pm and we parked up in the only space we could find. There was a row of Saladins, Ferrets and a Saracen neatly parked up nearby but very few soldiers.

Now the Camp was laid out with the usual administration and accommodation huts made from attap and each with an open veranda. And even though it was situated in the fore front of the battle area and overlooking the border, each hut still displayed the title of the occupants complete with the name and regimental colours. It was in fact located with views down onto a heavily jungled canopy with the odd sparkle of a small river passing through and locating the border.

I eventually found the Quartermaster who without thanking me, took the paperwork and started to walk away. I made a bit of a humph and pointing towards the loaded vehicles asked, half heartedly what I was to do with it?

'Oh just unload it here and we'll get the Engineers to install them later.

"Er, excuse me sir but have you got any labour or ..." trying to look nonplussed and matter of fact. "Ill get some men for you" he volunteered.

Well, feeling pleased with myself, well at least momentarily because eventually about a dozen local Ibans eventually turned up and circled around me awaiting my instructions!

No, they didn’t speak English, No, there was no mechanical lifting equipment, and there was no ramp or any form of platform I could unload to.

Those stripes were certainly getting very heavy. Here's me with loaded crates and a foreign workforce and no other assistance. All the camp inhabitants seemed to have disappeared including the Quartermaster.

I did manage to find some heavy wooden beams and some rope and I did discover my Ibans did understand British Army expletives and some rudimentary signs such as push, pull, and stop. The rest was communicated via my very red neck and strained voice.

We managed to get the convoy unloaded by dusk, time to get an evening meal but far too late to return to Kuching.

So we were bedded down in a hut near the guardroom; I say bed down, we got a bit of a floor, a blanket and a pillow. Soon we drifted off. But not for long because there was an almighty clang of a bell ringing and the camp was under fire from the Indonesia side of the border.
We spent the rest of the night in a slit trench and soon tired of listening of the odd fire fight and woke to the glistening sun.

And so came to the end of baptism of responsibility and the closest I got to enemy fire.

I learnt a lot that day.

Village School

The school I will always remember will be my first one, at the top of Beck Lane in Thurgarton. It was directly on the corner with the main road to Nottingham and the lane to the railway station and on to Hoveringham and the Trent, which we use to call Hoveringham Ferry. It was Beck Lane because the small brook ' The Beck' flowed alongside the lane and there was a bridge outside the school and onwards under the main road into the woods on Priory Park. There was a farmy yard and barns not far down from the school and in the Summer they would assemble a steam engine and a thrashing machine 'n binder and harvest the grain.
Slowly the bags were filled and stored in the barn and the bales of hay grew into stacks for the winter months. All the kids would assemble and most of us were given jobs to do in the process. That is when we weren't chasing little mice escaping the machinery and darting all over the yard.
God help us if theHSE was about in those days!
I can't remember the farmers name. Was it Thornton's?

The village school was provided for all, infants, primary and secondary and was divided by huge sliding doors. Infants and Primary one side and the older children up to 15 years in the other. Two teachers and a dinner lady was all that was needed to accommodate the whole village education system.

The school had a large and very tall wall. In fact it was sunk below the level of the road and formed part of the bridge. It had the ubiquitous circle targets painted on the walls for ball games and a May Pole in one corner. I remember it being rigged up and used only once.

The entrance to the school which was predominantly Victorian, perhaps Gothic Revival of the type typified of village schools still being used pre and post war. The doorway was a single wide arched door to an Ante Room where onwards were the rows of coat hooks in the Cloaks Room or turn left into one of the two classrooms. Beyond the Cloaks were the school kitchens. Well at least where they received the hay boxes from the school meals service.
The lad’s toilet was outside in a small walled garden. It was pretty crude with a slate urinal on one wall and a water closet in a 'dunny like' construction in one corner. There was a raised garden but I can't recall what was planted out there or ever seeing anyone maintain it.

I remember waiting to hear the arrival of the milkman delivering our free school milk and someone recently reminded me that there was a choice of orange juice if you booked it beforehand. The milk was handed out before going out for morning break, probably to make sure we drank it 'cause they were keen on getting my generation healthy after the short supplies of the war.

Even though we were a rural village school we had a school radio receiver, which was turned on for the morning school programmes. I think we would have called it a 'wireless' in those days, come to think of it? We also had a gramophone for listening to classical music but that was an older 'wind up' version so we weren’t that well advanced!

In the younger students classroom there was a sliding hatch door where our dinners were served from and eaten at the desks. I reckon this was the time when I came to dislike mashed potatoes because for some reason they seemed to always have some hard and unpleasant lumps.
 But for the fifties the Education Service must have thought they were giving the countryside kids a revolutionary service.

More Purgatory at the Dentist.

I vaguely recall a white van coming around and parking in the top end of the school playground. No doubt we had dental inspections but we also had one come round to do mass xrays and Tuberculosis testing? This was after all the fifties and I believe we even still had sanatoriums in those days.

Somehow these visits filled us all with trepidations because there was a fear of such things in those days and later on even more for Polio and the thought of living in one of those giant iron lungs.

Seems I was forever getting Polio injections and whenever we said we had had them we were told that the previous ones weren't valid for some reason? Seems they weren't very good at writing things down in those days. Or did they get paid for how many they did?

This continued with regularity in the Army along with being retested for the Military Swimming Test! "But I've done it!" we protested. "It wasn't recorded so you'll have to do it again"!

The most humiliating experience I had with dentists came about in Bulford Camp Centre on thge edge of Salisbury Plain in the late sixties. I was serving with the Army Air Corps at the time up at Netheravon Airfield.

I had to have a filling but before I was allowed to see the Dentist I had to get past the Hygienist.

Now the Hygienist was a tall extremely elegant looking and full of himself Cpl who was the worlds most eminent expert on dental hygiene.

The cleaning of teeth was his particular forte and he demonstrated with vigour with a toothbrush and a large pair of false teeth.

Apparently my dental hygiene was dismally pathetic and he gleefully demonstrated on the passive model as if he was lecturing a hall full of dental miscreants.

I do believe that I had to attend his remedial classes and cleaning and polishing for some weeks before I was eventually rewarded with seeing the Dentist which was, as you may now well imagine for me, unrelenting purgatory ...

Now I don't want you to think my trips to the Dentist was always hell. Just most of the time ... But there was a time when some pleasure did come from such events.

When I was with the REME Tels Branch at RSRE Great Malvern in the early 80's we never had a barracks and used the Dentist of the SAS in Hereford.

Now the dentist there was female too and she would nestle my head between her very ample bosom as she worked on my teeth.

That was the nearest I got to relaxed dentistry.

A kinda pain and ecstasy ...

The Dentist

My first recollection and probably the one that always comes to mind as a youngster being taken to the Dentist in Carlton near Nottingham.

We lived out in the sticks and it was first of all a long walk to the bus stop at the end of the farm lane and then a bus trip around all the villages to the big city where we only would go on special occasions or selling our dog's puppies.
Carlton is on a hill approaching Nottingham and is the first of the built up area.
The Dentist was a large Gothic, turreted building behind a large wall and up a winding path further up the hill.
Yes, you can indeed imagine the Draconian image before me ...
Remember, I had bad tooth ache and this was my first introduction to the Dentist.
The Chair was enormous and the Dentist was a large ugly woman who had an equally ugly assistant both wearing white gowns.
The Needle was about 2 foot long and entered from the inside back of my upper gum and penetrated through my neck, into my outer skull and stopped just short of it coming out the back of my neck.
It was in an eternity and I felt every inch of that enormous thick needle.
Eventually the tooth and area became numb. So numb that I couldn't swallow and all the water and blood accumulating in my mouth was suffocating me and I was gagging continuously.
She clamped on her pliers and began to rock the tooth side by side to loosen the double tooth but it wouldn't come.
I could feel the vibration of every move and the sound of the crunching of bone.
She held my head back with one hand and pulled so hard that my body rose from the seat with her efforts.
By this time the other uglier assistant came from behind and forced my head back into the Chair and together the Dentist continued to heave and the Assistant held my head back until finally the tooth gave in and the blood gushed into my mouth.

Eventually they cleaned me up and my Mother guided me down the lane through the heavy wrought iron gates onto the main road.
We had to wait ages for another bus home and of course my mouth was still numb and my head hurt.
I don't remember much of the journey home but I will always remember that house and that Dentist.

And truly I don't reckon Dental science has got much better and that Needle hasn't got much shorter or thinner.
So that is why I don't like Dentists!
Do you think I have a phobia?

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