English Pantomines especially Cinderella and Tommy Trinder

 


It's Behind You - Tit Bits - Pantomime Perplexities

Our WW2 Allotment and encounter with a Flying Bomb

In WW2 my parents had an allotment at Wormholt Park about 25 minutes walk from our flat at Emlyn Gardens. Mention of WW2 use on the Council web site
Wormholt Park: The First Hundred Years - H&F Libraries and Archives Blog

Just north across the railway was one of my future Schools. I sometimes walked this way to school.  
St Clement Danes Holborn Estate Grammar School

We grew vegatables and I loved shelling fresh peas.

Plus a crop of sweet peas.

The poles on which those kind of plants grew are in that photo of me and Dad. As well as running an ice cream factory he was also driving an ambulance for ARP Air Raid Precautions.  

One day in 1944 enjoying a day at the allotment there was suddenly the chug chug sound of a V-1_flying_bomb. 

The V-1 was the first of the Vergeltungswaffen (V-weapons) deployed for the terror bombing of London. 
It was up high flying north over my future school and vanished into the far distance. 
Very nasty feeling seeing it. I do not know what damage it caused.

The allotment was great.

V2 

Whilst I am talking about these awful weapons. 
The first V-2 rocket (German: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit. 'Vengeance Weapon 2') to hit London came down about 2 miles from our flat killing 63-year-old Mrs. Ada Harrison, three-year-old Rosemary Clarke, and Sapper Bernard Browning on leave from the Royal Engineers

A V-2 I know more about on my webpage.
November 1944 Bomb Damage in Wandsworth - Hazlehurst Road Garratt Lane
I am very pleased that my posting of a memory from Hilda eventually became a major event in that part of London as you will see on the page. 

 

This is a Facit calculator. Type in numbers. To multiply turn the handle as many as wanted. You move along for big numbers. Fun but it was first real machine I had at work. This is 1960s. I was quite proficient.

Historian uncovers Australia's censored books and my time in HM Customs

I was only discussing when I was a UK Officer of Customs and Excise yesterday and censorship and then today
Historian uncovers Australia's censored books - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Note article mentions Children's comics. Well I remember seizing comics under the 1953 Children's Harmful publications Act. These were Horror Comics. Even nowadays Horror Films are X rated some are banned and these comics of ghastly content were in a format that appeared to a kid's comic. No question they should be banned..... What I had was a shipment of samples and when I seized them the importer said he was only bringing them in to see if he would publish. I said that was the point and why I was seizing them...

I did disagree with a fellow officer who had to inspect a suitcase coming in as freight and wanted to seize a man's photo album as he had some very personal photos of himself. I didn't think this was covered by the intent of any law...

Then some other officers at London Airport wanted to seize some Harold Robbins book "Carpet Baggers?". We were at the newspaper stand at lunch time and there was same book on sale....

PS I wonder if the ban on books from certain Paris publishing houses is still in force

BALVENIE Distillery - Google Maps

Fife Arms in Dufftown - Google Maps

I stayed there for a week in 1960 as a trainer Officer of Customs and Excise. Dufftown was then the most concentrated distillery town in the world. Six active and another used as a giant warehouse.

The distillery we were visiting to find out how the Excise controlled them was The BALVENIE.

We came by railway from Aberdeen and the station was just up the road from Balvenie and the road had been cleared of snow into the town. A nice brisk jaunt.

I remember the local officer's wife cooked some potato scone things just right for the freezing cold......

And the Malt whisky was great

Guns and Rifles

Neil Cameron has just published a good comparison on

M16 vs AK-47

Back in the 1950s I fired as well as The .303 Lee Enfield Rifle watch the kick - whoops a shoulder blade.
The WW2 Bren light machine gun a delight no kick - could wander sideways as only a bipod But I could get small groups by firing shorts bursts. (the USA had the BAR - Browning Machinegun).

Also the Sten a very low cost sub machine gun - it really drifted to the side - I used it like a hose - spray the bullets around. Wiki has a picture of Churchill firing from the shoulder - Winnie was a soldier but that was probably a propoganda picture - best I found was holding it at the waist tucked well in. So many WW2 movies (I remember Alan Ladd in the Red Berets) showed people holding the magazine at the end with left hand. NO NO! That would cause a jam.

Talking about recoil and how to hold - Ak47 I see being fired from shoulder - held very well and also from the waist. Then watching some films of training the Iraqis in entering eneny buildings, they have the butt up high on the shoulder like USA weapons. I don't think that is sound practice. Ak47 is not that stable.

yes the AK47 is a WMD - I saw designer recently saying he does not worry and still sleeps nights not his fault how wide spread the gun is.

Big thing with M16 they said on Discovery was the way the butt goes straight from the barrel - avoiding the curved stock stops the tendency to jerk the gun when firing. So point and shoot and it goes straight.

However as you say the AK47 is a more robust field weapon

I see a range of weapons in use by US in Iraq - as well as M16. Blokes lugging around M249 Squad Automatic Weapon the fire power must be good.
I wonder if the CQBR - Close Quarters Battle Receiver is working out.