when i was young

[robpage]

I used to love the cotton tied to the old fashioned door knocker and trailed out across the hedge , it gave you a head start when the door was answered . Some of the things we did woulkd not please the PC brigade today , a bean can tied to the neighbours cat used to be quite noisey too , and the cat certainly did not like it . Bird Nesting is now illegal , and on reflection quite pointless , as was many things that we did . Funny thing is no X-Box no computer but we went to bed tired and happy , fed on unprocessed food , home cooked , very few addatives , We had funny things called books and magazines , no kindles , but we survived . Age is overcoming sense here , we might not have been as well off money wise , but I think we were more fulfilled people that you find today .

[alf corbyn]

hi lads. i remember most of the things mentioned as i was 8 or9 when the war started.i used to work on a travelling library during the blitz so was never short of money. i also had a bike made from bits and the tyres were stuffed with grass as you could't buy inner tubes. our skates had block wheels (no ball bearings) and eventually wore down to the axles.
roger!. you forgot to mention the enfield small arms and the gunpowder factory. do you remember the bomber shot down on the service station in southbury road?. i was sitting on the gun that shot it down, as we were allowed to sit on it after cooking chips and running errands for the soldiers. john do you remember the comics called skipper and champion and others about rockfist rogan and chaka the zulu?, and wilson the all round athlete?. alf

[Don Rafferty]

Hi Alf, the Gunpowder Mills is now a museum and a fascinating place.

One of the most interesting bits is the canal system for moving the various ingredients around the site. There are two ingredients in gunpowder that can't be mixed until the right time to prevent a premature explosion, so there are two completely seperate canals, at different levels and with no connecting locks, as a further safeguard, the roofs of the barges on one canal are semi-circular and the bridges an identical profile, on the other canal, the roofs of the barges are like half an old threepenny bit, with again, bridges to match.

The new Olympic White Water Course is built almost next door to it.

[happy daze john in oz]

Bloody hell Alf, you bring back some mameories with those comics. Dan Dare in the Eagle, Desperate Dan in the Beano nad yes all the others in the Rover, Hotspur and a few others. Problem with the kids of today they have very little imagination as all is now done for them via google or similar. How mnay now would be making modle aircraft from balsa wood. 'Scues sir, what is balsa wood, like?

[Roger Dyer]

Hi Alf....re your #22.

Sorry, mate, I don't remember the German bomber coming down in Southbury Road, but I was probably only three or four at the time. I seem to recall my
relatives talking about it in later years. Do you remember a U.S.A.A.F. bomber coming down in Theobalds Park, Alf,? sometime in 1944, I think. As described by my grandparents, the aircraft was badly shot-up. With engine(s) coughing and streaming smoke, it passed very low over their house before disappearing from view behind some trees, in the direction of Enfield. Shortly thereafter they heard an explosion. Apparently, after steering his plane away from the built-up area beneath him, he could not prevent his aircraft from dropping down into a lightly wooded area where it crashed, killing the entire crew. After the war, a grateful community erected a monument at the crash-site, on which the names of the pilot and crew are recorded.

I do remember the Champion comic and Rockfist Rogan - what a man!!! A fighter-pilot in the R.A.F., who, when not shooting down German aircraft in large numbers, could be found in his other occupation as a champion boxer, in the ring punching seven buckets of sh-te out of a never-ending stream of hapless opponents. Don't know how he found the time to fit it all in, phenomenal stamina. To a young lad it was little wonder that, with men like that on our side, we won the war.

[Colin Hawken]

I have much the same memories as you Roger. WW2 started on my seventh Birthday. Guess you could say those of us born on that date,had one heck of a Birthday Party? I remember standing in our back garden in daylight watching the Battle of Britain going on overhead. We could instantly recognise "One of ours"or "A Hun." Bits and pieces used to fall around the Neighbourhood,we'd go searching for them later. Although we didn't know it at the time,we watched the first R A F VC of the war being won in the sky above. The R A F pilot,Fl. Lt.Nicholson's plane had been attacked by an enemy plane and was on fire. Before bailing out, he went after the German plane and shot it down. There is a plaque commerating the event at the spot where Nicholson landed,as far as I know it's still there. Like I saiid we didn't know at the time what we had witnessed. Didn't seem to worry in daylight but at night when the Blitz started,I remember being a very frightened little boy. Later,in the buildup for D Day,like many others,our Town had a large contingent of American troops. I'll never forget how good those Americans were to us. The goodies they gave to us kids were mind boggling.Things we hadn't seen in years,in some cases things we had never seen before. They were like Aliens to us kids,they spoke in funny voices and said "Gas" instead of petrol,"sidewalk" instead of pavement. We liked them though.

[Stuart Henderson]

Hi Roger, very similar memory to yours regarding the crash landing of an American Flying Fortress which had been shot up on a continental bombing raid, It crashed alongside the Thames at Runnymede, the medes there had been covered with built in wooden poles to prevent German glider landing, but the Flying Fort crashed through several sets. I cant remember how us kids heard of it so quickly, jungle telegraph as no computors ,and few phones available in those days. We were always trying for souvenirs, bit dangerous really but most sites well guarded. Remember chasing runaway barrage balloons too one ended up on Staines common and luckily a bit faster than us trailing kids as its broken wire hit electricity pylon/wires very spectacularly. When first doodlebugs appeared I remember chasing one on my old newspaper round tradesbike and again lucky as it hit the deck on Ashford golf course only a couple of hundred yards from the huge reservoir banks. Shrapnel was collected on my paper round too mostly ack ack stuff. Well we didnt have any toys or TV did we ????
Stuart

[Ron B Manderson]

How about, after Saturday child cinema we would run home hitting our poor bums with our hands until it was really sore. I blame Roy Rogers for that.
Ah ! them were the days. Collect limo bottl;es to get the 2d (old money)
Putting Pennies on the tramlines to get them bent. Coal tar on your shorts.
In them days you knew what day it was by what mum set down for tea.

And if you were goos mum would let you stay up to listen to the radio play on monday at 9.30 pm.
Thats when my mum would darn all our socks again.
We had two pair of undies. One on , one in the wash.
Whenm I look in my drawers I can't get moving for pairs of undies.
Newspaaper squares loop with string on a nail . No andrex then. Just that azal, which was like tracing paper.outside toilet on the stairs between 6 families.

I still think we didn't have much, but what we had, would be shared by next doors kids. Then people would look after each other.
In 1946 I found a big bag of oranges. some one must have hidden them in a field. We lived like lords for a few days.
You only bought something when you had the money. Father would never allow any debt, to be paid up.

I say better days then .
Ron the batcave

[John Pruden]

seaforth shore they had a compound with all kinds of army stuff collected from the war waiting to go back to the states we would go under the wire and that was a boy's dream tanks deuce and a half trucks yankee ducks ak ak guns you name it not many kids got to play in a Sherman tank or winding ak ak guns up and down. oh the fun.john

[happy daze john in oz]

Wonderous days of our youth. Spent much of mine in the North East, Sunderland, Newcastle, Shields, East Bolden the areas where the family came from before going south. All the relis up there gave us a good time. Remember the kid over the road in East Bolden, we became good mates and he introduced me to smoking at the tender age of about 7. He would produce all manner of odd things to smoke such as cinamon sticks and tea leaves wrapped in something else. The railway ran at the back of my aunts house and we used to put six inch nails on the track for the train to flatten. They became the points for our spears, not sure what we actualy speared. But life was simple and pure in those days, not like now where corruption is just about everywhere.