Category: General

In the 30’s the middle class had aspirations of, if perhaps not ‘ectually’ moving up a class; perhaps being accepted as an appendage to the upper classes. This involved display, like a cock pheasant in the spring, only it was even more prevalent among the females who were the prime movers, having nothing else to… Continue reading Pre WW2, The 30s, Snobery and transport

I am accident prone and wont to make snap decisions. At fourteen I bought my first bicycle, second-hand, for a pound, and learned to ride it. It was a heavy, characterless brute, with only one gear. A month later I went on my first real journey, to visit an aunt. She was out, so I… Continue reading Pre WW2, The 30s, The era of cycle accidents

The Terraced Wedge We finally moved from the awful flat to a house we all called ’76’. My brother could now come home to be educated. 76 was close enough to 88, my grand- mother’s house, for her to help out when Willie had to work late. Unless one has never lived in a terrace… Continue reading Pre WW2, The 30s, The Terraced wedge

I often wonder if young people, with shiny new degrees lecturing us on TV, in dictatorial terms, with such conviction, have really had any experience of the problems they are allegedly solving. I have met a number of those problems head on, at a time when they were not thought to be so. From the… Continue reading Pre WW2, The 30s, Sex and child abuse

I have had to exercise discipline on others, been the recipient of it being implemented in every form, from lines to a leather belt, and I have had to exercise it on myself, often unsuccessfully. Punishment in any form is transient, and in excess is self defeating. Take a simple example of shock treatment –… Continue reading Pre WW2, The 30s, Discipline as a concept

Returning to a British school in 1930 seemed totally alien from what I had experienced in Africa. The hours were different, I had to walk over a mile each way to school, morning and afternoon and the classes were bigger. When I arrived we worked with rooms lighted by gaslight in winter afternoons and, worst… Continue reading Pre WW2,The 30s, Schooling in Britain

The Very Poor And The Not So Poor I would like to relate the story of me and the beef dripping. Not far from my Grandmother’s house was a Victorian slum building known locally as ‘The buildings’. It was not unlike a poor version of the tower-blocks of the 60’s, though without balconies, bathrooms and… Continue reading Pre WW2 The 30s, Beefdripping

Through the 30’s habits started to change at a snail’s pace, but it was so smooth one wasn’t aware of it. In the bigger shops they had those lovely wooden balls containing money or receipts, rising the full height of the shop at a twitch of a string, then rolling gently along metal tracks, with… Continue reading Pre WW2, the 30s, I write – you compare

I expect like me, you have been listening to the pundits and politicians with ever decreasing belief that they know where they are going and what is best for us. The level of disagreement I find frightening, and the problem is that they take their values from just a short base, instead of realising that… Continue reading Can we climb out of the hole

To most boys coming from my background, religion was a means to an end rather than an end in itself. It was an entrée into the Scouting Movement, which, was church affiliated, offered bun fights and picnics’ in lieu of TV On cold wet winter evenings, apart from the Cubs and Scouts, there was the… Continue reading Pre WW2 – the 30s, A brush with religion