Five More Signs of an English Baby Boomer - Things Can Only Get Better

 

1)  A cost of living crisis would happen every few years. 

Money was tight, inflation was often high, and austerity was the norm for many. People were told, “You have never had it so good.” Depends on how you define ‘good’. If it’s a little better than bad, then I suppose it was good.

2)  You watched television showing a man landing on the moon. 

I do remember seeing someone walking on the moon. Years later, pop group The Police sang about walking on the moon. And conspiracy theorists told us that the moon landing was recorded in a studio on earth. 

Next they will be saying that the Clangers aren’t real.

I’m Bored With One Line Sentences - In Defence of the Humble Paragraph.

 

Welcome to the modern age.

The age of the short attention span.

Was the last sentence too long?

Maybe so, but it was shorter than this one.

By a couple of words.

I recently read an article that had over one hundred one-line sentences in it.

Most were short sentences, but it had the occasional long one, like the last sentence above and this one.

I got a brain freeze halfway through.

I couldn’t cope with it.

By line twenty, I had lost track of what the article was about.

Where was it going?

Did it have any meaning?

And what’s wrong with using a paragraph occasionally? I might start now. The humble paragraph has been used throughout history; why shouldn’t it be used? What did it ever do wrong to offend people?

Actually, I’m having some fun. I don’t mind the occasional one-line sentence in my writing.

It can make a point.

Or not.

Short and to the point.

Five Signs of an English Baby Boomer - Nostalgia is not what it used to be.

 

1) We would often have sugar sandwiches for tea, usually because we had run out of jam — or money to buy jam. White bread, margarine, and sugar. 

It kept the dentist in business.

2) You had an aunt who would cut your hair. 

My aunt Carol cut my hair. 

“What style? Who do you want to look like?” She would ask. ‘David Bowie or David Essex?’ was my reply. They seemed to do well attracting girls; perhaps it would work for me? It didn’t. Well, I don’t think it did.

My First Television. The Big Box in the Corner

The big box in the corner.

That’s what our first televsion was called.

It's the early 1960s, and I have a memory of a rather big box that stood in the corner of our rented home.

It had a very small screen.

In fact, the screen was so small that at times a pair of binoculars would have been useful. The room was small, but it seemed to be so far away.

But there was an answer to that - we just moved the sofa and chairs closer to the television.

It was mostly a box, but it had to be.

One day the television stopped working. When that happened, the main way of getting it to work again seemed to be to hit the top of the box. Dad tried that, but it did nothing to solve the issue. The picture remained blank.

He then called in the local repairman, who in due course arrived with his handyman bag of tools.

His first job was to take the back off the big box with a screwdriver. It only took a few minutes for him to decide that one of the valves needed to be replaced. While he was doing that, I had a quick look at what was in the back. Considering the actual screen was so small, I was surprised to see all the valves, transistors and a massive tube.

It surprised me that putting all that stuff together only produced such a small picture.

Looking into the back did show me one thing, though. I had been told by my granddad that all the people who appeared on television actually lived in the back of the television set. Of course, being very young and not knowing anything about how that was possible, I just accepted his expertise on the matter. It never occurred to me that while the box may have been big, it wasn’t that big. They must have been very small people.

The handyman, having changed the valve, then turned the television on. There then followed a wait of several minutes for the set to “warm up” and a picture to appear.

It was like magic.

Money, Money, Money - I'm in the Money. When Money Changes.

  

 

   Money was different when I was a boy.

It really was different. 

It actually changed when decimalisation was introduced in the UK on 15 February 1971. The old currency system of pounds, shillings, and pence was replaced by a decimal system where the pound was divided into 100 new pence.

New coins were introduced from that date, although some had been in circulation two to three years prior.

Here is a list of the old money, coins and notes that were in issue when I was a lad. 

Ha’penny: A coin that was worth 1/2 of a penny. 

There were times when I had a lot of these, often saved in a jam jar.

Penny: A coin that was worth 1 penny. It was also called a copper. 

There was a time when I would regularly take beer bottles back to the local off-licence shop and be given a penny for each. The bottle returns were a valuable source of income for a young lad back then. Mind you, I think it is possible that quite a few adults were wondering why I was encouraging them to drink more. 

Also, the name of Miss Moneypenny in the Bond films.

Thrupence: A coin that was worth 3 pence. 

Known as a joey, but I don’t remember ever calling it that. A twelve-sided coin with character. Having some of these was a step up from the humble penny.

Tanner: A coin that was worth 6 pence. 

The coin was small, silver, and shiny. From what I can remember, it was very easy to lose, especially if you had a hole in your pocket. I suppose that the modern-day equivalent would be the five-pence coin.

It was sometimes referred to as an “Elsie”, after a character named Elsie Tanner in the popular television soap, Coronation Street. Well, that’s what it was called in our house.