My subject is memory. I assumed that those words had appeared in that order in at least a dozen pieces on this Blog, but it turns out that this is only the sixth time. The Memories Menu, and posts that have been tagged with the Memories category, contain well over 100 pieces between them, but… Continue reading The bishop and the chocolate bar
Every year my old college produces its Annual Record. As the name suggests, it’s a publication reviewing the previous twelve months of college life. The 2018 edition arrived in the post two days ago. I had been looking forward to it and couldn’t remember exactly what time of year it usually arrives. Like many items… Continue reading Annual Record
Cast your mind back 40 years, if you can. You arrive in November 1978. “Rat Trap” by the Boomtown Rats is at #1 here in the UK, having displaced “Summer Nights” by Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta after its 9 weeks at the top. Jim Callaghan is still prime minister. In the US Donna Summer… Continue reading 40 years ago, and 40 years before that
Shortly after my 10th birthday, my mum passed her driving test. She had bought a car earlier that year, planning for the time when the three of us (my older brother, younger sister and I) were going further afield than the school around the corner and the church down the road. Before she bought, and… Continue reading A game involving pub names
Another little milestone. Over the last month our daughter and son have celebrated, respectively, their 12th and 14th birthdays. I recall a birthday party, soon after our daughter was born, at which a friend kept saying “6 and 8, 6 and 8”, like a mantra. She was looking ahead a few years, to the day… Continue reading 12 and 14
May 1987, the Cannes Film Festival, an event that I attended most years back then because of my involvement with a Film Festival here in the UK. As usual, this celebration of cinema on the Riviera coincided with the FA Cup Final back home. I watched the game at the British Pavilion, an occasion that… Continue reading The £30 bottle of Evian
The Hopper Fare was introduced here in London back in 2016. It allowed you to make two bus journeys for the price of one, as long as the second journey started within an hour of the first. This was a simple, easily understood change to the fares system. It saved people money. From what I… Continue reading Word of the week: Hopper
Since writing about Cycling Proficiency back in June I have been meaning to return to the subject of bicycles, and to write about the first bike I ever owned. There are over 1500 words about this in the paragraphs that follow. In that earlier piece I mentioned sharing a bicycle with my brother as a… Continue reading More about bicycles
My childhood holidays involved three possible routes to Ireland, my parents’ homeland. There was the train from Euston to Holyhead followed by the boat to Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin. After my mother passed her driving test (soon after my 10th birthday) we went by car. She did all the driving, usually to Holyhead, to take… Continue reading Missing the boat
If you live for long enough in the same village, town or city you will see many businesses come and go: shops, restaurants, bars, petrol stations. Having spent most of my life in the same part of West London I can trace the history of some of these multiple local changes without difficulty. Other places… Continue reading Lyons, Wimpy, Burger King, Carluccio’s, Empty
The Compartments 