Off Topic The 'Good ole dayz'

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Off Topic The 'Good ole dayz'

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After a comment from our dear colleague PAJ I decided to start an 'Ole Foggies Club' thread, just for us 'old uns' to remember the 'good' old days. I found reading the comments from PAJ a fruitful and endearing exercise. What surprised me most was that our paths ran almost parallel, without actually touching. No doubt there are one or two other members who, though not 'past it', are not so far behind and have some really interesting anecdotes and stories to share with other like minded people. All I ask is that we all respect each other and 'do unto others as you would have them do unto thee'. George.
 
What surprised me most was that our paths ran almost parallel, without actually touching.

I think this thread is a great idea George. I'll see if I can stir up the little grey cells a bit.

I see you are based in the Wolverhampton area? Our paths may have crossed a little more nearly than either of us could have guessed. Back in the very early '60's, one of those rather "military" boarding schools I told you of was in North Wales. It was too far away for my mother to come down all the way from the Scottish Borders and take me out for half terms etc so one of my best friends parents very kindly would take me to their home for the odd long weekend. Guess where they lived? Kidderminster! Even more amazing is that his Dad was something to do with Edwards Glass in Wolverhampton. I see from a Google search they are still in existence. He once took me along for a bit of fun throwing bricks into the panes of damaged glass to smash them up into smaller pieces so they could go off and be remelted. Later, when we were older but before starting work, I went back to visit him in my wee 850 mini but he had moved away and I don't think he followed his dad into the business. There was another chap, a friend of his, who we regularly used to knock about with who lived in one of the cottages down by the river in Bridgenorth. His family seemed to be permanently recovering from being flooded out!
 
Ps to the above. I sometimes, on our "road trips" to Devon - where Mrs J's sister lives - will take a diversion off the M6 down onto the A449 and rejoin the M5 just to relieve the motorway boredom. Although it's been many years since I was regularly in your area, it's quite nostalgic to find myself on a bit of road which, all those years ago, I would have been rattling along, at far too fast a pace, in my little Mini.
 
Howdy peepuls :cool:

I can see this thread being as diverse as the gang that make up our little community.

I sadly remember the Kennedy shooting, I thought he was a man with the right idea's and a heart for his country.
I also remember the Cuban crisis and yes it did have me worried.
I was a bit shocked but not surprised by Mr Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of blood speech'
Talking of old school days (were we?) - I remember mine with nostalgia and a yearning of happy days missed.
It wasn't all sunshine and roses though, Friday mornings would see me regularly waiting for my turn to 'visit the washroom', where our indiscretions would be put to rights in the shape of a willow rod, being wielded by either Mr Hobson, or Mr Reese, both of whom knew how to operate said article and applied to their task with much gusto and enthusiasm.
I'm not sure that it actually had the desired effect though, because, several of us would 'volunteer' for another portion not too long later.
In truth we were bloody pests, always getting into trouble by being where we shouldn't be and applying ourselves into the fine art of 'finding' things that were perhaps not yet lost. To think, I 'only' got the stick maybe half a dozen times so I, for one, got away with murder.
More later, I think I should have written a book of my early days, I'm sure it would have made someone smile.
George
 
Howdy gang,
I was having a reminiscing rabbit wiv 'our kid' last night - he's just come back from 3 months in Porky (lucky sod). He was waxin lyrical about somethin called 'sunshine', it must be a new buzz word cos it ain't one I've come across very often :rolleyes:

Anyway, we got to chatting about some the sheds we used to have and wouldn't it be nice to still have them today - especially knowing now what we didn't know then.
First thing my Dad got me for work was a 1952 James Comet which cost him £3.10.0, it came with a massive 98cc of raw power, a delightful gearbox full of 2 gears: 'low' and 'high' - (I bet that designation took the designer some working out), handling was that of an early Fordson tractor, but it was a magic carpet of a ride with girder forks on the front and a solid frame and cracking 18 or 19" tyre on the back - there were springs under the saddle though, just to ensure you kept some of your teeth should you have the stomach to eat after anything like a long distance jaunt, like for example: the 16 miles from home to the River Severn at Bridgenorth, to do a bit a maggot swimming.
Joking aside, it wasn't a bad bike really, and it allowed me to venture far and wide. I had a friend who had moved from Wolves to a place called Eryrys, near Mold. His Dad & Mom took on the duties at the post office there, so every other weekend I'd set off up the A41 to spend a few days with them, it was and, I imagine, still is, a lovely little village.
I learned there that a James Comet, with all it's latest technology and handling disabilities, does not make a very good dirt bike, if you ever decide to test your mettle down a deep, steep and very slippery quarry, I suggest you use something a little more appropriate. Take it from me it's not a lot of fun sliding down a steep rocky slope on your posterior with your god heavy old bike chasing you down the hill.
I kept that bike for about 2 and half years, learning never to go anywhere without the essentials:
Here's my emergency kit:
2x Gear change cables - they were no more than rear brake cables for a push bike and broke with alarming regularity.
1x Inner tube, puncture repair out, tyre levers and pump.
1x each headlight and back light bulbs (Lucas 6v, headlight was 21w I think)
1x Plastic sack with head and arm holes cut out (nothing like a bit of wet weather gear)
1x spare parts bag with points, plugs and spanners (just in case)
1x fold up road map (it's nice to get off the beaten track)
I never carried spare fuel because garages where plentiful and a gallon only cost 4s 6d includes two shots. (those were the days) :)
Anyway, enough for now. If you can stand it, I'll do another bit in a day or two. If, on the other hand, you don't want/like what I'm writing, just say so an I'll shut up.
All the best
George
 
'evening George. Your last post, about "sheds" you have owned, has set me to thinking. It's a difficult one because just about every vehicle I owned when I was young (except the two cars which my Dad had shares in) were "Sheds" - some of the mopeds would make the sheds feel embarrassed to be associated with them!

First motor bike I had was a Francis (Fanny) Barnett. I would have been about 13 or 14 years old, knew absolutely nothing about how it worked and I raced around the fields on it. It had a very reliable 2 stroke Villiers engine, maybe 150cc? but the rest of it was in terrible condition. It was easier, and probably more realistic, to stop it by turning it sideways rather than applying the brakes! Luckily it couldn't get up to much speed in the small field I was allowed to use, and on it's bald tyres! but I learned a great deal about bike control. Eventually it stripped all the teeth off the gearbox sprocket and was declared not worth repairing by Dad's garage.

Next I bought a scrapped 1930 Morris Minor from Jonny Mid's scrap yard in the station yard (for £10 I think). I also used this to tear around the fields with and used to go in the "big" field where the horses were with it. I thought I'd get in a lot of trouble for doing this but the horses didn't seem at all bothered. When I came through the gate they would go into their stable and stay there whilst I tore around at up to maybe 40 mph going sideways, intentionally invoking spins, holding power drifts (you don't need a lot of power in a muddy field to do this. Learned a great deal about car control. Unfortunately what I didn't know, but whoever scrapped the car probably did, was that there was a minute pinhole in one of the cylinders which, if that cylinder stopped with the piston at or near TDC, allowed a very slow drip of cooling water to drip into the sump. I was now a bit more knowledgeable about machinery so knew basic maintenance and I noticed about a week after buying her (Esmiralda) that the oil was looking sort of creamy. I changed the oil but she did it again, I think I changed the oil 5 or 6 times before the big ends cried ENOUGH! I remember her prop shaft (rwd of course) did not have universal joints but instead used flexible discs which seemed to be made of rubber impregnated canvas. I abused her so dreadfully these were always wearing out. Her's was the first engine I ever stripped down - which was how I found out about the pin hole. In my ham fisted ignorance, and with my very limited tool kit, I broke a lot of bit's doing so.

She was replaced by one of the best bikes I ever owned - a single pot, pre-unit (separate engine and gearbox) 350 AJS scrambler. Now I had a really serious bit of kit. It had big, very aggressive, knobbly tyres and, in it's day must have been a real "tool" at the scrambles. Now outperformed by more modern machinery it was a "niche" machine nobody had use for. I don't remember what I gave for it but it would have been peanuts and it was an "animal" The compression was so high you couldn't really kick start it - I learned how to run and bump with it - and those tyres had so much grip it would wheelie at every opportunity. It was however a really heavy S.O.B. and I fell off it a lot! It was very definitely not road legal (and I was too young anyway) but I once tried it on a tarmac road, in the wet, and promptly fell off. Muddy knobblies on a wet road? Absolutely lethal!

I never really appreciated how good a bike that was and I wish I still had it but I swapped it for a 1935 Mk1 Morris 8 Tourer (4 seater). The guy who got the bike got by far the better deal, although I loved the Morris too and had it 'till I went off down to London to technical College.

Oh, nearly forgot, I missed a bike so badly I bought a "bitsa" Bantam shortly after I swapped the AJS. It was a 150 motor in a slightly modified (strengthened) frame with big hydraulic forks - definitely not Bantam. One of my friends thought they were C11G forks? I wasn't really bothered, it went. - It's big drawback was that it was configured for trials riding but the gearbox was a standard item coupled to a very large rear sprocket so flat out at about 40 mph if you were lucky. Great big knobblies again. Wonderful for "dribbling" up stream beds etc but not for riding around Edinburgh streets. I was always falling off it. The most spectacular was going down the mound, only slightly too fast, in the wet, and I fell off it just after leaving the Royal Mile where the road goes sharp left in front of the bank. It's quite steep there and the bike decided to do a sort of fancy S shaped "squiggle" with it's back wheel (too much throttle, guilty M'Lud) on the wet diesely road surface. We slid, The bike and I, locked together, almost as far as where the bus stop now is. In full view of two bus loads of people and all the tourists. Very embarrassing!

Then I went to college down in the "Big Smoke" and suddenly there was no money! No Mum or Dad anymore to "borrow" the odd fiver from. I started out using the tube but even that was expensive - by now I was in deep with the soon to be Mrs J and women "eat" money so I couldn't keep a car running - I had a Mk1 Cortina, but no money to put petrol in it except when every few months the two of us would save enough to go back up to Edinburgh to see parents and family (she's an Edinburgh girl too).

Then I discovered MOPEDS!! Proper Mopeds, 49cc things with pedals, that might reach 30mph down a hill with a strong wind behind. I had lots of Mobylettes and Mobylette bits. No one wanted an old one and you could pick up a rough but running one for a fiver back then. I think I actually had never less than 4 or 5 at any one time. I rode them all over London during my college years and would sometimes be mistaken for a taxi driver "doing the knowledge". Perhaps for that reason policemen never seemed to bother with me whereas my friends with bigger bikes seemed to be always getting stopped. I also acquired a weird wee Honda which had it's engine in the back wheel (model P50?) I never got it to run right. It was the only 4 stroke moped I ever had and much more complicated than the Mobylettes. There was a Raleigh which was like a Mobylette but not so good, and a real weirdy - a BSA Dandy! - It had the engine in unit with the rear swing arm and was coil sprung front and rear but no shock absorbers at all! It went quite well but felt very weird if you got "brave" and started to build up some speed when it started to feel like you were riding a motorized pogo stick. It built up this sort of floating bounce which completely destroyed any confidence in it's handling. It's one great claim to fame was that Mrs J (who became a stay at home mum when we started our family - as you did in those days) used it to go to the shops right up until just a week or so before her time was up. She is a small person and so looked vast when pregnant and she became quite a local celebrity riding around on this Moped looking like Billy Bunter.

There's probably more of this if you're not all slitting your throats by now? but I think I'll stop here and see what the reaction is. Perhaps one last thought? You'll never look at a road the same if you learn to ride a motor cycle. White lines, Man hole covers, even different road surfaces and especially when you see that dreaded rainbow colour in the wet which often means Diesel has been split. You'll notice it just before the front wheel "goes away" from you and you start thinking, again, "wonder how much this one will hurt"? Everyone should ride a bike. It's amazing what it teaches you.

Stay safe and well everyone, all the best, Jock
 
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Ain't it refreshing to ponder old times? It also makes you realise just how much fun you had in your youth - and some of the absolutely crazy things you got up to. Would you ever change it - are you kidding, best days of our lives.

What I find pitiful is the lack of adventure in people these days - there's always someone around to 'TUT-TUT' whatever crazy half soaked idea you've come with.
When my daughter was about 4, I'd take her, together with about 4 or 5 other similarly aged kids, out for a Sunday bit of fun. This all started because my dear other half is Thai and would, every other weekend, lay on a little 'party' for a few of her Thai friends. They would take over the kitchen and start burning all sorts of Thai food and generally having a great deal fun doing so. We're probably talking anywhere up to 10 - 15 women all together, which sounded like a million chickens all cackling at once. Naturally, they brought their kids along and basically 'let them loose' in my garden. (Thai women don't seem to be very 'Motherly' when there's food on the go and especially when the little sweethearts can't escape from the garden). I have a fairly decent bit of dirt, it's about 50 meters long and roughly 15 meters wide and wifey being the 'green fingered' sort has planted everything from crab apple trees to kiwi, cherry, plum, flowers by the bucketful and god knows what else, enough to say it looks like a wild place but is, in reality, a nice place to be. Anyway, we didn't want the kids either hurting themselves or any of the stuff growing, so she suggested I 'take them out somewhere'. My first question was 'do I have to bring them back?' :D
So, where shall we go? One of the little horrors was a little thing called Amy, whose Mother was one of the 'Jones' that everyone likes to keep up to. She would, and I kid you not, think nothing of spending a grand on an outfit for little Amy to go to school in, she really was a pain in the neck. (She was actually ok in herself but God, she could be over bearing) so after promising that 'Amy would ok' But I still think Mum was afraid that she might get dirty (which wasn't allowed) so where did I take them on that first Sunday? (Insert really wicked grin here) There's a place on Cannock Chase called Beaudesert Old Park, I now it because in school I did my D.E.A. Bronze and Silver in the area. I also know just how muddy and wet it can be after even a little rain - and it had been throwing down for a few days :cool:
So, telling the victims, I mean, children, that we're going to be having a nice walk in the forest and a nice picnic out in the woods, just to get them all excited and raring to go.
I did insist to wifey that I ought to take some towels in case it rained and the poor little darlings got damp.
Over at Castle Ring is a neat little car park where we left the Grand Voyager, we set off over the ridge and thru the forest, down a arse clenching slope which saw us sliding down for about 60 meters, thru the bracken and mud arriving at the bottom looking like we were about to join the cast of Oliver Twist - and who do you think had rolled in the mud? Yep, dear little Amy, she looked like a pig in ****, with one of the sweetest smiles on her face that I will never forget. The sort of look that tells you she knows what her Mom's going to do when we get home - but couldn't give a damn about it. We played in the forest for an hour or two, made our way back to the car (more fun UP the hill) and finally home. Amy's mom went apoplectic, so I calmly told her to bring some 'play' clothes down with her next time - the look on her face was magic, I'd never seen her speechless before, it was priceless.
As a side note: Amy is now a reporter for some Wildlife Outfit and has recently been to Machu Pecchu, she sent me a picture of her standing on the stones at the top.
Mare later...
 
Jock you have seriously, got to write a book of your life - that was an awesome read and the bit about slitting my own throat for reading more made me howl with laughter!

I too learned my road-sense on a string of motorbikes but I was not as fortunate to have the freedom of a field or even the sheer ballz to go out and buy an old shed. Instead, I saved my hard earned pocket money up (while scrounging goes on everyone elses Yammy FS1Es and Suzi AP50s) and ended up with a pretty damned decent Yamaha RS125 wich I really looked after. In fact all vehicles I've ever owned have been so well looked-after that I've always sold them easily because anyone that knows me, knows they'll end up with a good'un.
In the process of learning my road-sense and skills on a motorbike, the only things I can add to your list of White lines, Man hole covers, different road surfaces and Diesel spills is - a thorough knowledge of milking times around the local farms... cow pats are far more dangerous than wet white lines which I found were more unnerving than actually dangerous. And at night-time there was no tell-tale rainbow colours in the wet; only the smell of diesel, that you never wanted a whiff of as you entered a bend! It became evident that any road surface under trees seemed to grow a sort of very fine moss (like an algae) on it too which could cause you a surprise in the dry or the wet!

I was lucky however, I had some very close shaves but never came off a bike on the road, but during my growing up with bikes was involved with herding sheep and cattle on a Suzuki TS 125 which I regularly fell off
 
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