Recent content by Ray T

I've been enjoying the old Lancelot series in black and white on Talking Pictures TV. It's amused me to notice that the actor Derren Nesbitt appears pretty much every week as a different character. Sometimes he's a baddy and gets run through by Lancelot, only to pop up next episode as a courtier...

A very happy birthday to you, Lyn. And many happy returns.

I remember my mother in 1950s Sparkbrook sometimes referred to a deceptive statement as being an "eye-gag". This was obviously the visual equivalent to the normal gag which impedes speech. I've never heard it used since those days.

In 50s Birmingham, any woman who exhibited airs and graces could be referred to as "Lady Muck", and also as "Lady Docker" by womenfolk, my mother included. A quick check online reveals that the said lady was born in 1906 and died in 1983, so was still going strong when she was a figure of...

Hello, Abigail, I grew up in a back-to-back in Sparkbrook in the 1950s. It was down an entranceway called Winterdyne Place in Long St. At the top of the entrance was a little shop owned by Mrs Spencer. I recall she used to break chunks off a large salt block and weigh them off to sell us. She...

Wishing you a very happy birthday, Vivienne. Many more to come!

I haven't been able to find Kampala in recent times either, Dave. I'd assumed it was scrapped before the publication of the 1961 Ian Allen combine I have but it's possible there was no such loco. It's a mystery, then, as to why I've been sure of that "Kampala" nameplate all these years. I can...

But now I ponder it, Kampala may have been a Patriot.

Penns, from my spotting by the Camp Hill station bridge in Montpellier St in the late 50s -- early 60s, I seem to recall several Jubilees. One I especially remember was Kampala. So long ago I can't be certain it wasn't at New St.

A very happy birthday to you, Eric. Have a great day.

Ah, the good old days. Back then, PC Dixon could walk into a warehouse to find a gang of armed thugs gathered round a safe and he'd say, "All right, you lot, you're nicked!" And the bruiser of a leader would say, "It's a fair cop, officer. We'll come quietly." How times have changed.

Before I could stretch to a transistor radio, as boy I made myself a crystal set from parts bought from a shop in town, whose name I can't remember. Having soldered the few components in accordance with a circuit drawing I had, and spread a thin wire around my bedroom ceiling to act as an...

Some of those old Ronson lighters are sold for many hundreds of pounds among collectors. I think the most sought after is the table model with the simulated tropical fishes set in the sides. One appeared on Flog It and did very well indeed at auction.

A Happy New Year to you and to all fellow BHF members, Lyn.

I copped Black Watch several times in the early 60s. I think it came through Camp Hill station and over the Montpellier St bridge near where I lived and train-spotted daily, but I'm not sure. I do remember the engine being something of a "regular" to me.