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Forward two years, to 1938. Same beach. (Sister, brother, Mum, me and our beloved dog). "What a wonderful world it is...." "So full of interest...." "Oh, blimey, not ANOTHER snap, Dad!" Sunny days for me. But darkening clouds for the grown-ups. Chris

Images from my first holiday, in August 1936: Outside the farmhouse where we had digs, in the South Hams area of Devon. Held proudly by my big sister. And during the same holiday. My first toe in the sea (or, more likely, estuary - probably East Portlemouth, opposite Salcombe). Chris

Interesting conundrum! What is its size, roughly? Any external connections of any sort? Brackets? I was wondering if it is some sort of pressure vessel, for an unknown purpose. Or an expansion chamber in conjunction with some sort of pressurised system. As it turned up on a farm, some sort of...

Here's a CWS bike, not that you can see a lot of it. Either 22" or 24" wheels, not new, almost certainly pre-war, with its original black paint heavily repainted and the chrome as polished up as far as its condition allowed. And that's me on it. The very first go, on our back lawn in...

Welcome to the Forum, bravo121. It's perfectly OK! A horse I'm certain that the family were very much involved with horses (in the plural) in the immediate post-war years. (I'm not sure about the earlier period). There may well be photographs which survive from those days. I think the best...

I think textspeak is even worse. A barrier to comprehension, an unwanted diversion of one's attention from the subject and, to me at least, yet another reminder of how the world has left me far behind! We mainly keep it out of the Forum (strictly speaking, it's against the rules) but u c it...

All the best, Jim, and many happy returns. Chris

Be careful with it, though. Mine threw out its spike a few weeks ago - the first time I can remember, in about eight years - got up to around seven feet and was just starting to open, and then, overnight, snapped off, for no apparent reason. Remarkably brittle stem - woody in texture. The head...

I omitted to mention earlier, when talking about a family tradition for sons to go out to the USA "to make men out of 'em", was that my great-grandfather Henry similarly encouraged?permitted? not only his elder son, Charles (who later became my grandfather) but also (by Rose) his younger one...

Thank you for that, mv52. Quite a coincidence, living so close. It sounds as though the verb "thrive" is overstating the case a bit, although I suppose it is a relative term in any case! I did quite a lot of work in the late 1990s trying to pin down my great-grandfather's years in Oroville...

Stokkie, I think there were two other options: all the way down around Cape Horn and then up the coast to San Francisco; or down from New York to Panama, a trek over the isthmus and rhen another boat up to S.F. I have always felt that the latter was the more likely. Chris

My great-grandfather, b.1832 in Brum, took it into his head at the age of 19 or so, to travel to the other side of the moon (or, rather, its equivalent in around 1851, which was Gold Rush California). Much about his time there is unknown but he had more sense than to dig and, we believe, had a...

Hope you have had a great day, Eric. All the very best. Chris

Hear what you say in your first few words, Ray. But I have to feel that much the same would have been said about the young in 1938 by veterans of 1914-18 and we know now that that worked out wonderfully with all the younger generation stepping up to the mark. I agree that younger generations...

That's definitely the one from the 1950s, Lyn. The original one was much the same height, but narrower. A not dissimilar style. It must've been quite a landmark at the time and I assume that there must be newspaper photographs of its opening. I only remember it in a very sorry state with little...

I'm surprised if no photograph seems to survive of the building in its earliest guise, from the mid/late thirties when it was built before being gutted by enemy action in 1941. There must be some, somewhere, but I don't think I have ever seen one. This is my view of it, a memory from around...

I suspect that being yanked away from your home for two years without any right of appeal, being treated with little respect and consideration, having to survive on pretty cr*p food, knowing that your well-being and general happiness were wholly in the hands of others (some of whom you viewed...

I used to think that this massive parade was on the occasion of the Home Guard stand-down on Sunday December 3rd 1944 which was celebrated in every town in the U.K., not least Birmingham. But apparently it dates from much earlier, from Sunday, 23rd March 1941. It is associated with a Drumhead...

It's wet, 11.5 degrees in my garden at the moment and it's a Bank Holiday Sunday in June. So, if you want, here are a few more pics of Boris and his team and a bit of silliness. (Too complicated for a post here, so this is the link - it's safe: www.staffshomeguard.co.uk/LXboris.htm) Chris

It's possible that those members who have followed the In The Garden threads over the last few years will remember previous images of Boris at leisure, deep in the Worcestershire countryside. I caught up with him again last Thursday. Here he is, sailing on, apparently unconcerned, quite unsunk...