SUNDAY MORNING WAKE UP CALLS

[daimlerman]

When we lived in Cranbourne road and I was about 5 or 6 years old, I'd be lying in bed, early on a summer Sunday morning and be woken up by a distant BOOM BOOM BOOM, BOOM BOOM BOOM!
It was the big bass drum, of the Boys brigade. They would be trumpeting their way around Kingstanding. My dad would rush us into the bay window to watch them proudly marching by.

Another less joyful Sunday sound was the testing of the air raid siren. I've no idea where it was but my mom would say that sound would send shivers down the spine of some people who remembered it from WW2.
Other weekday sounds I remember echoing from the distance were factory hooters at Witton, and the rat-tat-tat-tat-tat of ammunition testing at Kynochs works. On Saturdays, we could sometimes hear a big cheer in the distance if the Villa scored a goal.

Back then, 1950's 60's, Kingstanding was directly below the Northwestern approach path into Elmdon airport. Some aircraft were quite big and the vibration would sometimes cause the television picture to wobble.

Funny how certain noises are still in the memory from so long ago.

 

[T Q]

That's just brought back to mind something differently-funny regarding noises from so long ago ...

We lived for a short while in California - no, the one between Weoley Castle and Bartley Green, lol.

One of my schoolfriends lived in Northfield which isn't all that far away, and at some point or other roundabout 1960 or 61 there had started to be some replacement of old lamp posts here and there by modern-styled (ugly!) angular aluminium(?) ones.

One time we just dropped it in to some early-teen playground chit-chat just as an offhand comment, that we sent simple messages to each other sometimes by using these like jungle-drums and hitting them just a few times with something chunky to make it clang a bit "because they are hollow, you know?" ... not possible of course for anything more than simple things like 'are you playing?' or 'come to mine?' ... just a short sequence of beats, maybe two sets with a pause, that certain numbers of beats meant ... you get the idea

It was easy to keep it going for a while, and helping that along we would occasionally let ourselves be overheard saying things like having 'tried twice before hearing something back, didn't you hear the first time?'

We kept it going for a while lol, and some others tried the same between themselves but for some reason just couldn't quiiiiite get the knack of how to make the right sound. 'Oh no, you have to hit it like this ...', or (coincidentally validated by a science lesson!) 'Its the sharper, higher frequency sound that cuts through, listen to them and try different ways and then you'll know where to pitch it ...', or the totally logical 'Oh you didn't expect to do it on a Saturday morning with all that busy traffic around, did you?!!'

And to think ... most everyone went on to University ...

 

[daimlerman]

That's just brought back to mind something differently-funny regarding noises from so long ago ...

We lived for a short while in California - no, the one between Weoley Castle and Bartley Green, lol.

One of my schoolfriends lived in Northfield which isn't all that far away, and at some point or other roundabout 1960 or 61 there had started to be some replacement of old lamp posts here and there by modern-styled (ugly!) angular aluminium(?) ones.

One time we just dropped it in to some early-teen playground chit-chat just as an offhand comment, that we sent simple messages to each other sometimes by using these like jungle-drums and hitting them just a few times with something chunky to make it clang a bit "because they are hollow, you know?" ... not possible of course for anything more than simple things like 'are you playing?' or 'come to mine?' ... just a short sequence of beats, maybe two sets with a pause, that certain numbers of beats meant ... you get the idea

It was easy to keep it going for a while, and helping that along we would occasionally let ourselves be overheard saying things like having 'tried twice before hearing something back, didn't you hear the first time?'

We kept it going for a while lol, and some others tried the same between themselves but for some reason just couldn't quiiiiite get the knack of how to make the right sound. 'Oh no, you have to hit it like this ...', or (coincidentally validated by a science lesson!) 'Its the sharper, higher frequency sound that cuts through, listen to them and try different ways and then you'll know where to pitch it ...', or the totally logical 'Oh you didn't expect to do it on a Saturday morning with all that busy traffic around, did you?!!'

And to think ... most everyone went on to University ...

Haha, great stuff. If you did that during the war a German team of code breakers would have parachuted in.
I don't think any of "our mob" went to university. Most of us served apprenticeships. I started out as an apprentice fitter on the Corporation buses, another source of sounds to mimic. Others were toolmakers, or engineers.
I well remember the old gas lamps being replaced with electric outside our house.
My mom would get me to stand in the front bay window in winter, and watch for "The little man" to pop up inside and light the burner. I never did see him. I'd get distracted and when I looked round it was shining brightly.