Christmas Edition part II - our day

Christmas comes but once a year no doubt to the relief of most parents when we think about how much they put into making Christmas happen such as getting the Christmas meal, buying presents visiting their own parents and so on.
Christmas is more a time for us as children has having had our school parties, we look forward to the day itself opening our presents and indeed I like most boys often was so excited the night before I could hardly sleep for wondering what I might have.
Sometimes that's hard to manage because our expectations are boundless and the reality sometimes is different such as a duplicate present, a sock say the wrong size or one that just isn't us which often happened with me for having some atypical interests compared to most boys.
Usually in my presents would be annuals connected to either pop artists, tv programs or the comics I read as boy that you'd read all year round.

These two are this years editions of two I got as an actual child jam full of stories featuring all the comics characters like Korky the cat, Dennis the Menace, Desperate Dan and Minnie the Minx.
Then you'd have a Main Present which I can recall one year was a Lego set and when I was nine a cassette tape recorder followed by smaller odds and ends such as socks, underpants and pens for school. Finally you have presents from your Aunts, Uncles and Cousins and if you were jolly lucky your best friend at school.
Christmas was a indeed a magical time for us.

Christmas Edition

The last full week of Christmas at school was always a bit of a run down where we may play games, read and generally relax a little after the build up toward early December where we'd been rehearsing for our school plays between regular lessons as Winter set in.
You'd certainly notice that as we played soccer in the afternoons out of doors where you had to keep moving to avoid getting too cold.
The other big thing I loved at this time of year was our annual school Christmas Parties where fun and games would take place such as pass the parcel and our Christmas lunch where we'd we'd have a scaled down grown up Chicken lunch followed by Christmas Pudding to which we were expected as juniors to act a bit more grown up during.

*** HAPPY CHRISTMAS***

Cub scouts

Cub Scouts and Scouting in general wasn't something I got into or to be more accurate was encouraged into although my older brother did remain it up to his mid teens and my younger brother was a Cub.
It wasn't that it didn't appeal but it wasn't talked about in front of me by either of them so I'd only discover randomly it was 'Bob a Job" week and the like when they'd go out and bring home the completed forms to show what they did to take to Cubs or Scouts the next meeting.
Nor did my parents ever talk with me about joining, perhaps even inviting the cub or scouts leader to talk with me perhaps thinking disabled boys like me didn't have a place in Scouting although in later years I learned that during that era local packs did do this.
To me it was an essential part of being a boy, learning useful skills and values to help me make the most of it and a potential help in learning to integrate that I missed out on to the point when I started age regressing in my mid teens wearing the odd thing such as the green sock garters with their sashes and shorts was one my first steps back in time.

The boy on the train

Railways were a part of my boyhood not least cos my dad had and still has a fascination with model railways in connection with he'd take us to various railway museums and preserved vintage railways at weekends and while vacationing.
Sometimes we'd take the train to them and at other times we'd drive to them but often  there would be a shortish ride on a train powered by a big steam engine with all its smells and noises you could hear before you joined the line to board it as if it had a personality of its very own that you could tell the minute you were off having sat down in the carriage.
We also used trains to get to the large towns and cities nearby especially in the summer months when we were off from school and indeed one year I remember having arrived at the station coming back , crossing the road to the parking lot I get in the car the searing heat as I went to sit on the car seat coming through my shorts and the sting from the heat to my exposed legs.

A little rough and tumble

Play as a boy is very important and goes beyond merely the physical exhaustion of 'rough and tumble' but is an important part in their bonding letting out and asserting their masculinity in front of their peers while it is affirmed.
Timid boys need to helped into 'play fighting' to form good bonds learning to control their strength and handle aggression so they feel confident socially as males with a stake in society.
 While the 'fear factor' and the tendency to see boys as 'a problem' because they don't confirm in the main to female stereotypes has lead to more restrictions in the playground it simply needs to be recognized boys ARE different, they ARE a gender apart and it's better to direct that than in effect de-gender them.

On Malcolm Young R.I.P

This blog isn't a music blog or a blog that has parts to do with music specifically but when an event that is connected with boyhood pasts comes up will be included in it.

The hard rock band AC/DC were a big part of my boyhood who I followed, collected newspaper and magazine clippings and bought their recordings that connected very much with how being a boy felt.
Although Angus Young connected very much with me as the every single inch awkward boy in school uniform complete with shorts strutting his guitar - his boy spirit -  Malcolm provided those necessary rhythm guitar sections and backing vocals on tracks like Problem Child and Shake A Leg and with Angus was the co-founder of the band.
On Saturday November 18 he died after retiring due to dementia. We salute HIM.

Crossing lines

The era in while I spent my childhood compared to today had more overt gender separation although I suspect that widening of it from seven plus remains being primarily child social construct driven.

One thing that did run through it was oddly enough the notion of having 'sweethearts' to which you might walk a girl home from school or when socially a boy was necessary to be with her you were it although you'd never play together at school.

Jacqueline was mine during Junior school to the point we'd both by the age of ten would get ourselves kept out of PE so we we sit together and chat although we would have some work set for us which the other teachers would oversee between their own classes.

We also might share candy but it was a very innocuous thing with no notions around sensuality (or feeling it was 'sexy') at all more a very deep friendship across gender lines where both of you felt carefree.

Junior school uniform

A big part of the life I had centred around being at school, sometimes just that at other times more around the social connections, the friendships that might lead to coming home to another boys house and being fed by their Mommy.

One thing about all the schools I attended was they had some form of uniform or another that naturally every boy (and girl) had to comply with.
At my junior school we boys wore grey long sleeved shirts with thick collars that were fully buttoned, white vests and white 'Y Front' underpants and grey three-quarter length socks.
As well we had  a red and white diagonal striped tie just like the one in this picture and charcoal grey shorts which were lined so they were surprisingly warm  when compared to sports shorts and certainly I felt cooler in long school trousers later on in my schooldays.
Fastening that tie was something I struggled with (and still do) so I made a point of being friendly with at least one boy so if I needed it putting back on after games say, there was someone I could ask to do it for me as like every boy I was subject to full school rules at all times and having on properly fastened was one of them.
I was always happy to wear that tie.

Penny for the guy!

Another month begins in the existence of this blog and there's something I'm interested in sharing.

This time of year in the UK is connected for many of us with marking the attempt by Guy Fawkes to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605 which failed when the plot was discovered.
This is usually marked by a big bonfire where an effigy of Guy Fawkes having been made is burned followed by a celebratory display of fireworks during which sparklers are handed around for people to make shapes and words with in the pitch black sky.
Until fairly recently school boys like myself would spend some time making a such a Guy from waste material such as straw, dressing him in old clothes nobody needed and a hat and we'd taking him around street corners shouting loudly "Penny for the guy".
Making him was a source of pride, showing your boyish ingenuity as people usually grown ups would give you money which came in handy in run up to Christmas eeking our our pocket money.
We learned to work to earn money by our own efforts a valuable lesson for us as we grew up.

Play 1 - Fall Edition

Play took differing forms, some were  all year around and while others were very much seasonal which is where we'll begin I think.

 One I well remember from Junior school only lasted for a few weeks but was at the forefront of our minds was playing conkers which as a boy I looked forward too.
The conker was basically a Horse Chestnut of which a god number came down during the fall to which we'd eagerly gather up splitting open the thorny encasement to remove the horse chestnut from it and then we'd soak them in vinegar to harden them before putting a hole in.
We normally used strong string tightly fastened at the conker end.
What you'd do is one of you would hold theirs straight while you strike it with your own until one of the two broke and the winning one would play against another until we had a winner amongst Junior Boys.
Today it is much frowned on in case any debris lands in a boys eye but this as with many related things just wasn't on the horizon back then.

Playing soccer

Play is a big thing when you're young and it happened in many places some of which I'll talk about later but there's one form I feel like talking about now.

We didn't have a playground where we lived never mind one set in open countryside so with the exception of the school playing field which was small by modern standards, we played on waste ground or one a tree lined recess between the road and our houses.
The usual game for us boys was soccer for which we improvised goals from coats which worked well as at that time traffic was small and we know everyone and when their fathers would come in from work in their cars as our mothers didn't.
The nearest park was a good mile and half walk along a dangerous road with no sidewalk so the only proper soccer we played was at school during recess or for games where we'd have one sesson a week and the girls had one of their own usually borrowing the same pitch.
With my co-ordination I was put in as 'defence' or as goalie not really being trusted to take a ball and score goals with it and if it wasn't so busy I'd get frozen in the winter with just a fleecy red and white soccer jersey, white shorts and socks on.
 From memory I'm sure I had proper soccer shoes that had studs and had to be tied up which was something I couldn't and still can't do and the ball was a big heavy one.

Grandfather and boy

"Being" is a concept I feel defies logical explanation so much it is something you move and feel emotionally in as one and so I think it's sensible to just talk about it.

 My Grandfather was a very keen gardener although he lived in fairly small house aided by the garden at the rear being quite long so either side of the area used for sitting out in and play, he often had various plants and flowers planted such as honeysuckles and roses grown from cuttings or seeds.
It was a passion he shared with me, taking me to see various parks to see the municipal  displays, walking me down the the market stall sellers where we'd buy them to plant very much man and boy.
In his world being masculine didn't preclude nurturing something tenderly helping to raise it nor did it mean you couldn't appreciate beauty. I was always proud to be his favourite boy.

Boyhood spanking

Some aspects of childhood have changed in part over the years and do carry controversy both as they pertain to current attitudes and ideas around child raising and also the extent to which some feel  adults can comment upon them. These are mine.

In the period I experienced boyhood, it was accepted by everyone that whoever you were with had the right to discipline you in the absence of your parents and  in accordance with their own principals because as a boy you were in their care and your parents were not asked by anyone for their approval. If you were with a friend, if your friend was spanked for some offence and you did the same then so were you.
This was as much true of being at the home of a boy your were friends with playing as it was at church, cubs as it was in school except your school had policies that were communicated to your parents because they chose to send you to it.
As a boy therefore you knew as I did whenever you broke a rule whoever you were with was going to discipline you for it and that was that.
Like many boys spanking did feature in my childhood not least at school because unlike some of the issues around how my own parents were conflicted around disciplining me, the school system treated every boy the same for breaking the same rules.
My teachers and especially my head teacher believed very strongly in treating every boy the same including disabled boys like me exactly the same and so they spanked me either by hand or with the plimsole across my shorts sometimes in class at othertimes in the headteachers office but with my class knowing I was going to be spanked.
He understood if you treated disabled boys differently allowing them more leeway to use their disabilities as an excuse to not try to learn and follow the rules not only do you undermine group cohesion you fail to instil the self discipline you need to make the most of being a disabled child with all the struggles you face. Being soft wasn't ultimately kind dealing with the at times unfair world.
Several years back I met my former headteacher before he died and after talking about the life I had made for myself and he showed how proud he was was that I had found my place as an adult in society we talked about those time he spanked me and actually I thanked him for treating me the same as any other boy and for caring to correct some of my attitudes and silly behaviours.
My own view on reflection remains that he was right to spank me and that this did work better than the other ways my parents tried miserably at in changing them. 

Throwing a pot!

Moving to high school brought its own changes some of which I'll write about later on  but one was the subjects we did could be different.

 For instance while we had done arts and crafts at Junior school which I loved, in terms of resources we were limited apart from the limitations of having a cutting edge open plan school  where there's no separate fully enclosed teaching areas so much as "Home Bays" for your year and for anything outside of math or english we'd traipse to parts of building shared with other years.
High school as different for having not just individual rooms but dedicated areas for science and craftwark with specialized equipment fitted that included a fully functional kiln so we got to do quite a bit of pottery making.
We learned to throw the clay, shaping it before finishing it off ready to go into the kiln to set.
The next challenge, especially if like me you're not well co-ordinated between hands and eyes was to decorate it with various glazes remembering the colour it comes out in isn't the same as what you put on.
Although I wasn't much good at this-certainly not to the standard one would take a college or industry course in pottery- I enjoyed it because at hearty I love making things as hard as it is for me with my disabilities to do so.

Picking yourself back up again

It can be hard enough growing up but when like me you have a physical disability things can happen to you in the most everyday situations such as you find yourself running short on energy because you tend to use more just getting by.
I struggled to get about, for a period using a wheelchair so I might get 'trapped' if I went to turn and couldn't pull myself out easy or I'd trip up just walking from row of desks in the classroom to another.
I wasn't as a rule exempted from games even if I may need to sit out of actually playing by having to change to my soccer or pe kit , pick a team help set everything up and be the mascot for it cheering them on.
When I did play it wasn't uncommon for me on fall over on the grass trying to tackle another player to gain ball possession or just loose my sense of balance having very poor co-ordination so I literally had to learn to pick myself from the ground, dust myself off and get on with it.
It was hard but my teachers and especially head teacher believed I needed to learn resilience to cope with the unfairness life can throw at you when you're disabled, picking yourself back up rather than wrapping me in cotton wool, becoming a softie.
I'm glad they were hard on me like this because it was what this boy needed to get by and learn to gain the respect of other boys for showing boy spirit in the face of adversity.

Junior Art for Boys

There is so much here that takes me back Junior school such as the hooks with two hanging bits to take your school bag or satchel and another for to fasten your coat or for some blazer on although my school a co-ed State Junior didn't have blazers so we had typically rain proof anoraks in spring/summer and thick duffle coats with wooden toggle fastenings and hoods.
One of things I loved about that time was the arts and craft sessions where we'd make things from a big selection of bits and bods our teacher had and as here sometimes we'd start by drawing on paper (or card) what it is we wanted to make and then gluing various bits on to it  before signing..
We'd use wool, felt cut into shapes, stars, crape paper practically anything that would stick on to it plus pain or felt tip pens.
Once everyone had finished we handed our work  to our teacher who graded and displayed it either in the classroom or on the reception corridors.

Recalling the summer outdoor play

Summer is almost over and this week is when traditionally the one where after the eight week Summer Holidays, we return to our schools or transfer to a Junior or high school seeing or making new friends talking about ourselves and what we have done. Indeed we've been asked to write an account of our activities during this period before now.
For me the Summer was a time of being more out of doors aided by the sunny warm weather for hours on end sometimes on your own exploring new places or learning about new things and at other times with other boys.
Typically I was put into t shirts and shorts usually easy to wash soccer or pe ones cos for one things it's kind of warm, for another so long as I'm responsible and put my suncream on exposure to fresh air and the sun is good for my well-being and development keeping me strong and for another when your busy you soon get warm.
Physical play isn't just fun it's a natural biological need and interests of boys as you learn to develop and use your physical strength constructively even if with my disabilities I need help from other boys to do this be it climbing trees, scaling ropes or whatever.
It's a great bond builder too so like it's a good all around thing for me and countless other boys.

Catching up

It's a fresh month and what a month it has been since this blog has been established because I only ever had one before briefly in 2005/6 in the halcyon days of Friends Reunited which was a site originally centred on catching up with your school and college mates that shut a few years back.
It's also the first week in the month schools re-open so whilst in town I saw folks dashing round doing last minute uniform buying, checking off stationery too from the local McColls and W H Smiths and naturally the uniform shops for both high schools here are super busy.
One thing I like to do is walk about so apart from getting some shopping done myself, I walked around the centre of the old town which goes back to Saxon times with many sixteenth and seventeenth century buildings still surviving.
Apart from being interesting as someone who loved their schoolboy history classes, it is also helping me recover some of my fitness after a period unwell.

Recovering Schoolboy

Another Saturday sat by the keyboard paws at the ready as I type up a kind of spontaneous post on what has been a pleasant sunny afternoon here recovering from a migraine yesterday  that put most things on a hold. 
Mine are what you call classical with the aura and tend to last typically three days where everything is super sensitive  to the slightest sound or flickering light for days after and it's not uncommon for me to have involuntary spasm down the left side of my face.

One thing I have been doing more of when I have been able to is reading stories around the staples of my boyhood as I start to reconnect more with what it was I loved about it and for me that included soccer.
Reading Dan Freedman's  Jamie Johnson football centred series which also is being made into a tv series on CBBC over here is helping in recovery of what I was all about as over the years people have tried to push more toward their own ideas and that's not working cos I just loved being that boy however out of the ordinary the odd interest might of seemed at the time, it was all that I and critically my peers lived for  back then.
It's that I want back.
Earlier on the week I was a bit busy tidying around the shelves my stereo lives being old-fashioned enough to have a complete set of separates rather than either an all in one system or play everything from a computer. 
I needed to get to the connectors of the original compact disc player to unplug it and remove ready for a newer more expensive model as the rest of system is capable of a more higher standard of reproduction and many of recordings I have and enjoy are so well recorded would be a pity not to take advantage of all they have to offer. 
Where this ties in with this is blog is because music forms a part of my age regressed schoolboy side, I carefully considered how to tackle the physical side of it to minimize the inevitable pains involved in doing it when your paws are like mine, breaking it down to chunks doing a bit at a time and I managed to get it done fairly straightforwardly. Learning to think through tasks to make things better for me has been one the things I have been learning to do over the last few years and it seems to coming together now.

School-age underwear

When I started my formal  education apart from the question of uniform which was kept purposely simple in Infants and a bit more mature in Juniors, it was usual to put us into interlocking vests and Y Fronts usually white or pale blue given our school unlike some hadn't formal underwear rules.
Thy were normally made from cotton, sometimes fully covered, other times what was called 'Stringed'  literally criss-crossed except for the actual Y fronted bit and a bit of a religion given the fuss made about making sure we couldn't get cold from the slightest gap.
Later on subject to 'school rules' motifed briefs started to creep in with colourful designs and logos such as 'Concealed Weapon' came out, the latter causing much mirth amongst us although I was very much a traditionalist preferring white Y fronts.

Gender and me

In the era of my childhood somethings were different and one was that for ideas that are more talked about today their wasn't many words available to described them and indeed a key number of terms we use today just had no equivalents back then.
That made the process of thinking and talking about them difficult because you literally didn't have the language for it.

 There always was something 'different' about me compared to most of  my peers and if we were to write this in mathematical language  where B would equal Boy (and Male) and G would equal Girl (and Female) I'd be B` relating to but not being identical to B.

I loved my school uniform similar to this except the shirt was grey and the sweater was red and wearing my shorts, wearing them way past junior school even into adulthood even and while I was curious about girls uniforms never really had a jealous wanting for them.

In those days there was more rigid gender roles and it was more that I wanted to do a few of the things they did as much as I loved being a boy and spending most of time with boys in boys school uniform.

When talking about this time, I feel the that while I was very much masculine and would never trade that away, I was pushing for that bit of space that allowed the full expression of that boy pushing at the edges from the norms of the era.

I was always a willing participant of boys pe and sports even though with my disabilities playing was far from easy feeling at ease with boys close up and play fighting with the best of them.

I picked myself up and got back in the game showing more 'balls' than many of my peers did loving that time as difficult as playing could be so you couldn't say I was a 'mommy's boy', quite the opposite, just a little different that's all.

In the language we use today, I was exhibiting some gender fluid traits that were tolerated more in girls than boys (plus some girls do wear shorts in school today) that were frowned upon not so much by the school but by other adults and other children who had invested a lot in their own gender roles and were not prepared to have their system interrupted by a gender-fluid biological boy at the time.

For me though I never wanted to be a girl just the kind of boy I was and still am proud of my own gender.

Introduction from C

My name was a very popular name of its era that began with the letter C and when I was born apart from saying "Congratulations" to my Mommy, They announced I was a boy and everybody congratulated my parents on having another son and from that day that's what I was.

It means different things such as when we were at junior and infant school we form lines to enter our class after recess so I have to line up with a boy and we boys let the girls go through first.

It means we have our own games although to be honest nobody really wants to play with me and we play different school games in Games compared to girls such as soccer although I do join them for Rounders and we have different teachers for this.

Because our school is in rural district we don't have any special facilities  and indeed our school is very much Victorian so the other thing is we have to change and clean ourselves in the cloakrooms.

We also have our own outdoor toilets which to be honest I don't feel comfortable in and indeed do go at different times to most of the boys.

You see this "Boy" thing is a very big thing in our world as we're expected to hang out in boy spaces and girls keep theirs to themselves.

I know how to spot straight off who I should be in the company of: They should be wearing grey shorts like I do and talk in a slightly gruff way, leading which is what boys do and at least as convention has it not in dresses or skirts.

I love being a boy.

Being away in the past

While away I was able to take this picture of a butterfly even though I didn't have my Minolta film slr camera at hand which was kind of nice as it reminded me of the various butterfly and related places I visited when I was younger admiring and letting them fly on and off of me
It was a carefree time and I hope to have more to say about this blog next week

Reading and being me

Searching for the real Chris in the mishmash of projected ideas by others used to be hard going because I just got to the point I was a full time actor, arriving on set, performing my part in the play of life. 

The one thing I knew was while I could play act an adult as far as knowing about typical interests went, it took me away from who I actually was as the minute the topic ended so did any pretense of adulthood.
I've always knew I was the eternal boy who was and saw himself just like the boy here happy in that junior world and at my happiest dressed more like him taking obviously some account of where exactly I was.
The real Chris may of had difficulties with reading but loved books and libraries, being spirited away in an imaginary world of adventure plus enjoyed an audiobook where I could just drift away.

My reading likes

Looking for any kind of an influence on what to me felt at the innermost level what it meant to be a boy is not the easiest thing to do but looking for what I identified more with was more with the adventures of Tom and Huck in Mississippi in the 1840's where much of the modern state apparatus just didn't exist, schooling was in its infancy any adventure was subject to discovery and consequences.
To be able to just go off and explore investigating whatever held your attention was something that was uppermost in my mind with the limits we had of just woodland and unstructured play areas to do ours in, that to be was the spirit of boyhood in its rustic ruggedness.
Civilization is not a bad thing, far from it but an excess of social control that puts being as clean as a tailors dummy, that disallows the vibrant and natural aggression  of boys crushes the spirit  running contrary to what a boy is and feels.
He's not decorative nor genteel but lively and assertive and he learns his limits though rough play and not by denial of his masculine core.
For me at that time, this book was very much an affirmation of being. 

Blue Peter specials

Perhaps one aspect of my past boyhood tends to be that I can recall pretty much what I was doing and what I liked and unlike some people having never really moved beyond the same sorts of things I still have things connected to them.

I was an avid viewer of the BBC Tv series Blue Peter which at that time was broadcast most Monday's and Thursday afternoons knowing the presenters of my era (and a good many of  the later ones) watching every episode and having the year books of which I still have those I had during that time.
Growing out of the Blue Peter yearly Expedition idea was the Special Assignment series that was done mainly by Valerie Singleton as in time she moved into grown up television that started in 1972 and continued toward the 80's that looked at cities and islands that were shown outside of the main program. Travel was something she loved apart from being a keen amateur photographer.
There were tie in books of which I have the above Islands book from 1973, the cities book on Rome,Paris and Vienna from 1973 plus 1975's Hong Kong and Malta in the Island series which were published by the BBC and Piccolo

In 1975 which was an important year for me personally, Blue Peter run a special competition for viewers to write in their own Odd Odes helped by the late Cyril Fletcher who you might recall from That's Life who established this genre in the UK.
The best ones within the prizes award for each age group (first, second and third prizes) were published together with others in 1975 in this paperback book which I still have.

As we moved into the 1980's resulting from a completion for viewers to send in their recipes  for their favourite home made foods with the help of Delia Smith who made them after awarding prizes it was decided in 1980 to publish a paper book of them with half the proceeds going toward the International Year of the Child covering savouries, cakes with biscuits, main meals, puddings and sweets coupled with drinks.

Looking back upon it, it is interesting to recall the breadth of topics the show covered introducing you to new ideas to explore perhaps yourself and how it was that we, the boys and girls of the era helped make the show their our letters in a show of interactivity before the modern age of the show website with fan club and emails.

Ready, let's go

The sheer energy of these boys running across a colour fall backdrop makes for a lovely depiction of the vibrancy of boyhood.

A dedicated Macro lens

Going back a little to what this blog was originally about today I'm going to talk about a lens I find quite useful that I've had for a bit.

Traditionally you bought your comera body with a so-called Standard 50mm lens adding in time a wide angle lens of 28 or 35mm focal length and then a moderate telephoto which in the era I started to put my kit together was a 135mm moderate telephoto.
Your aim was to cover most of the types of photographic needs bearing in mind some of restrictions of zoom lenses such as absolute quality and light gathering abilities typically spacing by about 1.4 times the gaps in the focal lengths of your lenses.

One you find handy is a wider aperture short telephoto for taking portraits with a more natural perspective  with a wide maximum aperture to throw backgrounds well out of focus too.
The one I bought was the Tamron type 52B from the early 1980's which actually is a dedicated Macro lens that focuses close enough to give you half life sized (1:2) reproductions of your subject on film that by using a dedicated two times convertor takes to life sized.
It has all metal construction unlike the later type 52BB which is optically the same but uses more plastic.
If you look at the above picture you can see apart from the distance and depth of field scales, the actual reproduction scale is marked on the lens barrel.
Because the front element is very much exposed, to avoid the contrast reductions of flare from strong sunlight, I also got a lens hood for it that screws into the filter thread.
The image quality wide open is really good and the time one comes in a few F stops which for close up you're bound to, it is excellent with a  crisp easy to focus image thanks to the f2.5 maximum aperture that you see when taking the picture.
As with all Tamron Adaptall 2 lenses, you attach a mount to it so it fully couples to your camera just like the manufactures own in my case, Minolta MD for shutter priority and Program auto exposure on the XD7 and X700 camera bodies respectively. 

Waiting...

This is a photograph I saw which intrigues me.
In so many ways this is almost a classic young boy resting on a bench waiting for the others image that so reminds me of my own boyhood where we wore a similar uniform with shorts but what is different is rather than using a clipboard with paper and pencil he appears to be using a tablet computer rested on his lap. 
I know of schools that still use paper so I'm thinking why?

A right angle finder

Sometimes you think and weigh things up for ages and then you realize that's what you really needed.

The origins of this blog were a photography blog for my Minolta single lens reflex camera system that comprised of X500 and XD7 film bodies and matching nearly all MD system compatible lenses bar the MC series 300mm F5.6 from the mid 1970's before support for shutter priority and program modes on the XD7/5 and X700 came in.

That thing I bought recently is the Minolta Angle Finder Vn that came in its leather case and it gets around two basic issues.

The first is many of us don't have perfect eyesight so while we may be able to use the focusing aids such as the split image rangefinder in the focus screen and just about see the settings we can't see the image in sharp focus.

This has a diaoptic adjustment from minus 7 to plus 3 you can set it to match your eyes and put that right.

The other thing is the eyepieces comes out at a right angle making it easier to view when working with camera pointing downwards perhaps on a platform for photographing objects.

Boys only...

Sometimes I feel the age old understandings of just coming out with what your terms of interacting with folk such as a social group or whatever are easier as at least it's all out in the open.
The nineteen-nineties were a period where I did revert a bit more back outside of anything such as my job and outside adult interests to boyhood although t be honest it never really left me and one expression of that was I did wear around the spring and summer footie shorts.

To be honest for a good portion of this period I did spend my time in sports shops buying sports branded t shirts, track pants and shorts such as this very pair of Umbro's  which I wore a lot even though my cats who were kittens at the time tugged many a hole in them.

I preferred the simpler designed ones as they were hard wearing and easier to wash whenever I was away.
I also watched a lot of live soccer as I had Sky tv then jumping up and down supporting  my team and watching the newly formed English Premiership clubs progress both domestically and in Europe in way not to dissimilar than watching Sunday afternoon matches with my Nan who fed me on Cadbury's Fruit and Nutcake chocolate bars in my teens.
It just fired me up.

Paddington and reading

Thinking a little about the past in which photography played a part taking pictures of my childhood, two things that almost run into each other were the television series for children "Blue Peter" that I may write a bit more about one day and Paddington Bear who apart from having fictional adventures that I read certainly in my junior years also had a tv animated series on the BBC.
One link also was that for a number years that cover my infant and junior school years in each book published yearly that outlined the last twelve months of Blue Peter, there were exclusive short Paddington Bear stories illustrated in each edition.
In 1973 as I recall it being mentioned in the Radio Times underneath each entry for that show a book compiling them from 1966 through 1972 entitled Paddington's Blue Peter Story Book came out that had these stories of him being involved in the program and having a copy of it.

May Day edition

One thing that does come to mind as we've entered May is the Maypole Dance which is something as a boy in juniors I well remember taking part in at the start of the month usually connected other school events that day, taking time out from lessons to practice our steps.
I love to watch children today maintain that centuries old link.

St.Georges memories

St. Georges Day was five days ago, the Twenty-third and was always marked at my Junior School the subject of School Assemblies and the flag being put up on our flag pole apart from what my friends in the Cubs did there as he's the Patron Saint of Scouting.

Often as shown here, the story of st.George would be retold through a play boys would take part in.

Boys at play

Although this picture goes back a good number of years, to me it is a well observed and captured study in boys play, the kind I grew up with with structures in the park you climbed over.
Play is a social activity and here we see that interaction through body language such as the eye contact and the closeness of each others hands signifying the bond between them.
Their uniform is similar to that I remember wearing and have never really forgotten.

The magnificence of Trees

While I was away a couple of months back I saw this lovely specimen of a tree and although lacking my usual Minolta kit, took this picture using a digital compact camera. 

The mask slips...

A favourite photograph from April 29 2011 wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton showing the page boys and brides maids mask of seriousness slipping and reverting to their innate childish state, sharing a joke.

135mm F 2.8

How many variations on theme is something one could ask when it comes to telephoto lenses and even telezooms but the honest answer has to include something like "when each has it's own strength" that is of use in the field.

 

Take this, a example of the ever popular during Minolta's manual focus hayday classic 135 mm lens where I have a mid 70's MC series example in F 3.5 and the later post 1982 type III MD F3.5 with it's minimum aperture lock for the X700 introduced that year.

 This shot of the rear of the lens shows the big difference of this Type II MD F 2.8, that wider aperture that can make focusing a tad easier in gloomy conditions although it comes with 100 gram extra weight. It uses thicker glass that aids the optical quality compared to the last type III version of 1982/3.

 

 The all important Japan Industries quality mark is on - a sign of quality - that aided your confidence way back then and note the focal length is marked clearly in orange. 

The rear showing the automatic diaphragm pin which is sprung enabling  focusing at the widest aperture for rapid picture taking with the camera shutting it to the set value by the camera during exposure.

The meter coupling and minimum aperture pin for the XD5/7 and X700 shutter priority and program modes respectively can be seen.

This lens is one I've always coveted not least having used F2.8 designs before and I'm looking forward to using it soon.

My collection of Beatles records

I do have an actual record collection not that talk a lot about it or music on this blog and one artist I have had a boyhood liking for is the Beatles.

Beatles Singles Collection was a Christmas present I had in 1978 from my parents and I still own the box! The original UK 24 singles as reissued in 1976 but boxed with a short booklet by World Records.

My collection of individual albums took a lot longer to assemble and are mainly British and stereo.

Please Please Me (1982)
Replacement of pre-recorded tape
With The Beatles (1984)
A Hard Day's Night (1980)
Xmas present
Beatles For Sale (1981)
Birthday present that year
Beatles '65 (1983 Capitol Canada)
Beatles VI (1983 Capitol Canada)
Help! (1976)
Bought in Wales August 1978
Rubber Soul (1979)
Revolver (1986)
Replacement of tape
Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1976)
Magical Mystery Tour (Sept 2012)
My original was issued in 1976, bought early 1977)
The Beatles (aka White Album) (1979)
Abbey Road (2012 European remaster)
I accidentally damaged my original and this was its replacement
Let it Be (1979 - Capitol USA)

1962-1966
1967-1970
These two were originally bought for me in 1977 as birthday presents but were replaced in 1990 and Sept 1993 respectively by the last original all analogue cut editions.
Rock and Roll Music
Love Songs
Rarities (1980 Pathé Marconi)
Bought in 1986, this is the french edition of the US Capitol lp of 1980.
Reel Music (1982 Capitol USA)
Past Masters
This originally came out on cd in April 1988 and my copy is the Sept 2012 European remastered edition
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1977)
A Christmas present in that year

Some were replaced due to wear from my original stereo record player which was an auto changer or with one I dropped and scratched it on one side