Our first school trip to London

Seeing school is out I thought I'd write an account of a junior school trip

One thing I do remember is the J2 school trip to London.

We started off with our teachers and the excellent headmaster, Mr. Smith and some parent helpers on the chartered coach where we all were put into pairs and the first tellings off would start for such breach of school rules as having ring pull cans of pop.

We'd arrive getting off to the sound of "Sir, Keith's bag is dripping, sir" as he'd put fizzy pop in a container the pressure of which had blown the plastic lid off, putting our hands over mouths as mercilessly we laughed at his predicament. Thankfully his sandwiches were triple wrapped so he still had something to eat.

Eventually  we'd be frog marched to the underground (aka The Tube) subway to make our to the Tower of London going on a guided tour having been head counted to ensure nobody got lost.

The Underground is super busy even outside the rush hour.

We saw the Beefeaters, making up spontaneous corny jokes about them and the 'bloody tower' with Traitors Gate enjoying hearing about how they killed. We weren't screamish.

We went into the Science Museum first having been given an hour and three quarters to look around while the staff and helpers went in the café there. Perhaps we'd driven them crazy?

I went to look at the exhibits about radio and photography while one group went to look at the exhibits about time and ironically we lost one boy, the one in that group WITH a watch as he was so absorbed with time he'd both not realized it was time to go AND he's not noticed his group had left him!

He got a flea in his ear for that! I'm afraid we didn't have much sympathy for him as we could of lost time to go other places.

We found a spot to have our sandwiches in the sun.

We went to visit the Natural History museum  meeting Dippy our favourite Dinosaur as we were fascinated by them although I did look at the Big Cats and Birds before going to Rene's Cafe where we'd a pre-booked fish and chip tea to eat as our Headmaster looked on shaking his head to the helpers at the number of us who didn't know how to eat with a knife and fork.

After then we walked passing Soho that was seen by us as 'dodgy' and today I'd call seedy at the time back to the coach for trip home here in the Midlands.

July 20 1969 - Man lands on the Moon

Pix credit: NASA.
Space travel was a backdrop of childhood for me although my own recollections of 50 years ago this Saturday are a bit dim but I do know Dad wasn't home cos he was involved with the work maintaining the connection from getting the American pictures send by cable to the BBC as he did a lot of O.B. (outside broadcast) line work setting and monitoring it.
He also had a lot to do with the lines that were put in for the World Famous Jodrell Bank radio telescope heading up the team as that place was in our district's jurisdiction working directly with the late Sir Bernard Lovell and having to fight a lot of G.P.O bureaucracy to get what he wanted so often he was over there in the thick of the British arm of space exploration at odd hours.
It was some measure of how he was regarded that as kids we were treated pretty much as Royalty there getting to things most couldn't, dropping in whenever we passed as it was just a very short distance away, talking with leading scientists like Patrick Moore.
There was little getting away from the fact what the Americans had achieved was ground breaking - the Soviets had gotten a man into space (and Dad was involved with the broadcast work for that) - but in a world where few had colour tv, computers existed only in big corporations and government this was almost beyond comprehension, inspiring many of us.
It was the first time we learned that the surface of the moon had lunar dust to the point one of the astronauts space boots left a impression upon it.
The technical challenges involved in documenting it itself were immense with the Hasselblad medium format camera being treated for use in space used take the official pictures of the moon's cratered surface, the hand-held movie camera was also modified apart from the early satellite transmissions for live footage of walking on the moon.
This event is being marked on Blue Peter this week where amongst other things  the team will be experiencing weightlessness at the National Space Centre in Leicester, showing prime exhibits such as spacesuits and rocks plus a 'make' where a mouse from thin card was made as that was the first species to be sent into space as well as in other dedicated programs.
 As well there will be a premiering of a classical piece dedicated to the Apollo 11 teams awesome achievement in the BBC Proms.
What was achieved was one of the most important events in the whole of human history.

Uniformed and watching B.P!

This week I have been busy finishing some of the tidying up on the Wordpress back up of the main Tumblr as a few people have still been losing accounts and I do want to sure I don't lose what I have posted plus my back ups are with added commentary what somehow when you see something on tumblr doesn't always come to you as you reblog it.

He's a great looking model in his shorts and this week I was out in town in mine but unlike him I had long grey socks on which to me at least looks a bit more presentable when you're in shorts.
I always loathed the short ankle socks with side patterns on that as I got old Mum tried to thrust on me and one the first moves in alb life was going out to buy myself grey ribbed long school socks from the likes of BHS's schoolwear department.

As those who read my Fur Affinity account or odd post on Tumblr know I've always been a big fan of Blue Peter ever since being a boy first time around and this Thursday in 1974, a year I know very well actually, the regular program was off as they were filming that years Summer Adventure but Blue Peter Flys The World was shown instead.
One of editions of the current show I liked with new presenter Richie Driss was the episode from June 13th where he went Landboarding which as the name suggests is a combination sport of Landskiing but on a skateboard, using the wind to propel you.
He did this extremely well and does have the makings of very good presenter adding the extra detail older children (and us) like that keeps us interested without taking away anything from younger viewers as it's official age range of 6 to 15 years is fairly wide.
Yesterday he explained how they cover Wimbledon with over a hundred cameras including some that automatically track and follow the players all by themselves, while Lindsey talked about the history of Westminster Tower and Big Ben helping to cut the transparent glass clock face and organize a new Time Capsule as they found and opened an old one.
That is some achievement.

The Rollers Singles Collection

I've been using that new Chromebook this week across the week working on my Tumblr's of which one, The Traditional Schoolboy2 turned over 400 posts this week which was marked.

Something else that is an anniversary is it's nearly a year to the day Alan Longmuir of the Bay City Rollers died and as you know it was one of few occasions I made a post about music here because, frankly it mattered as part of my boyhood past.

This is something I had for Christmas in 1975 as did many boys and girls particularly in with a copy of that years Blue Peter book and the fact I still have my copy with my childhood penned contributions says a lot about what being a BCR fan meant to me and how connected to that past I am.

Last Friday, Cherry Red Records almost by co-incidence issued a three cd set by the Bay City Rollers that sets itself outside of a good number of compilations and the cd issues of the first four British albums in 2004.

Entitled The Singles Collection, it collects in chronological order every British bay city rollers single (aka '45) issued from 1971's Keep On Dancing right though 1981's Life On The Radio and Set The Fashion from the Ricochet album recorded as 'The Rollers'  and featured in the Burning Rubber movie of the same year.

One of the things I like about it is it has the b sides of all the singles following the a (or main) side so for instance after listening to "Bye Bye Baby" you hear  "It's For You" which was the UK b side before moving to "Give a Little Love" so it's like playing all the original vinyl 45's the we did as kids.

Some of the earliest singles like Manana were hard to find even in the mid 1970's as they had been deleted but they are all here.

That's one from my original childhood 45 collection which I still have and I will say as a Rollermanic the American edition has added strings on it as did many of the tracks on the US "Bay City Rollers" album.

The set does put in American singles that were not issued in the UK  such as the re-recorded Saturday Night, a US #1 from 1976 and Yesterday's Heroes featuring the screams of Toronto's youthful BCR fans gathered at a CHUM 1050 promoted concert placed in order of release too.

The set includes a booklet with a write up about each single related to events in the life of the band and photos of the records and many world-wide picture sleeves.

The sound quality is very good not sounding compressed or muddy.

Thus it is a complete set that appeals to all of us fans whither like me you still have your childhood singles and albums or just looking for a set of the records you loved to remember Alan and the band by. It's available either direct from Cherry Red's website or Amazon.

This is for Edward who commented on that entry of July 2018 Reflections on alan longmuir-and-bay city rollers and all of us who remember the era.