Hello there!
It's been a bit of damp week here so I wasn't able to be out at all Monday so it was a day to finish off reading my Roy Of The Rovers book and I did record a couple of albums off to play whenever I wish on my portable cassette player which has a built in Radio with an old school dial for listening to TalkSport and Radio Four's spoken word programs or classical music on Radio 3 in stereo using a pair of headphones.
A couple of years back I wasn't in the best of places but something about him really connected with me, taking me back to when I was his age and that time after enrolling myself in the short lived ASB.org site exploring my own past I started to feel I understood me, what kind of boy I was.
I started to recover with help and support from other ASB's, directing my boyishness and learning to disconnect from what had been so ailing me finding I really felt good about being me - an adult little boy.
One strange problem I get is being more an actual boys size the sorts of shops that sell this type of traditional school wear don't necessarily stock things in more actual child sizes but I manage to get recently a pair of grey long pull over top socks with blue bands very close to what had in in effect been my muse during this period.
Polesden Lacey, a beautiful Edwardian house and estate was a place I visited when I was at a residential college in North Surrey, England around the period I had my walkman and I was exploring age regression except I didn't have the words for it at the time.
It is located on the North Downs in Surrey England. The estate has grounds of 1,400 acres including a beautiful walled rose garden, a path with flower beds on both sides, landscape walks and an ancient woodland. It is one of the most popular properties owned by the National Trust.
This week I am returning to second in a series of books I read at boarding school as a young boy which really connected with me the and indeed even now as that adult little boy.
The second story in this series came out in 1951 where Jennings feels inspired to take up the career as a detective with Darbishire as his assistant, trouble needless to say is just around the corner.
The two boys firstly detect the lights being on in the sanitarium when nobody is supposed to be in there which is the catalyst for them investigating it and the laundry room before noticing the school sports cups, to which competitions are to be held soon have disappeared!
Jennings and Darbishire see a man they believe to be a piano tuner leave the building with them and follow him, breaking school rules into the village going into a silvermith and jewellers oblivious to this being his occupation and that he was to engrave them for the school by permission!
In the meantime all this detective stuff is becoming something of a distraction not just to Jennings and Darbishire but within their form leading to a number of mishaps not least being caught having defaced a textbook and not paying proper attention in class which results, as it did for many of our generation, in a lecture and a caning from the Head.
While exploring the sanitarium they get caught by a mysterious person who locks them in a room and after escaping, investigate laundry as they lose a clue to only end up being driven away as the school sports is taking place. In the end they found out who really stole the cups in time for presenting them.
To me these two boys sum up just how boyhood was at the time as we often made more of things than perhaps we should of and got carried away with it!
The story remains an absolute riot.
One thing that I do have to say is like many of books I read at the time, it could only exist ina pre-internet and smartphone world.
My own much treasured edition is the 1967 Collins hardback which keeps this dust jacket which captures the feel of the boys at prep school well with their uniforms.
In a week where it has been both cooler and very wet as the people of South Yorkshire and the East Midlands sadly can tell you about experiencing major problems with flooding, none the less I have been out and about for a good hour or so a day in the open air with temperatures at 2 degrees C in my shorts and pull up grey socks with just one of decent jackets on and a bobble hat to keep my head warm.
I'm no sissy!
It's also been one where apart from reading Kick which arrived late last Thursday, the monthly boys footie magazine and keeping up with the mighty Wolves, I've also been reading the latest Roy of the Rovers fictional offering where Roy is on tour with the team but things don't seem quite right within the club.
One thing I do but don't talk much about on the blog is record things such as interviews, performances off the radio and the odd commercial recording.
I find it less faff when I want to have a permanent physical copy of something as while Sounds, the BBC radio app is okay, stuff is on their for a limited time plus it requires a connection online.
There's been a few attempts to made radios that put programs on things like USB sticks and SD Cards but they never really took off and the quality (thanks to the 'bit rates') was no where near as good as tape.
The other thing with digital files is you're always backing them up hoping they don't fail before the next one whereas I have tapes over thirty years old that playback just fine.
Find me hard drive or usb stick that has lasted that long?
There are two things that closely follow each other this month, one that just past us is of course Guy Fawkes Night which was connected to where I was last weekend and the other being the Armistice and Remembrance Sunday commemorations.
One thing I can say is there has been hardly a year that at any age I did not attend remembrance sunday events either as a child or later on wearing my "Grown Up" hat I took part in the service and paraded with the Scouts and Brownies before laying a wreath at the cenotaph as a Council chairman or otherwise appointed to represent it within this community.
You see war played a major part in my family, losing relatives, others suffering injuries both physical and mental so these things are not just dates from 'history' nor places because what people did was something that was talked about.
Moreover in this community people know how not just the two World Wars but other conflicts impacted on whole families so you feel, I certainly when attending in official capacities know it my responsibility to think about what happened and to pay my respects.
Nobody, not least anyone who has served wants War but sometimes it is the only way to preserve our liberty and way of life as Country and peoples.
That's what matters about this weekend.
Please think about it, thanks.
After last weeks double post lead as this blog always is by real life events and emotions we move on to the Spirit of the Wolf Cub out in the Fall because simply it's a massive part of me to the point there's a separate blog around the whole topic.
Part of the origins of this blog is photography, many of the early entries are connected with it and this is a most colourful time of year so these crisp leaves with wild berries were one thing that caught my eye.
Trees make interesting structures although as here because the woodland is adjacent to a electricity sub-station the branches needed trimming, they still make for an imposing sight, something I do like about this area.
The playing fields is my haunt for other reasons, like play been know to kick a ball about but surrounding it are trees and this in streaming sunlight was one I liked one morning as I was out in my footie gear.
Very close to home literally these berries are most attractive.
