Going back to 1980

As we make our way through the month it is usually the case the final preparations are made for the production of  this years Beano and Dandy Summer Specials ready to go to the shops or today be ordered online from around late May.

Last year I did write a bit around Dandy and Beano Comic Library editions and Summer Specials and as it happens it's what would be the third anniversary of the Traditional School Boy (TSB) on Tumblr.

Recently I repurchased this, the 1980 Summer Special which was something I bought while away in what was in hindsight to be quite a significant year.

1980 was year where exams loomed across this month and May and with it the widening age dysphoria gap between how I was on the inside and how chronological aged me was being seen by others.

It was across this period that I started to wear much of my older clothes not least shorts, long socks and having discovered it, my younger brothers former cub scout uniform.

This was the summer I refused to wear long trousers while away on hols wearing either an old denim pair or some ultra short blue shorts that Messrs Jonty and James might of approved off so every single family picture shows what on the surface was a young boy, a slightly more mature looking ten or eleven year old as I was less developed physically and rather thin.

Thus it was him that read things like that years summer special Pup Parade, the strip based on the lives of the Bash Street Kid's dogs on the beach and in our accommodation.

Around this time I was still reading comics so issues like April 26th's was a memorable one and an indication of how things were across this period was the fifteen year old going on ten was still playing now having moved on a year (by chronological age) played with that glove puppet even if I could talk about The Jam and Mrs Thatcher's government going on to have afternoon tea with the latter at No. 10. 

I had decided by that point in my life I was not a "young man" nor associated with the term "teenager" but really still that boy in Juniors even if I went to "big school" and started to study for a few more examinations the next year.

So it was as got to the tail end of 1980 that what was now a boy in law who could leave school was still living in most respects as a ten year old with the same house rules, dressed the same would get things like that years Beano Book (it wasn't an annual until later) even if he studied the Constitution and system of Government at school getting the best exam result of the group the next year.

As far as that year book went Gnasher and Dennis were as football mad as us sticking our PE shorts on during midday recess for game on the school fields and Gnasher's teeth dead set on biting the bums of Dennis's opponents as we has in the Summer Special.

1980 was the year the short-lived  spin off Bash Street Kids annual  started as many of us were into Adam Ant and Grange Hill.

Cuthbert was forever the class swat and teachers pet as much as teacher was like mine that year still legally able to swing that cane in our direction and boys like me who got to sit outside the form teachers office were often teased about just what might happen later.  

You took stuff like that in your stride and I was more than capable of dishing it back later!

That was 1980 and why revisiting the Summer Special brought everything back.

Radio and Chris

Sometimes I do write about the past on here, yes my childhood and white I am writing about this week is to do with it because I did have some differing interests  of which one was radio which for me wasn't just entertainment and spoken word programming for people in this country but of different sorts of transmissions.
These included things such as morse code, ship to shore, ham radio and international shortwave broadcasts from all around the world which was a bit out the ordinary for say a twelve year old boy.

There were a number of ways you could receive such transmission but all required a fairly specialized piece of kit to cover the frequencies and transmission modes used and the the one I had had  very important part in our countries "Battle of Britain" because it was actually the the receiver unit as fitted originally to the Avro Lancaster bomber during World War Two where it was used in tandem with a separate transmitter.
It's called the R1155.

As an aside I just loved that airplane.
Mine had a specially made power unit to rain of 240 volt AC mains and speaker unit because as originally designed it it had a power feed from the aircraft and the operator would of used a head set made from leather to listen to it from.

I did have a similar head set to this which was RAF issue at the time for operators.
As this was nineteen-forties technology it used big thermionic tubes which meant compared to more modern equipment it was a little bit noisy but fed with a good long antenna it pulled in lots of stations especially on the 49, 25 and 16 metre shortwave bands and related Ham bands where the ability to receive single-sideband and cw transmissions commonly used  helped even if the selectivity was a bit broad .
Traipsing around the side of the unit to the power supply and speaker were massive and banned for normal usage bulgin connectors. 
Indeed with a metal chassis, it would give PAT testers a nightmare and so be barred from any kind of institutional setting.
The radio came out at the time I was taking my GCE O Levels to our school classroom where I had a subminiture shortwave receiver in my dorm and long wire that annoyed the groundstaff as part of a demonstration or radio equipment and operating on conjunction with dad who is a ham radio operator.
My fellow pupils were in awe of that radio during and after the day it made it's appearance!
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Schooldays

There was much howling of wind around here from Friday onward as I remarked to Sammy so I got a few things done that I might of delayed as I wasn't able to be until later on on Sunday.

The origins of the this post go back to 2005 and Friends Reunited because one core aspect of that site was links to schools and other places you'd been that just didn't allow you to contact people you knew but also included sharing otherwise scattered artifacts of that time.
I am feeling very brave today and am sharing something with you.
That school picture is my Infant/Reception class would of been sometime probably early 1970 as in reception we didn't have to wear a uniform although you can tell those who already were going down that route.
Staring from the back row at the far right was Mrs Bell, our Reception teacher who did give me some extra tuition as I wasn't good at speaking then, and the boy in  a grey sweater and tie actually next to her is me. Third from me is Mark one of several children of the 'big cheeses' of the Methodist Chapel.
Back then much of what as children we took part in was organized by them and a prominent landowner so we were very much connected to that form of Christianity and its moral teachings. It wasn't sufficient  to learn academically for us it involved moral education too.
Second row from the back on the far right was a boy who was only with us a couple of years who was blind in one eye and to whom we absolutely did take care of and next to him was 'Tich' from another prominent family.
You'll note the back and second row are nearly all boys and that was not just pretty normal for the era but also because the boys of our class were a pack, a unit and a tight one at that would look out for each other.
Dead centre on the front row was Karen another of the families of prominent Methodists who were involved in running the chapel and a farmstead.
The building wasn't untypical of country districts being late Victorian with Boys and Girls entrances originally  but in practice we had Infants and Juniors with matching playgrounds.
The building ceased to be a school at end of Summer Term 1974 because it was too small for our needs with us needing to use a community hall for things such as French, P.E (not Games) and school canteen for lunch sharing the building with a parent run Preschool, mobile child welfare clinics and so on.
We moved into a new purpose built school for Autumn Term 1974 which had more space although it was of the trendy open plan sort with each year having its own 'homebay' to which we moved across the building for art, and science.
It had a hall for all school assemblies held on Monday, Wednesday and Friday which were Christian centred, games with climbing frames and store areas for static equipment and music.
At the time we didn't use it for eating  as instead we finished in time to clear are desks which had changed from wooden ones with matching chairs to Gopak tm triangular ones and grey plastic backed chairs to eat off and as we were 'top class' juniors, we were expected to head tables for our younger children, looking after them.
Games was always played in the new building outside with much more space and grassed areas for Soccer and other ball games.
Today as a former governor there I know they eat in the hall and much of the open plan design has been converted into defined classrooms with doors which while I understand does keep noise distractions down that can be an issue I did feel personally was claustrophobic taking out much of the spaciousness of the original design.