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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Last week we talked about Cub Scout inspired challenges. This week it's not that although there is a kind of a connection.
Part of that thing in challenging myself more brings needs because you need to be prepared for it so something more that a light weight coat or a fleecy jacket to throw on when your outdoors is needed.
For one thing they involve being out not in a car so it needs to be both weatherproof and warm especially at this time of year so I am comfortable and this Parka meets that need quite well.
Something that also really matters in such a coat is having a lot of good pockets to keep things you need at hand that can be sealed so nothing falls out or gets wet and it has two buttoned pockets at the bottom, two zipped ones vertically at the top plus one zipped inner and one velcro inner.
This means things like your cellphone, maps and wallet can be put away as can say a small camera and pen knife.
It doesn't have a hood but I tend to wear a woollen knitted hat when I'm out as it keeps my head warm while breathing so my head doesn't get too sweaty.
The fawn colour is a good match for scouting in spirit blending in well with the natural environment.
It also came on special offer with a watch which is something I really need as I have to learn to tell the time however hard it might be to improve my functioning.
Following on a bit from last weeks posts I planned a morning to be totally out of doors after having my breakfast and gathering what I was likely to need with me together with my new coat (itself subject of an upcoming post).
One advantage of being where I am is it it is quite easy to get out on foot to open countryside and unmanaged countryside at that so with that I started off walking from my house crossing a road to walk along a canal towpath where I observed one horse in a field encountered a number of dog walkers and passed some moored narrowboats before descending into a deep valley that is the home to a kennels and upscale cattery.
I made a detour and stopped for a period alongside a small stream where the pipe of a former salt works used to be found but is now below ground is the actual works itself since sinking.
Looking ahead there was a colourful spectacular vision of of a small plantation with crisp copper leaves upon a blue skyline which was most enchanting to observe.
The route to and along is covered with trees and hedgerows so one often sees a variety of birds flying overhead before I got to the bottom of mainly unmade lane crossed into a road that leads to a vast mere and imposing property around of it with a large courtyard and clear views toward smallholdings just opposite where I decided to pause.
It was around here while watching the hedgerows I encountered a woman in car who inquired if I'd been looking for an injured pigeon as apparently she'd found it and taken it to be be rescued. Only here would you'd be approached by strangers like that AND feel comfortable with it.
The land around here is very much sand based, there's no need to drill nor dig to see this as just looking at the edges of the exposed soil reveals its tell tale orangery brown colour and so it was I stood enraptured watching finches and black birds flying before continuing on and turning into another road.
It was shortly after turning into to it that I observed the sight of one horse and two ponies flocking in the fall sun with the horse actually rolling on the ground and pulling himself up in almost upright position clearly enjoying it and the ponied chasing each other around before starting to chase the horse.
It was so funny and at the same time interesting to observe first hand.
Just a little further down the road on the same side were a group of older horses although proceeding from here I did have to be careful because the pavement stopped so you had to walk in the road with just narrow grassland strips either side to jump into to avoid any oncoming traffic.
Having successfully completed going down that road I was at the crossroads where I encountered a horse rider two dog walkers and a some walkers with a matter of minutes by this well known public house.
I remember it very well as I lived a matter of a few hundred yards the opposite way in my earlier years where we could see it from the tree lined pavement we played on and crossing the road, I could see the farm where occasionally we'd catch a lift with the farmer and his children a boy and a girl, Deborah, the latter being in my class in a Landrover vehicle that smelt of farm!!!
Walking along the road was in many ways a walk in the past because that was a part of the walk to school we had before moving so I passed the cottage where a school friend of my younger brother lived and where we'd have what today are called 'play dates' plus the Nursery we'd get what nowadays are called organic vegetables were grown and bought from.
The whole area has not change much in years to be honest beyond a patch near the urban sprawl of the neighbouring town linked to the nine by seventeen miles of the subregion which is a near miracle in today's environment.
Having stopped and reflected upon how what I saw was so much of my own past I turned toward a path before a smallholding often used for horse grazing is and sat on a gate enjoying the fall sun talking with people.
Slowly making my way back I paused first to observe a group of horses in a field playing and the on the opposite side coming into view were two swans swimming in a pool with other birds flying around.
I then noticed the equestrian centre with it's horses some of which were being taken through their paces and in a another field another horse which I also noticed oddly enough a orangy and white coloured cat in the undergrowth which I was not expecting at all.
The thing I would say about the whole experience was being alert to and being engaged with the lore and the way of nature allowing oneself to be absorbed in what is going on, taking an active interest it.
It invoked something of the explorer feel learning about nature, being able to identify different species and take care of myself while out.
In many ways it has and had many of the things within scouting that I had missed on so while it was physically tiring for me I just felt so alive for having been out and achieving it leaving me feeling great about myself.
Being challenged is really what I need.
I have written a bit across this blog about scouting, specifically cub scouts and you cannot help for sure noticing the increasing sense of nostalgia around this with such things as handbooks, annuals and patch badges being sold in various places on and offline.
Some people do actually have a thing for collecting often 'vintage' ones so it's not uncommon for collections to come on to the market.
My interest in such things isn't centred around collecting in that at an ethical level I tend to see such things as having been 'earned' - beyond material value in someways like war medals - so I'd be interested only if there was direct connection and certainly not for material gain.
I have gotten a number bought under a personal and painful criteria alone, namely having not been given the opportunity to gain them first time, they have to be things such as proficiency badges that I have evidence from either that I did do first time around in childhood or later in life that indicate that I would of earned them on the basis of actual abilities demonstrated as any originals would of to meet the then requirements to had been awarded.
In other words for me to have them, I feel they also need to be earned because they then represent what I would of been awarded for that effort on my own merit, a kind of compensatory awarding.
Going from the top the Green Cap Badge and Silver Arrow, the Photography, Hobbies and Swimming stage two proficiency badges and Naturalist stage one proficiency and cub scout award.
It is also the case some have been bought from scout leaders raising funds to help children develop new skills and interests through boy scouting UK which I feel really matters in raising a generation of caring, disciplined and capable young adults.
This blog has always had a mixture of the new and the old and this week it's more the new with a difference.
I have written a bit about comics and magazines from my original childhood that I read either as the person who bought or had them bought to me in addition to those as boys we shared with each other.
Football is and remains a common link between boys although it is 2018 and some girls play the game as do women in their own leagues but one good development this year has been the launch of a new monthly football magazine aimed at 7 to 12 year olds aka Juniors from the people who publish the adult soccer magazine When Saturday Comes (W.S.C).
The sampler came out in February's W.S.C (issue 372) and unlike many publications as the name suggests its not just about a few big Big Clubs but about participation in footballing from the park or street corner kickabout between friends to schoolboy/girl team play and the benefits physically and mentally of playing out of doors.
Thus you get obviously pictures and writing around club matches but also youth teams, news from wider world of soccer and features such as this months (Issue 6 November 2018) on football for people who like me have cerebral palsy, like we even have own teams today with slightly different rules to help us play.
It also encourages writing, art and geography by acting as means of encouraging interest through interest in the game and has a few cartoons too.
While this isn't a classic 'boys own' publication it's good to see something that has much of the ethos of older publications such as Roy of the Rovers is being produced, marketed and sold in print for today's juniors that for people like me who do struggle with grown up texts also are a good read.
It makes a good substitute in my adult-child life.
On Tuesday October 16th at five o' clock in the afternoon I sat to watch the 60th Anniversary of the British children's tv show, Blue Peter on its current CBBC channel home where it has been since 2012.
60 years is quite an achievement in terms of broadcasting for a single program and does in fact now hold a Guinness book of records certified award for the worlds longest running children's program.
My own involvement with the program stems from childhood where it was always on with having a sibling which was born just at the right time for its launch in 1958 watching and becoming a half hour show later on for my parents to just put it on.
Saying that then it is clear I saw it from as soon as I was able to take in tv and my first hand recollections tend to be from around the age of six getting stronger from about a year and half on where I recall whole adventures and appeals for various good causes that in various ways I was involved in of which a later example was the 1979 bring and buy for Cambodia which was done at boarding school and also on release I took part in my own community.
In that respect the show was very much a integral part of my own childhood and an influence for the good.
Not unsurprisingly for a boy who adored the show, every year in my Christmas stocking there was a Annual which had features on the highlights of the previous 12 months shows, cartoons, features around history and the 'makes' where using everyday items craftwork was encouraged.
It isn't so odd then that I still have those annuals when some other effects from the same era I had end no doubt enjoyed have gone although things like some of Top Trumps from the late 70's are still here.
Looking at it this way, the adult-boy in 2018 who sat watching todays special edition intently as presenters who he knew well and others just more aware of talked about their roles, presented various awards to today's children and showed footage of current challenges felt like that boy in 1974.
Moreover he sat watching just as he did from junior school in his grey shorts, ribbed socks and blue sweater enjoying it just as much even if the stage set was different to that that he'd grown up with and the style of presentation from Radzi and Lindsey the current presenter is different.
I saw the same show I loved and am glad today's children are getting from it what I did at the time.
Happy Sixtieth birthday, Blue Peter!
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.
