Work in progress
Previous | Contents | Next James (Sonny) After Angus was demobilised he went to work for Sonny, and to begin with business was good. “Heather was just born and things were going well,” Angus writes, “when for some reason Sonny decided to sell up and buy another place in the Balham markets”. This ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Wartime service Angus’s first job was in a drawing office with a heating and ventilation engineer in Kingsway, London, but after some eighteen months he decided to join the Royal Air Force. “This was accomplished by buying six months extra National Health Stamps to falsely increase my ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next Well, I hate to nit-pick, but if I could I’d ask Uncle Angus about his timeline — because as far as I can see James was well set up in London, and married to a Londoner, well before the war. § § Those were my first impressions of ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next After that peculiar yet vivid memory of meeting his grandfather in the “wee Turkish hat” as a three year old, Angus’s next memory was when he was six — “making scooters and riding the South London roads with brother Douglas and friends”. His brother James ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Unfortunately I was a young boy, and had to stand on a low box to operate cross-slides etc. However, standing on the box largely prevented me from reaching the treadle, so I had to fasten a big wooden block to the treadle in order to keep the thing going. ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next I never forgot that particular demonstration and much later in life, when I had acquired a bit of woodworking skill, I tried (just as a personal test) the same joint on a drawer, All I can say is — I was very glad that my mitred dovetails were of ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next The holiday for me started with trunk packing. I’m quite sure it never struck my mother in the same way, what with all the washing, ironing and, probably, mending clothes — yours truly meanwhile being a thorough nuisance and getting in the way at every turn. Came eventually the ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next We had books on just about every conceivable subject in addition to a considerable amount of fiction. Every week my father kept us supplied with a good cross-section of magazines and publications — he needed to be kept up to date for his commercial art and we needed to ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next I have mentioned elsewhere about the workshop and all the engines and tools with which it was equipped, but I also recall a tremendous quantity of model railway material – there was enough track to go twice round the garden path together with lots of points and sidings. Two ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next I well remember the table-tennis (“ping-pong” we called it) tournaments being played on the big dining-table in a fast and furious fashion. Played with plywood bats covered on each side with glass-paper (sponge rubber covered bats hadn’t arrived yet), and nearly always interrupted by somebody treading on the ball ... Read more