1918-39

Previous | Contents | Next To be fair, he did show me the value of using tools in the correct manner. He once had me make, with a file and a hacksaw, a 3/4 inch mild steel cube out of 1-1/8 inch round steel, and the sides had to be flat, parallel and square. ... Read more

Previous | Contents | Next I suppose that most of us have, within our characters, behaviour patterns which could certainly be construed as a lot less than virtues. Throughout our lives we are at times maybe covetous, greedy, self-centred, unthinking or just downright bad-tempered and unpleasant – not necessarily huge personality faults in themselves ... Read more

Reminiscences of a happy childhood in the 1920s and ’30s Contents

Previous | Contents | Next The workshop (as mentioned in the “steaming event” — Chapter 1) was a large attic room sporting a ten-foot long bench equipped with a carpenter’s vice, a small bench fitted with metalworker’s vice and drilling-machine, and a smaller bench with grinding-machine and a gas-ring. A large table served as ... Read more

Previous | Contents | Next Sunday mornings, however, preceded Sunday afternoons, and my younger brother Angus and I (the “wee boys” as we were known to all and sundry) would begin our day racing down the six flights of stairs, (we lads slept in the attics) one hand on the bannister-rail and the ... Read more

Heather asked me to record an audio version of her uncle Douglas Sharpe’s “little book of reminiscences”, Wind of Dreams — as if anybody would want to listen to a Kiwi read a Londoner’s stories about his childhood, over a hundred years ago now! Nevertheless, here it is — and ... Read more

Previous | Contents | Next In retrospect I have often thought it somewhat surprising that, at any rate on some occasions, the Fire Brigade was never alerted by some zealous passer-by on Sunday afternoons to the old Victorian semi-detached in south London which served as our family home when I ... Read more

Previous | Contents | Next To me, one of the wonderments of memory is the sometimes quite random triggering, by seemingly unconnected phenomena, of a particular train of recall dredged up from the long flooded depths of the subconscious. A picture here, a poem or a song there, a word, a book, possibly a ... Read more