The joys of travel.

The first time I travelled with my two sons, aged three and six months was a never to be forgotten journey! My husband was in the army and had been in the Canal Zone, as it was then called. He was now in Cyprus, and had an army quarter waiting for us to move into.

My mother travelled up to London with us to help and see us off. The children and I had to meet a special coach with a whole lot of army wives to take us to Blackbushe airport after assembling at Googe street tube station on Tottenham Court Road. We at last arrived at about eleven at night and hoped that we would take off soon. No such luck ! Everyone tired and fractious as you can imagine! After about three more hours of waiting, and wondering what was happening, we were told to board the plane to the great relief of all. Eventually after another hour had passed, we actually started to take off, or so we thought. Then the plane stopped and we were all told to disembark. We then had to do lifeboat drill in case the plane came down in the sea!! What fun!! Then of all things we were taken back to London and put up at the Great Eastern Hotel for the rest of the night.

After many more hours of waiting around, we were eventually taken down once again to the same airport and luckily after a short wait took off.

I was asked if I would like to go up front with the pilots, which of course I did. We were flying in and out of clouds and could see the ground, which was two miles beneath us I was told. It was so interesting.

We landed in Cyprus which even in November was extremely hot, and the plane was sprayed with some awful stuff to kill off the British germs that we might have brought with us! My husband was there to meet us and we got to our house feeling exhausted and worn out!

What a journey! I am sure you will agree. At least I have lived to tell the tale fifty-four years later!

Polly

Cyprus map sourced from here.

The shrinking size of transistors

When I was first introduced to transistors they were in a metal box which was a cylinder of about ½’’ or 10mm. about the diameter of a modern 5p piece with three fine wires issuing from underneath which were trimmed to size.



These primitive devices were the precursor of the micro chip’s which are in use today. Modern micro processors can have several thousand transistors contained within a small sliver of silicon the size of you’re pinkie finger nail.

This may all sound compicated, but basically the transistor amplifies an electrical impulse so that we no longer have to carry around a mobile phone or radio weighing several kilograms like we did before. Small transistors mean small portable products.

A lot of the development work was carried out by the Ministry of Defence in the early years after world war two. A lot of women were employed in the assembly work as it would seem they are more patient than men and were less likely to be curious as to what function each individual component carried out. This was for reasons of secrecy and to deter industial breach of copyright.

F.C.

Chicken Thighs with Marmalade.

Browsing around in a bookshop a few years ago I saw a recipe book for retired people. I immediately thought ”that’s me” and bought it. It was one of the best buys that I have made in the book world,and I have made many recipes out of it time and time again.I feel it would be nice to give one of the recipes to those of you who may read this blog,and hope they will make the dish and enjoy it.

Ingredients.
Four chicken thighs with skin removed.
Two tablespoons of oil.
Three tablespoons of marmalade.
Clove of garlic or garlic powder.
Juice of a lemon.
Teaspoon of herbs(any sort preferred).
Salt and pepper.

Method.
Put the chicken thighs in a casserole dish.Put all the other ingredients together in a bowl and mix well.Then pour over the chicken covering them well.Put aside for a few hours to marinade .It can be made overnight.
Cook in a moderate oven 190c or gas mark 5,for about fortyfive minutes until the chicken is chrisp and brown.

Good luck with cooking this. More recipes later on.

Polly.

My first experience with a personal computer

My first encounter with computers was an encounter about thirty years ago with a Sinclair model. That was 1981.



My father bought this ‘box of tricks’ simply because he wanted to compile a data base of race horses so that he could win the Grand National, or at least the horse he chose could. I was chosen for to manage this task with the Sinclair.

From what I can remember a smallish, quite heavy keyboard connected via a TV antenna jack which was then plugged into the back of an old fashioned black & white television, and off you jolly well went, typing to your hearts content. Green on Black.

Unfortunately, The Sinclair model ZX81 did not have a lot of memory and so we could not programme all of dear old pop’s parameters so our horse lost and my mothers horse won, ( because it had a pretty sounding name ).

Needless to say, the dastardly device was relocated to a space in the attic where it probably still is.

Frank Cotterill.

For more information about the Sinclair ZX81 computer, click on its name.

Hospital Visits.

I am sure that there are not many people who will read this article who have not visited one of their family in hospital. At the present moment I happen to be someone who is visiting a close relative who had to suddenly go to hospital in an emergency .I am glad to say he is now on the mend thanks to the medical and nursing staff for whom I have great admiration.

Sometimes one feels that it is as bad for those at home worrying as it is for those in the hospital, especially coming back to an empty house in the evenings after an afternoon visit.

When I was young I joined the Navy as a VAD. The war was still on, though nearly over. I had always wanted to be a nurse. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and the nursing. I was stationed in a sick bay attached to a navel training establishment. Any serious cases were sent to the main navel hospital.

Here is a link to VAD information.

We are lucky to be living in the early twenty first century as medicine has made such terrific advances.

Polly.

Photograph was sourced from this link here.

Wonderful Photography!

Dear friends I wanted to bring to your notice the fact that we have some very talented Photographers here amongst us at Millman Street Community Centre. Above is an example of George Robertson's work and I am sure you will all agree that he has a very good eye for composition and lighting. The photograph is a group of staff and members who were visiting Ham House in Richmond-upon-Thames outside London in July 2006.

If you wish you can visit the Ham House website here.

by Charles Molloy

My last job.

My last job was with an agency called 'Country Cousins'. For those of you who haven't heard of it, here is a brief description of what it all consisted of. The agency is based in Horsham and on applying to join one had to visit them and discuss if one was quite fit and able to look after mainly the elderly who wished to have help for as long as they wished and we the helpers wished to visit them. I did the job for about five years, and in all I suppose looked after about one hundred people mostly women and a few men. I only used to go away for about a week or ten days at a time, as I had a husband fretting away at home! I looked after some very nice and interesting people, two of them were the same age as me. One of them was having a breakdown owing to the fact of having looked after an acholic husband, until he had to go into a home, and the other lady had had a stroke which left her slightly disabled.
I could write about many more people. I looked after some charming and grateful and some not so charming or grateful!! It was the luck of the draw as one didn't know what lay in store until one arrived in their house!

If you would like to visit the Country Cousins website click on this link here:

Written by Polly