ALL OUR YESTERDAYS

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Thanks to Marcia and Dave. (And to John, who has been trying to send stuff, without success! So thank for the effort.)

104 thoughts on “ALL OUR YESTERDAYS”

  1. Hi tris. Am I firdt again this week?

    Pic 4: Looks familiar. Giant tweezers for extracting the washing from old-fashioned, top-opening washing machines. My Mum used to have one just like that.
    Pic 10: An old Case tractor with non-standard cab
    Pic 13: Bob Hope
    Pic 17: MiG 29
    Pic 20: I’ll take a wild guess: is it Dundee?

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    2. Tongs, ya bass!…if I may allowed to lapse into the vernacular, DonDon.
      Pic4 is a set of washing tongs, as you say for tipping the hot clothes into the sink or spinner of the twin-tub.

      Aye, Leslie Townes Hope himself in Pic13.
      Looks none too happy here – I suspect this was at the awful Miss World cattle show in 1970, when protesters flour-bombed the stage.
      Thought it was hilarious, myself…

      Pic1 is an Austin 12 van from the early to mid 1930s.
      Photo looks like it was taken on a cloudy day – or with a box Brownie!
      Still very interesting nonetheless…

      Pic5 is a Mk1 Hillman Husky in completely unrestored condition.
      They were based on the mark VIII Minx from the mid 1950s.
      Left-hand drive and white-wall tyres with two-tone paint suggest this is an export model, probably to the US.

      I hope Pic3 is not satire, what with the Queen and all, God bless her, doing us the favour of taking all that black black oil away.
      We’re not genetically programmed to make decisions about how to use the dosh ourselves. (©J. Lamont)
      Well worth losing all that revenue to the City of London for the privilege of staying in the union…

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      1. Picture 1 is an Austin Seven 5 cwt van, probably 1932 ish, vans are hard to date as Austin used up previous car stock parts.

        Reminds me of the story of the official opening of the first commerial power station at Windscale.
        The big power meter was powered by Arthur Baldock turning the handle to move the hands, on lizzy pressing the on button.

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          1. The video of lizzy opening Calder Hall is still available.
            She is seen walking past the Turbine, remember that in that position you can’t hear yourself think.
            The big meter is there, just remember Arthur is bihind it turning the handle to make the hands move, the unit wasn’t on line.

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        2. Yeah, right about the 7 van, Dave.
          No front bumper for a start and the 12 had a bar for the headlights.
          It was late when I posted – nothing to do with the number of wee goldies consumed beforehand…

          Amusing about the man in the white coat turning the handle to make the hands on the dial go round.
          A bit like Lizzy launching a ship – she pressed a button and off it went but the button wasn’t connected to anything.
          The Carpenter’s manager dropped the electronic triggers from below when he was happy everything was ready to go.
          This is why there was sometimes a delay after the bottle was smashed if any last-second hitch arose.

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      2. Indeed. What can I add, except that …would Munguin poke fun at her gracious brittanic majesterialness?

        Why, the horror!!!

        I guess that was the day they thought to themselves, “never, never, let them go…. at least not till there’s not a drop left.”

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        1. Possibly Canada Nigel, but the US took a surprising variety of post-WW2 Brit cars although not in great numbers.
          Once the VW Beetle and especially the Japanese cars came on the market that all ended…

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    4. The track was still there in the 50’s , my Dad took me to see it on a road trip to Stirling by the back roads.
      No car just the overhead steelwork which was built over the rail line, the interior shots show wonderful wood panels and wonderful upholstery.
      The line ran from the Milngavie railway station.

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  3. No.4 I remember those tongs for taking washing out of the top loader….for some reson it seems like they should be 19th century, not 20thC.

    That no. 3 pic of Betty putting a wee coin into the slot to open the bank vault to receive £trillions of revenues from the oil extracted from Scottish territorial waters, almost seems understated, not much fanfare, looks like it was just an everyday thing, perhaps it was underplayed for a reason, hmm.

    No. 20, Always terrible to see how people had to live back in the early 1900’s(?), kids with no shoes, so sad.

    I don’t think ‘Coated puffs’ made it as far south as Gateshead, I don’t remember them anyway. Cool thistle motif though.

    No. 18, The pen looks posh, no idea what sort it is, maybe not a ‘Parker’. We like pens in our houe, but, I hate they are made of plastic mostly, so throwaway which we don’t so we have loads of them.

    No. 9, The Robertsons jam ‘golli’ brooch..gowd awful weren’t they, we were not allowed them in our house. I wonder where the jam was made?

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        1. The Jam Factory was my first training place when I left school, I completed a 6 year apprenticeship there. Not in jam making but radio and TV, it was British Relay (from early 60s?), a TV rental and “piped” TV outfit. Offices, opposite the roundabout and workshop up the side street behind the pub towards a railway bridge. I was told this was the same setup when Roberson had it.

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      2. Made in Carluke? Really? Carluke had, indeed still has a jam industry (Scotts of Carluke). Robertson’s was a Paisley firm whose factory loomed over Canal Street Station. The whole town smelled of oranges when they were making orange marmalade, which went on for weeks in late winter when the Seville oranges fruited. Passengers waiting for trains would go off to work with their clothing smelling of bitter sweet oranges and work colleagues across the west of Scotland would also know that it was orange marmalade. I was one of those passengers and used to be ribbed by Glasgow colleagues when they passed close to the office coat stand. Robertsons came to a sticky end (hoho) when the English company which bought it shifted production dann saff. How often has that been allowed to happen? Paisley never smelled sweet after that and when J&P Coats did likewise the town went into steep decline.

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        2. I wondered what had happened to them.

          Dundee had a company called Keillers which made jams and marmalades. They also made boiled sweets and at one time, I think, chocolate.

          I wonder if Dundee smelled of oranges in these days… Marcia?

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          1. The business was inherited by Alexander Keiller. He was more interested in archaeology and used his wealth to buy the land around Avebury where he discovered the ‘barber surgeon’ who had been crushed by a falling stone. The museum there is named after him.

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              1. A bit late in my comment, hopefully allowable.
                Ibraham Okhai moved to Dundee from India via Malawi in 1966. An entrepreneurial chap, he built up a family business including cash and carries and Keillers. On Keillers acquisition he had T-shirts printed for all his staff proudly stating – “Okhai the noo, and Keillers too”.

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                1. Oh I’d forgotten about him.

                  Did he buy Keillers from Nestlé and Cross and Blackwell (who owned it for a while)?

                  Catchy slogan… Not sure I’d have been keen on wearing one though! 🙂

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          2. My walk to primary school took me along Clepington Road in close proximity to the Keiller factory. I can’t say if it was oranges or not but on some days the smell of something was almost visible!

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    2. It’s apparently a Parker Vacumatic …whatever that is.

      I don’t remember the golly badges. But i had a golly that had been my dad’s and I loved it it bits.

      Some kids aren’t a lot better off now, but it seems to be food and heat that they go without rather than shoes. I’ve not seen any barefoot ones here anyway.

      As usual the queen looks bored with what she’s doing. But I wonder if she knew how much of a difference it would make to the City Of London.

      I wish we’d have Olaf V of Norway as our head of state. They seemed to do better with oil than we did.

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      1. I had one of these, possibly still have. It was my Maternal Grandfsther’s.
        The body unscrews, exposing a rubber bladder with a spring loaded metal strip along its length.
        Insert nib into ink bottle, depress metal strip and bladder, release and ink is drawin into the bladder.
        I hope that was as informative as I thought it was when I wrote it.

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        2. Well, yes, John. It was.

          I think my dad had one, which might have been his dads… and I have a vague memory of him filling it by pushing down the metal strip on the rubber container and once it was in the ink, letting it out slowly sucking up the ink.

          I don;t know how long it was before he had to refill it.

          Parker Quink, I think it was called.

          I wish I have a pen like that now…

          Not that I ever write anything…

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    3. The pen resembles a range of pens sold in an upmarket jeweller where I bought one of similar ornamentation for a girlfriend’s Chrstmas c 1962. I decided against one with a similar ring in case it raised expectations that I was not ready to meet but I paid quite a lot for a “ringless” one of similar style. Never did buy her a ring whether free standing or on a pen. Don’t recall the make. (She later bought me a Parker 51 which lasted into this millenium)

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      1. LOL. Lovely Cairnallochy.

        I just had a rake through my desk and found 3 fountain pens… all pretty cheap.

        One has that metal clip to loading with ink

        I’ll take a photograph for next week. Now I’ve got ink all over my fingers!!!

        PS, I also found around 60 biros!

        I never write anything!

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  4. Thanks for the credit, Tris. Hope to have outbound email fixed in the course of the day. And ArtyHetty, like you I was struck by the lack of ceremony in the oil theft launch. Nae butcher’s aprons? Nae apparent security? All very casual and amateurish looking for a royal event. Was that how it was done in the mid-70s? No. I covered enough openings and ribbon-cuttings in my early newspapering days in the 60s, and there was always a bit of pompto go with the circumstance. Maybe it was a deliberate attempt to downplay the significance of the occasion.

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      1. Of course not! Press reptiles were kept well at bay. Especiaklly subversives like me who had already scored a D-Notice for illegally (?) planning to publish photies of nuclear subs. Got shopped by the printer who was scared of being locked up for dissemination. Good publicity though and whole thing did me no harm. Badge of honour. Usually only one or two snappers allowed close-ups at royal events, and then pool-sharing with the rest. Probably still the same.

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            1. Munguin is sitting quietly with a large gin and tonic, soaking up all the affection and respect that he feels is rightfully his…

              I thought he was about to give one of his great orations in Latin, as he is inclined to do on such occasions… something along the lines of “Hic in mea ditione multos habeo servos officiosos”

              But he stopped at “Hic”.

              So I think it may be the gin.

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    1. Also, noticed headline on the newspaper with “Typhoid” and this would likely be the 1964 outbreak in Aberdeen (when I was at Uni there at the time!). Would fit with the Shapiro “Walking back to happiness”, I suppose!!

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        1. I heard a really good Helen Shapiro song on the radio recently; “Stop! And You Will Become Aware”. Almost Northern; looked it up, it’s a B-side and it’s a £600-odd single.

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        2. Useful down south in railway carriages that year to say you were from Aberdeen. Mind you, guy who was eventually my best man had even more success by standing to greet all who entered his compartment in introducing himself as John the Baptist. (The long beard and wild expression helped.)

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      2. Hugely talented, but she came along at just the wrong time (or the wrong town) for the charts.

        If she’d been from Liverpool, who knows…

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  7. Happily, the Beresford Hotel building is still with us. It has a range of different brandings, including student residences. On occasions, some of the cultural vandals who destroyed Charing Cross had hinted at pulling it down.

    As a small boy, coming up Elmbank St and seeing this vista at the top was awesome. It was a white/yellowbuilding so different from the grey, gloomy tenements of Anderston, a few hundred yards away in the district where I lived in the 1940s and 50s. It was like something out of the imaginary world of the cinema.

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        2. Brighton City airport was used on Poirot I think. (But shown with vintage 1930’s cars.)

          Wiki: The aerodrome became an airport for the adjacent towns of Brighton, Hove and Worthing. It was officially opened on 13 June 1936 under the name Brighton Hove and Worthing Joint Municipal Airport. The new terminal building was built in 1936 and was designed by Stavers Tiltman in the Art Deco style.

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          1. And Poirot’s apartment building:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florin_Court

            “The building has been used as Whitehaven Mansions, the fictional London residence of Agatha Christie’s character Hercule Poirot, in the LWT television series Agatha Christie’s Poirot (1989–2013). As well as exterior filming, a number of interior shots of the building were used for this programme over the 24 years of production.”

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    2. Interesting to note that there’s no Butcher’s Apron flying from the turrets. The Saltire and what I assume was the Beresford company arms.

      Wouldn’t happen today; the entire edifice would be covered in one gigantic UJ.

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    2. Nice to see it was possible to escape from Crieff for such a small ransom. I don’t suppose anyone ever bought a return.
      (I once spent 3 days in Crieff and got thrown out of the Ochtertyre Theatre for laughing during a performance of Strindberg’s Dance of Death. At the Tourist Information the lady in charge, who sounded and acted as if she’d spent years in Nyasaland ordering natives about, announced jovial that she always thought we’d been on the wrong side in WW2. She’s probably a Tory list MSP by now.)

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      2. Don’t be rude about Crieff – fur coat and nae knickers it may be up top but “doon the hill” was a different matter and I had some good nights at the jiggin in the late 50’s. I usually put my foot in it however by letting slip by something I said that I was still at school – but maybe it was better that came out sooner than later.

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  9. I’ve got a CD of Helen Shapiro. She was much more than a fleeting pop singer. She was a great Jazz and Blues singer as well, singing with people like Humphrey Lyttelton. I believe she gave up her career in show business to sing gospel music. She had a great voice.

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    1. Yes. That video I found shows that.

      She had great talent.

      She was on a radio programme a few years ago with Sandi Shaw, Petula Clark, Jackie Trent and Dusty Springfield’s ex-manager and she talked about finding Jesus and making her life all about the gospels.

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  10. No. 5. Drove the van version of the Hillman Husky, the Commer Cob, in the early 1960s. And all through January to March 1963, when the whole country was snowed in for two months .No heater. My biggest disappointment was on the first Saturday in January when all professional football was cancelled. If Partick Thistle had won that day, they might have been top of the First Division table. They eventually finished third.

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      1. People managed. We took it for granted that it would be cold in winter. Buses didn’t have much warmth either with the open platform at the back.

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          1. From memory there were lots of roadside cafe stops, you could last about an hour at best before a heat stop was required.
            Seewe are to have heat banks this winter, libraries and community sites to remain open for heats.
            Thankfully there might be a bus service with a heater and a bus pass.

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            1. Dear heavens.

              4% increase in bills in France…

              I just hope that Covid doesn’t come back with vengeance, because with people crammed into the libraries, busses community centres etc, with the windows shut, it really is asking for trouble.

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    2. Remember that well, Alex – and same Jags setiments. Now we’ll settle for beating Hamilton Acas in a few hours. Ah well, be grateful for what we’ve got (to paraphrase Joni again). Still got a shot at promotion this season.

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  11. I remember my mum using these wooden tong things when operating the twin-tube washing machine we used to have. She’d pull up the soaking clothes from the tub into the sink, then knead the water out before using the wringer to get them as water-free as possible before hanging them on the line.

    I remember the smell of the scummy water after all the clothes had been taken out of the machine.

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  12. A very pleasant meander down AOY. Almost excelled myself this week, managed Helen Shapiro, Bob Hope and an easy Dundee, named just in case of doubt.

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  13. The Robertsons label reminds me of a post-grad classmate who had been in India on NS at independence and beyond and told me how they had been instructed not use the well known 3 -letter term to describe the local population – so they all said “golly” instead.

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    1. Munguin has been looking at this watch and tapping his flipper all night…

      Still, better late than never. Only 5% of your retainer is docked.

      🙂

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      1. Well its summer, can’t waste a fine day slaving over a hot laptop!
        (Remind me, what is 5% of diddly-squat?)
        😉

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