79 thoughts on “ALL OUR YESTERDAYS”

  1. Morning, tris. I enjoyed the video on the tractor trials and tried to find out about the ironclad ship, but otherwise I’m stumped this week. Maybe I’ll have better luck next week.

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    1. Bad luck, DonDon.

      You might have had better luck with the warship if you hadn’t tried “ironclad” as a search…😗😉. She (but really should be “he”) was French, and plated in steel. In 1876. The world’s first!

      🇨🇵

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  2. Well, I spy Inverness High Street at No.9, and what I think is a north of England in interloper at No. 13…

    Two great bits of naval history at Nos. 14 & 17 – firstly “Le Redoubtable”, the world ‘s first steel-hulled warship (and not “British” either), and secondly the maritime history jumbo photo of the week! The Lower Harbour at Glasgow in the 1950s – Stobcross Quay, Plantation Quay, Prince’s Dock, Queen’s Dock, Yorkhill Quay, Yorkhill Basin, Meadowside Quay and more – plus the magnificent Govan Graving Docks, Govan Shipyard, Pointhouse Shipyard, Meadowside Shipyard, Fairfield’s Yard… So much history, and so little left.

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    1. Hi, Auld Touns. I thought No. 14 was French, and I suspect the dry dock is in Brest. I eliminated La Gloire and and Couronne and then gave up without finding Redoutable. I found a warship called Guerriere, but alas, she proved to be British and wooden-hulled to boot. As you said, “ironclad” was misleading.

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        1. Yep, it seems that the Guerriere was originally a French frigate, captured by the Royal Navy and put into service with the name unchanged. Just to confuse things, the iron-hulled, steam-powered frigate HMS Warrior was put into service in 1860.

          Hang on a minute, I’ll just google “Royal Navy ships with French names” . . .

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    2. Yes, Auld Touns. Inverness and the north of England..

      I see you have answered DonDon’s query on the ship. Thanks. 🙂

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  3. Well, Auld Toons beat me to Glesca Docks – I need to get up earlier🥱 Pic 1 – Dodge Charger (1969?), one of the great muscle cars; anent Pic 2 – I think the guy who designed this poster delighted in lady golfers rather than golf; Pic 20 is a Crossley Super Sedan 1951 (it says so on the picture). I love it – speed-bird mascot on the bonnet, chrome side stripes, streamlines – and it still looks like a shoe box on wheels.

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    1. Yes, Andi. A Dodge Charger. I don’t know the year but one of our car experts will, I have no doubt.

      I thought the poster was a bit weird. The golfer’s delight but apart from the bag of clubs, there’s no hint of golf.

      I mean do women play golf in high heels and dresses?

      I thought the Crossley was a delightfully ugly car… a bit like French cars

      Back in the day they were smart looking, if this is the same company.

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      1. Congratulations!!!! You’ve fallen into the trap.

        Check spelling 😊

        (however the Mancunian one also do buses)

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          1. or even why……. 😉

            However tbf ‘andimac’ did spell Crosley incorrectly.

            Here’s a proper Crossley, popular in Manchester. (also bodied lots of Aberdeen Daimlers).

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    2. Correct Andi, the Charger is a 1969 R/T.
      The registration plate is a bit of a giveaway… (69RT) and the state identifier above the characters – NSW – tells us that it’s Australian.
      The fact that it’s right-hand drive suggests that it was sold new in Australia, rather than being imported in LHD configuration from the US, as many classic American cars are in later life.
      This very car has been on the Dodge Charger Wikipedia page for some time.

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        1. It’s the same car Tris, but not the same picture, so you’re safe from being hassled by a host of Philadelphia lawyers.
          The one on Wiki looks like it’s in an industrial site car park (with another Charger in the background) and yours is on the street.

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            1. You’d be inundated with Munguinites sending you files in cakes, Tris.
              Twenty years would just fly in!

              As well as the Dodge in Pic1, there’s another Chrysler stable product in Pic19; parked at the kerb there’s a 1961 Plymouth Belvedere.
              Checker cab passing in the background.
              No idea where, except that it’s definitely in a city in America… perhaps.

              Pic20 The Crosley looks indeed like a cross… between an Austin A30 and a Standard Vanguard.
              Handsome? Indeed it is not.
              The A30 had its initial design done by the Raymond Loewy agency, the great American industrial design studio which also worked for many American car companies.
              Possibly the same styling cues were used for both the A30 and the Crosley… There’s always that excuse…

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              1. Filing through the bars would keep me occupied and intellectually stimulated, Morego… but I guess someone would have to take on Munguin. I mean, he can’t boil a kettle…

                Yes, it’s in America,

                I was stunned when I saw the old Crossley as compared to the newer Crosley. Wow I wondered had they turned a magnificent car into something so ugly.

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                1. I’m sure Munguin would provide you with a filing clerk Tris, for the legendary munificence of Munguin knows no bounds, it is said…
                  Doubtless there’d be no shortage of acolytes rushing to be his replacement factotum, kettlemeisters all.
                  He’d be just fine.

                  Crosley v. Crossley?
                  I know which I’d choose!

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                  1. Ha ha ha ha ha . Good one, Morego.

                    He says he’d probably choose you. He likes his first coffee at 7.30 and his last champagne at 10.30.

                    Me too (in the battle of the Cros(s)lies.)

                    Do you do that with proper noun plurals?

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                    1. 7.30 to 10.30, Tris?
                      Very considerate of him to only have you working three hours a day, I’d say!
                      A handsome remuneration to boot, we understand…
                      Most generous.

                      “Proper noun plurals should only have a simple S appended”, I seem to recall the wise words of my English dominie, from so very long ago…
                      Crosley becomes Crosleys then, and not Croslies, according to the sage.
                      No doubt there will be examples which test the rule, but that’s the English paradigm for you.
                      Orthography? Isn’t it wonderful?

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                    2. Ah…well, if only. Although I see Munguin approves of the idea of champagne at 10.30 in the morning.

                      Thanks for passing on the wisdom of your dominie. I wonder why I had never come across that problem before.

                      English orthography is indeed wonderful, in as much as you often wonder at it.

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  4. 4 – I can still smell that pong of Vaseline shampoo in my nostrils. Awful stench.

    6 – Snake oil salesman of fake medicine.

    10 – I haven’t seen that one. For consumer testing purposes only I may be forced to try one.

    11 – At the tractor trials yesterday that tractor was found guilty of digging up a lot of dirt.

    14 – Iron clad warship?

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    1. Was that the one that smelled like tar? Or was that Vosene

      I don;t think they make 10 any more.

      Apparently not, Marcia…See Auld Touns’ and DonDon’s posts.

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  6. #12 (Accrington Corporation no. 154) is a Leyland Titan PD2 dating from 1960 & bodied (unsurprisingly) by East Lancs of Blackburn. (rather oddly the PSV Circle think reg. is 849RTB, despite photographic evidence to the contrary they’re not often wrong…..)

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  7. MG Magnette in pic 15, twin carb and “sporty” variant, slightly more so than the Riley 4/72. Farina styling alongside Austin Cambridge, Morris Oxford and aforementioned Riley.

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      1. On further examination, find that MG compared to Riley 4/68/4/72 variant offered little or no increment in performance, max speed mid to upper 80’s. And indeed not a great deal over the single carb Austin/Morris variants.

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        1. ‘Down at the Mains’ was a ‘Scottish Home Service’ (nicer name than the present day BBC Scotland Disservice) programme which I recall from my childhood and was for children based on life on a Scottish farm. Maybe the BBC (Home Service) based ‘The Archers’ which started a few years later on it. I had this idea in my head at the time that it was all about Davidson’s Mains which is a suburb of Edinburgh!! ’Mains’ from a gaelic, is a Scottish word meaning farm or farm buildings.

          No 5 – my parents had a ‘teasmade’ for years. The alarm went off and a cup of tea was duly produced. Great idea.

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          1. Thank you, JH.

            I knew none of that.

            Every Saturday I discover just how ignorant I am. 🙂

            Was the teas made tea any good?

            I don’t drink tea,. Could it make coffee?

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            2. There was a small, square metal ‘kettle’ with a long, thin spout and the water which started to boil a few minutes before the alarm went off came up through the spout and into a porcelain teapot into which you’d have put your tea leaves or teabag the night before. For tea, the water has to be boiling. There’s no reason why you couldn’t have put coffee into the ‘teapot’ instead. All that was then required was for the milk and sugar to be added if required (that was laid out the night before, of course) once the tea was in the cups.

              Unfortunately, it didn’t make toast! Someone would have to get up! My mother was a tea jenny, so a cuppa first thing got her going for the busy day ahead.

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          2. Sorry, JH. Boring pedantry alert!

            Mains (as a farm name) is not from Gaelic, but from Latin via medieval Norman French. It’s a Scottification of “demesne” (similar to domain), and meant that farmstead was the one for working the lord’s own landholding, as opposed to those held by his tenants. The later use of the Scots “Home Farm” became largely interchangeable with it.

            The original meaning is clearer when you get older farms with the word order “Mains of XXXX” where the second element is the name of the barony or estate. Quite often a Mains Farm sits close to an old castle or hall-house site.

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            1. Now I have to find out who Walter Gabriel was.

              I see he was this fellow:

              And it seems that he originated the “answer lies in the soil”.

              Talking of Cairnallochy… where is he this week?

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  9. Pic18 looks like Danny Williams, South African pop ballad singer who had a number of top-ten hits in the early 1960s (Moon River, Wonderful World of the Young, etc.) but like many others faded from view when the Mersey Beat era began around 1963.
    This was mainly led by some groups from Liverpool, all of whose names escape me, and all of whom no doubt have disappeared from public memory…
    Whatever happened to any of them, I wonder?

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    1. Yes, It is Danny Williams.

      Beautiful voice.

      He had a few hits in the early 60s and, perhaps surprisingly, one in 1977, with the Martini song.

      Mersey beat groups 60 years on… lots of them are no longer with us.

      If you were 20 in the 1960s, you’re in your 80s now, and probably touring is a bit of a strain.

      Gerry Marsden now actually has a pacemaker…

      https://imgs.smoothradio.com/images/175570?crop=16_9&width=660&relax=1&format=webp&signature=RGXySvoV8NeDYEmcdkSi87HmEC0=

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  10. #2: To be fair to the artist, if you were trying to entice people to Troon for the gowf (*), wouldn’t a pair of young flappers be a far more attractive proposition than a couple of middle-aged guys in blazers and indefensible moustaches? ((*) I didnae ken there wuz a Wikipedia in the auld leid ’til the noo).

    #4: I’m trying to remember the smell of Vosene, but can’t (the philosopher Wittgenstein said that smell was the special sense connected with memory). But there was Wright’s Coal Tar Soap, which did smell of what it was called. There was also a shampoo called Linco-Beer, which came in little plastic beer barrels and had a mild whiff of the brewery about it.

    #5: Ah, Woolies! Still going in Australia, I believe. I wrote about our local branch – and a lot of other stores – in one of my nostalgia pieces: http://www.thejudge.me.uk/Not_blog/Not_blog_20150909.htm

    #8: I’ve a feeling that I should know who that is, but the name won’t come to mind. It’s clearly from the 60s because of that unfeasible hairdo.

    #10: I don’t remember that one at all; probably way after my time.

    #15: My brother had a Magnette back in the late 60s, walnut fascia and all. I think his was a Mk.III. I couldn’t have said whether the one in the picture here is a Mk.III or Mk.IV except for the fact that it says ‘Mark III’ on the ad. The main visual difference was the reduced suze of the rear fins in the later version. A nice car in any case.

    #16: Yep, remember all that (I was eight when the switchover was made). I think I’ve got at least one example of each of those coins. The ten-bob note was printed in brown, as I recall. I think I even have one of the silver (sic) thru’penny bits shown in that picture, which pre-dated that wonderful twelve-sided type which was so emblematic of my childhood. Of the big old pennies, the 1933 one was supposed to be very rare, although I don’t know if that was an urban legend or not. I always used to like the 1961 ones because the date was the same whichever way up you held it.

    #18: Sam Cooke?

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  11. I see your point, Nigel. Come tae Troon and see this…

    It’s not a huge enticement… well, ok it is a huge, but not an enticement.

    I don’t really remember the smell of Vosene, although I’m sure when I was little Gran used it. I remember carbolic soap which I love the smell of.

    And I still use Wrights Coal Tar. Nice clean smell.

    Yeah, I remember Quokka talked about Woolies out there in Australia.

    No one has got 8 yet. Actress singer, still alive today at 90. She was in Oliver.

    Wonka Bars were discontinued about 20 years ago and then brought back.

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

    I’ve got some of the coins, including a penny with Victoria on it. Well rubbed down though. You can only just make her out. The 3d bits were lovely.

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      3. Aye Andi, I’ve been doing the same since I first saw the pic…
        Who is that????? Just who is that?????
        When Tris mentioned Oliver!, in a trice the light went on (in my case it’s a 2 watt bulb sometimes…) and instantly I knew it.
        Good to find out.

        Given that it’s Saturday night when I let my hair down and paint the town red, not knowing might have put me off my usual libation but now it’s gonna be Horlicks here I come!!!!!…

        Shani Wallis – Nancy…
        (Wallis and Wallace (or Welsh, etc.) are variants of the same name, meaning Welsh (or Brythonic) speaker.)

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  12. I forgot to mention pic 2. I love these 1930’s posters. They’re so bright and colourful and bring back memories of journeys in the old train coaches which were regaled with these types of posters. The ladies in the picture – Mapp and Lucia? It struck me how quickly women’s fashions had changed. Up to the end of WW1, long heavy dresses and coats and massive hats, then suddenly skirts began to shorten rapidly and ankles revealed. The end of the world?!? And no longer was a woman required to have long hair. My mother told me she had hair down to her waist until she and my father were courting in the 1930’s and he persuaded her to get it cut to a workable length. You have to wonder how, without appliances such as small hairdryers, they managed – never mind no hot running water as in my mother’s case, nor any kind of shampoo, not even Vosene (!).

    My mother caught scarlet fever as a child around the time of WW1 and was taken to an isolation hospital full of other children. They were all having their hair shaved off as most had nits etc. My mother said she was hysterical as she did not want that. A nurse decided to check again and confirmed my mother was nit-free. She kept her hair as it was so well cared for despite the fact she, too, came from a poor household.

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    1. So much has changed, JH.

      Fashions of course, but it really wasn’t allowed to show any leg at all. I didn’t realise that it was nearly the 20s before skirts shortened.

      It’s hard to imagine life without all these things we take for granted now. How would I manage without an air fryer, a cell phone, a computer, central heating? … and yet people did.

      Scarlet fever was a really bad one. I think there was a fever hospital in Dundee with isolation units and scarlet fever patients were there.

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        1. I guess everywhere had them.

          After all, you had a lot of people living oin tiny houses. Infection s would go though a family real quick and back in the day scarlet fever resulted in death in 15-20% of those affected.

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      2. I had Scarlet Fever as a kid and I remember being in the isolation hospital. What really impressed me there was that we were allowed to see the children’s programmes on BBC TV – The Flowerpot Men; Rag,Tag & Bobtail; Muffin the Mule; Andy Pandy and, of course, The Woodentops. I’d never seen TV before. Shortly after I was discharged, My parents, younger siblings and I moved to a new tenement flat from the rear windows of which we could see the hospital I’d just been in – just across the main road. All our yesterdays indeed!

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      3. I went from college in 1978 to my first job as a medical secretary in Edinburgh City Hospital, which was an Infectious Diseases hospital. I worked in the Respiratory Diseases Department. The hospital had beautiful grounds, I was told that some of the trees had come from Scandinavia and were meant to help patients with TB etc back in the day.

        I left after just over a year as there was not a lot of work and was quite boring. I moved to be a secretary at John Menzies head office in Rose St. Stayed there a year then became an Editorial Assistant (a secretary with a posh name lol) for a medical publishing company in Edinburgh

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        1. I guess it is good that there wasn’t too much work in the infectious diseases hospital…

          Fresh air was reputed top be good for people with TB, certainly back in the days before the “smokeless” legislation, when towns were full of smoke from factories and coal fires.

          So, the trees would help a bit I guess.

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