User Profile

[andrec]

I was thinking of Golden Cup only very recently. There was a VG store a five minute walk from my secondary school and I would very often go there at lunchtime and buy one. I've been trying to remember the price circa 1977 and keep coming up with 3p, but no idea how accurate that is....

[andrec]

From 1976 to, I think, 1982 my uncle and his two children would spend Christmas at our house with us. He had gone through a divorce earlier in 1976 and had custody of his kids. They would arrive Christmas Eve afternoon and leave around the 29th of December. As we only had a three-bedroomed house, my...

[andrec]

That's very sad news. Like so many people I watched snooker quite a bit in the 80s, and terry was one of the most prominent players. I remember John Virgo and his impressions of players, and his playing on Terry's slow style, in contrast to Alex Higgins' far more frenetic style. There were so many characters...

[andrec]

I think the first time I saw colour TV was in 1969 or 1970, when I would have been 8 or 9. I remember my gran or mom took me to a relative's house as their son had a Chopper bike and I wanted to have a go on one - my parents were going to buy one for my birthday and also wanted to see if I was big enough...

[andrec]

Yes, Bottle Boys got a bit of a drubbing at the time and it seems to have a bad reputation now. I thought they were trying to emulate the vibe of On the Buses. To be honest, I quite enjoyed it, though I can see why it can annoy/offend.

[andrec]

The Capri from The Professionals, Granada from later series of The Sweeney and Steed's Rover SD1 from The New Avengers. I wouldn't mind Purdey's TR7, especially if the gal herself was my chauffeur

[andrec]

What is also almost forgotten now is the people who fled South Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. Thousands fled in small boats for neighbouring countries, and were called the 'Boat People'. It was big news at the time. Added to that was the tragedy of Cambodia under Pol Pot's genocidal Khmer Rouge and...

[andrec]

I didn't get pocket money as such, but my parents would buy me a couple of comics a week or something else, so costing them maybe 20p or so . I got a paper round, working for the paper - Express & Star - itself, so no middle-man shop and papers were delivered to our house. I got £4 per week, which...

[andrec]

I remember at Junior and maybe infants school the dentist, optician and nit nurse coming to examine us. In, I think, the 2nd year of secondary school we had a test for, I believe, TB, and depending on the result we were vaccinated. We also had a medical examination, possibly the same year - this would...

[andrec]

We seem to be putting our tree and what passes for decorations up later each year. This year it will probably be around the 20th Dec when I bite the bullet, trudge into the loft and get them down. We have a big Santa that sings but haven't put it up for years as our dog eyes it with suspicion.
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[andrec]

Sad to hear of his passing. Speaking non-politically, he came across as a decent man to me. Certainly one of the old breed of Labour MPs and he did stick out a bit among Blair and Mandelson's 'New Labour', but probably what Blair needed as he re-aligned the party to keep more 'traditional' Labour supporters/voters...

[andrec]

I wore the black plastic frame NHS glasses at secondary school. My experience was that they were rather easy to get dislodged compared to the later metal frame ones I got.

[andrec]

Forgot to mention that I did try contact lenses for a brief period around 1990. I had to have the non-flexible type and just couldn't get used to them - it was like having grit in my eyes all the time. I soon got sick of it and went back to glasses. It wasn't due to embarrassment that I tried contact...

[andrec]

I wore glasses from around 5 years old. I still remember having to go to the eye hospital in the mid or late 60s and lots of medical students examining my eyes. I wore those round 'John Lennon' type initially, then later on into the 70s the standard black plastic NHS type. In the 80s I wore more fashionable...

[andrec]

I think our nearest Wimpy was in Wolverhampton, and as we went there only two or three times a year I would always want to go there. This would have been in the 70s and into the 80s. There were no fast food places near us other than a Chinese take-away and several fish and chip shops. I can't remember...

[andrec]

Reading through this thread I also had the Secret Sam briefcase and FN FAL rifle. My first gun was one in a cowboy set my grandparents bought me. It included a cowboy hat, badge, holster and metal revolver. I have a recollection of having a double-barreled shotgun which fired corks attached by string...

[andrec]

I remember the TV screenings of the Confessions series and other UK 70s sex comedies in the early 2000s quite well, as it was the first time I had seen them. The Confessions films were, of course, based on the novels from the very successful series authored by Christopher Wood, writing as Timothy Lea....

[andrec]

I don't tend to get into a 'listening to Christmas music' mood until a week or so before the day itself, and it rapidly drops off on Boxing Day, so I am back to listening to ordinary music by the 27th, and that fairly accurately mirrors my overall attitude to Christmas; by the 27th I've had enough,...

[andrec]

My mother bought Woman's Own each week for many years and my aunt bought Woman. After a couple of weeks they would exchange mags. I would often browse them when mom wasn't around, gravitating inevitably to the problems page. They also had short stories that were often worth reading, especially at Christmas,...

[andrec]

My dad didn't like Eric and Ernie at all, so they were rarely on our telly. I've watched them on repeats and YT, and while I wouldn't say I actively dislike them, I just don't find them funny. On the other hand, I loved the Two Ronnies and so did my dad.