Oh, and it was the beginning of my love-affair with the Lotus 7. KAR 120C, where are you now?

E: missing comma

Fairly easy to check where she is now if you are really interested!

Correct. As I said, backpackers are not real tourists (they're moths... attracted by the lights).

Backpackers, IMO, are merely trying to cram as much life into a year or two so they can sit around pubs back home wowing those that never travelled with their tales of derring do in far and distant lands.

Then I think of us wrinkly old contractors sitting around swilling beer swapping tales of places like Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Chad, Libya, Warrington , Stavanger and Sakhalin Island and the multitude of crazy characters that go with the job. We're not so different from the backpackers just that we have spent the best part of our lives working in these places, getting paid megabucks and p1ssing the whole lot up the wall.

I didn't realise you were such a philosopher.

Ah one for another thread Phil O' Sopher the Irish bullshitter!

Welsh, from the grand old iron town of Merthyr Tydfil.

God's country, brings tears to my eyes when I think of it and tears to my heart when I return to the tattered remains.

Oh, and it was the beginning of my love-affair with the Lotus 7. KAR 120C, where are you now?

E: missing comma

Fairly easy to check where she is now if you are really interested!

Yeah?

Kero fridges.... gee they were modern, we had the iceman call weekly.

My pushbike had a carbide lamp, found in me g/dad's workshop.

Backpackers had to arrive on foot or public transport when I first started.

Ya collected key to hostel from a shop or house. Main rule was to clean up, leave evrything as you found it. Those days, we did, but now, young folk are too spoiled and lazy, couldn't care less.

When I started flying, all passengers were weighed, not charged by weight, just to balance the weight on board evenly to let pilot know what to expect on take off. (Plane take off)

I reckon pple should be charged by weight.........

Imagine the travel ads.

LONDON one way $50.00 a kilo.......lol

We saw my dad off to WW2, he went from Auck by train.

A certain young guy thought for years, to go to London, it was by train..... hehehe

OOOOOOPs, now I am showing my age. ......

One thing I haven't seen for a long long time, white dog shit, where did they go.

You've mentioned before about the weighing for plane travel, Pete. I thought I told you at the time that the plane had to be kept balanced - an even weight distribution for the people lying on the left and right wings of the Wright Flyer. Of course, once they started to shuffle people into the airplane instead of mounting them on the wings, weight distribution became less important.

One thing I haven't seen for a long long time, white dog shit, where did they go.

Me neither! Is it because more people clean up after their moggie?

One thing I haven't seen for a long long time, white dog shit, where did they go.

Me neither! Is it because more people clean up after their moggie?

Either that or it could be the milk of magnesia crack down in the late 70's

I had stomach problems as a boy and milk of magnesia was a staple! Vile stuff that never did a smidgen of good! I didn't have white poo either!

Steam trains

Wind-up gramophones and 78 rpm records.

Unpaved roads as the norm.

Second World War and doodle bugs, also the 'thousand bomber' flights that assembled over SE England - the sky full of planes. Dog-fights. Being bombed out. (Different connotation now, I mean being in a pile of bricks that was a house a minute before)

First television - my father came out of the RAF and set up a radio and TV manufacturing firm - so we had experimental TVs on the table, on their sides, no cabinet, fiddle, fiddle, fiddle. All old valves and so on - before transistors.

Communications in all forms - instead of writing a letter, posting it and waiting a week for a reply there is now instant chat-room, e-mail, even jump in a budget plane and go and see the correspondent within a couple of hours.

Good point about the comms, Humph - there was an item in the news a few weeks ago that Thailand is abandoning the telegram service because it is losing too much money. Makes sense, when you think about it. As to the 79s, there are probably some who remember playing the old cylindrical records. You out there, Pete?

*** Thinking - Many a true word spoken in jest ***

I had stomach problems as a boy and milk of magnesia was a staple! Vile stuff that never did a smidgen of good! I didn't have white poo either!

Yeah, I never thought it worked, either. D'you remember Gripe Water? My dad used to all it baby's gin. I used to love that stuff. And I can still remember the smell of Germolene and how it evokes falling down in the playground, blood gushing copiously from your knees, the scholl nurse exhorting you to be a "brave soldier" and then gently picking the scabs during lessons for the next week.

School Dinners

Toad in the Hole

Spotted Dick

(Much Sniggering)....................

How old is Humphrey Bear? Unpaved roads? Doodle bugs? The black plague?

Yeah, I was wondering that. To remember V1s, you'd have to be at least 68, yeah?

So come on then, Humph; what's the SP?

How old is Humphrey Bear? Unpaved roads? Doodle bugs? The black plague?

To answer your first question (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_B._Bear):

Humphrey B. Bear is an Australian children's television series and its fictional character namesake is an icon of Australian children's television. Humphrey B Bear was first broadcast on Adelaide's NWS-9 on Monday, 24 May 1965. In the early days the character was known as Bear Bear and was named Humphrey B Bear as the result of an on air competition. The show became one of the most successful programs for pre-schoolers in Australia.

Humph was taken off the air in 2003, but due to popular demand, he returned in 2007.

What? He only 43?!?

Just a young whippersnapper...

What? He only 43?!?

Just a young whippersnapper...

Hang on, what's that in bear years?

Roughly 120 years. (Av life expectancy of brown bears is c30 years).

Well that makes sense then! Although the black death is pushing it!

Black death, sounds like model "T" Fords....... any colour ya like, so long as it was black.

Me g/dad had one.

Haaaaaaaah, reminiscing ,,,,,,,,,,

One of the things I miss, is the crank handle that used to be in every car.

Running boards on me dad's car.

Loved standing on it as he 'sped' along the beach in the waters.

I first car had a crank handle - I was always telling it to cheer up!

I first car had a crank handle - I was always telling it to cheer up!

Have you ever swung a crankhandle and started a motor?

My grandfather had an old 'T' or 'A' model that he never traded in. It just sat in the garage gathering dust, but otherwise was in pristine condition up until 1971. The bloke next door was converting a large WW2 era seaplane into a boat. At the same time, my old grandfather died and so my grandmother said to next door that he could have the old car for its engine (which the neighbour wanted to use to make an inboard engine for his seaplane conversion). Needless to say, that was the end of the old car... pity, really.

The neighbour had intended to use the converted seaplane as a retirement houseboat on the Murray River - the large river bordering Victoria and New South Wales. He had worked on it part-time for about fifteen years - but it looked as awful when completed as on the day he began the project. Ultimately, he changed his mind and sold the thing... probably for tuppence.

I first car had a crank handle - I was always telling it to cheer up!

Have you ever swung a crankhandle and started a motor?

Oh yes, plenty of times. When the car wouldn't start of when the starting motor was playing up.

Well, no fond memories of sprained wrists then. A bit like my m/bike I had as a young bloke. Twin cylinder 750cc and when it kicked back, it kicked hard (many a sore ankle from that one).

My dad showed me how to do it so as not to damage myself - still did kick back now and again though. Still, I was young and didn't give a shit!

My dad showed me how to do it so as not to damage myself - still did kick back now and again though. Still, I was young and didn't give a shit!

...as in folding back the thumb (not putting the thumb over the handle)?