General Chat

My Mum and Dad came from Islington.

My Mum knew a family along the street who had 4 sons who served on the Hood. We all know what happened.

Nothing like Saving Private Ryan happened over here.






Has Stephen been practicing his repertoire from South Pacific.

There is Nothing Like a Dame.

Did I really miss the 'thingthong'?

And I have lost a kilt somewhere.

Vague hazy memory of a dinner in a big hall.

The Awards Ceremony is on Monday at Buckingham Palace.

Almost certain there will be a Dame.

Rita,
I had the pleasure being at an HMS HOOD reunion dinner in Portsmouth.

Ted Briggs, the last remaining survivor of the three who were all that remained of the Hoods crew when she exploded is a lovely person.

I have a great photo of my son, then a young Royal Navy Officer, taken along with Ted. Something to treasure.

The dinner was on the Saturday and we paraded the Hoods colours through the streets to a Memorial service on the Sunday.

I have met some memorable people that gave great service in various conflicts and always feel a depth of gratitude that they gave so much.

Night all.

Maddie it is a bit early for the sale of poppies in my aera. there is a lady on the GR thread who publishes a Poppy day poem every year. last year I
printed it out and handed one to each poppy sellar..

I am going on about the Chilean miners now. watching all that is happening .is a real weepy to see each man being brought to the surface of the mine is a miracle.The thing I was thinking of was there will be one miner left all on his own at the end. I wonder what he will feel like being there with none of his friends.? he may think will I l be rescured. will something go wrong. ? I feel really sorry for that last man out.

Rita

Shelly
I bet your father would have loved the internet and loved to have researched his roots. my father would have been the same. I did not start family research till my father died and that left just my sister and I .we were talking about Dad and I said do you know much about the family ?(I am 6 years older than my sister ) she said know why ? I thought it would be nice to try and trace the family roots on our mother and fathers side of the family. thinking they were all from the London area..all I remembered was my father telling me my Grandfathers name was Absalom and he came from Honiton in Devon. that was all I had to go on. Mothers family I had more info as I knew her Grandparents were Scottish.
so can you picture your father and my father's faces when they started to trace their ancestors,

by the way I read non-fiction books as well. mostly History books and books on London.

Rita

Stephen that was lovely to read about the memorial for the Artic Convay sailors I have a line of relations who served in the royal navy and Royal marines. two were in the merchant navy one was escorting ships in the Artic,
I have uncles that served on the Isis, The Hood. and many other well known ships. that had big sea battles. all no longer with us.

I take photo;s or memorial all around the world, when I have been on holiday.as well as many in England and on the Tv tonight they showed you the firemans memorial with all the names on it which is near the bridge by St Pauls Cathderal I have that as well. I think all these brave men and women need to be remembered,
Many people do not know about the Fireman memorial friends of mine in Norfolk who were Firemen didnt know I took lots of photos of that and took them back to Norfolk f with me and handed them around.
So I hope that people will be like me and take photo of the memorial to show others.


Rita


Rita

A sobering thought.....

More Servicemen that served in the Falklands have committed suicide than died in the conflict.

255 were killed, more than 300 have committed suicide.

So much for aftercare.

Just in from work. Dont know why but I have splinters in my bum. Must get a mirror and a needle and set to work.
I know what you are thinking, trollop, and you could be right. lol

We have just got our Poppies at work, not many sold yet, but early days.

My Uncle Dave was part of the Airborne Division, and was part of Operation Doomsday. The heavy water mission that was dramatised in a film starring Kirk Douglas called the Heroes of Telemark.

He was coming home from a mission when Peace was declared, and his plane went into the side of a mountain. He was in his early 20's. My Nan was never the same after that. She had 3 sons, one was a prisoner of war, one got shell-shocked and the last one died. My Mum always sat and cried buckets when she watched Cenotaph on the telly. I always go to Whitehall the day after, and spend a bit of time looking at the wreaths. Very sad.

Sad to say the slaughter is still going on.

As Mum always used to say

Some Mothers' Son.

What an honour Stephen. The Arctic Crewmen deserve the memorial,as a reminder to the likes of us,who have no memory of what they went through.
A lot of young people these days have no idea,of what our service personnel suffered during both the world wars. Let alone the Faulklands,and the ongoing wars at the moment. Brave men one and all, who we owe so much.

Pauline you are a brazen hussy, riding through town like Lady Godiva. You should have got longer hair extensions,they would have kept you warmer.
I am wondering if that e.mail I sent you earlier,was Stephen in disguise.
Oooh it was sooo naughty,it bought tears to my eyes. LOL

Linda, the meetings you have to go to,are really a waste of time arn't they.
And I can see no reason for your having to pay for the support of the council,it's not they who you have to register with to do the child minding is it. When I was registered for the fostering, I had to do it through social services,but I don't know if things have changed since then. I always had the support of the S.S, but nothing to do with the council itself.

Wheres our Maddie got to. Surely she's not still out on the town. Oh and Maddie, my apologies about the panties slur, I didn't realise it was a scarf you were waving,it's a very frilly scarf love so you will understand my mistake.

Rita, don't worry about not having a camera, I caught everything on film. Even Stephen doing his moonie is now on celluloid. LOL
Youv'e been framed here I come. £250.00 for every clip,we will be rich Rita.

Yvonne, you missed such a brilliant time. Your horse was being over fed by us all, he even got to like curry,except it had a drastic outcome on him,and was not very pleasant to clear up. LOL

edit. Oooops I nearly forgot our Shelly, hi ya mate.

evening all im home

been reading post and eating my dinner at the same time
rita shame my dad died befor we had pc's and internet as i think he would of loved to of research his family tree he was alway reading think it was non-fickshion books that he read
i think he would of added storys about him self as well

Today I felt really humble.

I am involved in the planning of an event to dedicate a memorial to those brave men who sailed on the Arctic Convoys in WW2.
Princess Anne is doing the honours on 16th November.

Today I was with one of those brave men.
Bill Bannerman, from Glasgow.
He is one of the organisers in brnging the Memorial to this advanced stage.
Only 10 of his comrades and he will be present at the dedication. The few remaining survivors.

I felt privledged and humbled to be in his presence.
Now 86 he does what he can to ensure that his comrades lost at sea will be remembered.

I hope the small part I am playing will help.

Linda
Dads book is more about his work in the building trade that the universities are intrested in it is all about old buildings he worked on the the tools they used then and how impossible jobs were worked out and done.in great detail.
The other is about his growing up in a poor neighbourhood. and the things he got up too how he ran away from home and things like that. 190 pages we had others that we would like to have put in but it costs a lot as it was the books cost four fiqures. many are funny and I am sure would have been moe interested to people. I have them in notes typed out which I sent to the family when I sent them the book.
I am writing mine now have been doing it for six years but I get fads and do them when I feel like it I have completed about 60 pages but mine is my life story I have the other written out but not typed into the book.yet.
I think everyone should do that so you have something left behind for the children and Great Grandchildren can read. they will not have to search the way we have done delveing into the past.

Yvonne I am pleased you got home safe I fed you horse a load of sugar lumps and carrots. then worried I had over fed it. Lol

Rita

Hi ya everyone

You all did really well in India, the equestrian events were cancelled cos I was the only person to turn up!!!! so my horse and I went for a little riding holiday round India

Pauline, you looked good as Lady Godiva, those medals just about covered your modesty lol


loved reading the posts, had a good laugh, anyone looking in must think we're all a bunch of nutters.

Son had op yesterday to sort out his tooth, went in about 12.30 and OH picked him up at 4.

talk later
x

Rita how lovely that others are so interested in your book about your father's life.
Do you have any spare copies? I for one would like to read about him, maybe we could buy a copy from you and send it from one to the other? It's an idea.
I have had a busy couple of days, little M came at 7:00 on 2 mornings. Then I had a friends birthday meal out, we all enjoyed that. Last night was another childminding meeting. We learned nothing as it was what if our funding stops etc etc. Would we as childminders be prepared to pay for the support offered by the council, courses , coffee mornings and meetings. The council meets after the government has it's anouncement after 20th October so what a waste of everyones time. Seemed like the council workers are running scared !!! Actually I have my youngest daughter working for the council as a care advisor so I know how precarious their jobs are, but as you all know I only have the one child to care for for about the last 15 months, so how can we out of minimal earnings pay every time we ask for advice or training etc. What a state some councils are in.

Oh well I hung out washing this morning, but not sure it will dry, overcast and quite miserable.

Take Care, hope things are OK for Jean

Linda :o) XxX

You lot have given me a big laugh your all as bad or good as each other.
I wish I had taken my camera with me, I would have made a heap of money selling them off. ? or taking them to the Tate Gallery. LOL

Those of you who know about the papers I found when dad died in 2001 memories of him as a boy and all his life he was born in 1908 and died in 2001 he wrote about his ealry life and the family was very poor. he never stayed at a job for long he was always wanting to lean he went on about his life as a builder and then working with aricraft during the war. my sister and I typed it all out my sister edited it and had it printed and made into a book (My Father did not have a good education he did it all on his own leaned every minute he could. in fact people could not beleive it when they read his book.) we have heard from The British Library also from Scotland and Wales Library from cambridge and Oxford university and from Trinity College in Dublin for copies so they have been sent off to them. I am so proud of my Dad.


Rita

It was a bit nippy in London last night, wish I hadn't decided to ride behind the bus on Yvonne's horse - doing my Lady Godiva impression. I wanted to ride in front of the bus (so I wouldn't choke on the fumes) but don't know my way around London, so I just followed behind instead. My hair's not quite long enough but I used the gold medals to hide my blushes.

I noticed Maddie dropped her mink as she left the Guildhall with Johnny so I wrapped it around me to stop people staring at my medals............well, I think that's what they were looking at. I found a kilt as well, so that came in handy, although I don't think Liz and Boris were impressed with Stephen running around wearing just his medals and his sporran. He really shouldn't have mixed whisky with his champers.

Rita, don't worry about the Animal Rights people, I told them Maddie's mink was fake, so they went away happy.

It's the first time I've seen the Guildhall, it's beautiful isn't it? Well, it was before our lot got there.

I noticed Jean and Linda were trying to get Mo and Shelly to get down off the tables. It was Marilyn's fault..............she was the first one to climb on the table and start dancing.

Oooooh my aching head.

Where the heck am I. I remember getting to the Guildhall, and part of the reception. The champers was rather lovely.

Then I remembered I should keep an eye on my mink. There was the lovely Johnnie in the cloakroom. We started a really interesting conversation, I mentioned that my ancestors came from Devon and were involved in smuggling etc. And that was it, he was captivated.

He put the mink around my shoulders and suggested we go somewhere a little quieter for our conversation.

The Thames was magical, the pretty lights danced on the water as we strolled along the South Bank. We walked and walked, talking all the way.

Strangely enough we ended up in Greenwich. We decided to be a bit naughty at this time and climbed aboard the Cutty Sark. I know that it is still be refurbished, but we made ourselves comfy and talked until dawn.

We decided to exchange a memento, he has my hairclip, I have his sunglasses. You will never see Johnnie in his sunglasses again, THEY ARE MINE.

Better trot on back to the Savoy, I think I have a date for protesting outside Tate Modern.

Tra la la la la.

See you all later.
x

Good Morning All

What happened to everyone?

Did I have a memory lapse from all the Champagne?

Last thing I remember was trying to start a 'thingthong'.

Hope I didn't disgrace myself in front of Boris and HM the Queen.

I can't hear any thongs being thung!

Has everyone got off this bus?

Whats that?

MTG is going to give us a 'thong' !

Do you know any good ones that we can all join in with?