Reminisce and moan,

[castley]

did I really have my medical for national service in a potted meat factory on or near ecclesall road. just can`t remember the name,mind you I did go in the Prince public house and have one or two pints before attending and that might explain the loss of memory, stones bitter in the fifties was really a fabulous drink. At the time I worked at a firm called Lockwood and carlisle and the prince public house was on the doorstep, I suppose the firm and the pub are long since gone.Good days the fifties, plenty of work and a feeling that this country had at last, after the war, entered a period of affluence and prosperity. Now we should be concerned about the state the country is in, in the fifties it was manufactured exports that made us affluent, manufactured exports get less and less . Now China is supplying us with more and more and we are making less and less and I see this as a disaster looming. In H g well`s Time machine the morlocks did every thing for the eloi until the eloi could do nothing for themselves and then they gobbled them up. well we in the west are the eloi and the future is threatening.politicians have a lot to answer for, they have led us into the swamplands and there is no way back.

[Fareast]

Yes, Castley, you're memory is pretty accurate.

 

I'm sure the potted meat place was called ' Hartleys ' [ well, I'm almost sure ! ] and the Army medical place was situated in the same building. I think there's a row of shops there now, just further on from the Tesco [ Berkley ] precinct, going towards Hunters Bar.

Where the precinct car -park and buildings are now there used to be some allotments. I used to go there on Sunday lunch-times [ aged about 9 in around 1950 ], to buy fresh mint for our Sunday lunch.

 

As you said, the '50's & '60's were a great time to be young as there was an optimistic feeling of progress and freedom in the air. Compared to today, the amount of freedom, then, seems almost unbelievable. Today, most people have got so used to being watched, controlled, checked, computerised and cross-checked, that they regard it as completely normal. I suppose anyone can get used to a Nanny State if they've known nothing else.

 

Oh, well, glad to have had the chance to live through it. Incidentally, do you remember the Rising Sun, near the Prince ? Also, Lockwood & Carlisle's was at the centre of our ' manor '. Stalker Lees Road was our ' High Street ' and the General Cemetery was our love nest [ ! ]........if we got lucky !

[Texas]

So it was a potted meat factory was it? Very apt that. No wonder I felt nervous.

You're so right about the Chinese observations though, very disturbing. Ever read Orwell's '1984'? Of course you have. Could happen in the future, a war between East and West, or something in that order. And what of India? I somehow see some sort of conflict between India and China first and then the West being dragged in.

My beefs are more mundane though. Like, why aren't there any decent Tailors that the guy in the street can afford? And why are people so ill mannered nowdays and think that they are correct in their conduct and it's their right. And all the b??????s about 'Human Rights'.

In my book you have to earn your 'rights'. In any case some of the people who go on about their 'rights' aren't human anyhow.

And this wine racket. If you look at yourself, and how you've changed over the years you will have noticed that you now drink wine. Well that's OK, but, what happened to all those wine lakes we used to hear about? It's what we're drinking, the only difference is the labels on the bottles. That's where all the bread is, being a wine label designer or artist, or whatever. I didn't think this up for myself. Mark Twain thought the same thing back in the 1800's. I'll be back.

[Texas]

I got another, my current favorit. Why is it in Italian restaurants, when you sit there with the plate of spaghetti or whatever, and the and the guy comes over with a pepper mill like a model of the Post Office tower, and says 'Pepper sir?' You nod and say 'please' and he gives it one little twist of the wrist and that's it.

[Greybeard]

Perhaps Italian waiters still think pepper is rationed ?

 

I enjoyed my youth in the 40s and 50s, life might have been difficult for parents then but we kids didn't miss what we'd never had, and the the most precious thing we did have was our freedom.

[hillsbro]

...what happened to all those wine lakes we used to hear about?

 

I liked what the late Screaming Lord Sutch said about the wine lake - "We'll put some fish in it, so that when they are caught they'll be ready-pickled".

 

Nice memories of the 1950s, castley. I wasn't very old then (honest I wasn't..) but Harold Macmillan's famous 1957 quotation "You've never had it so good" had a ring of truth to it, or so my parents thought. Good, solid hard-working Yorkshire folk, they did a fine job bringing up my brother, sister and me. We were a close-knit family (something that seems to be going out of fashion) living in a working-class neighbourhood. Now mum and dad are no doubt talking over old times in the Great Beyond. God bless them - their generation left us with a valuable legacy, albeit one that the PC human rights brigade are trying to ruin.

 

I'll get off my soap box...

[flyer]

Since all these problems are almost instant world wide I think all the Morlocks must gather on an island somewhere to discuss ways to take over this world,I just cant believe even politicians can be that stupid by mistake:mad::mad: