Above snapshot is of old schoolfellows, Roy Beeston, Mike your blogger, and Richard Smart.
Below is a snapshot of our partners, Pam, Janet, and Ann.
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Been a busy day. Set out just before 9 a.m. and motored to Wisbech to take the books to Elizabeth, our accountant. Got there at 11 a.m. and spent a pleasant hour chatting to her. Then on to the Blacksmith's Arms at Elm, where we met up with our daughter Kerry and our old friends Roy and Janet. After lunch back in car to Roy and Janet's house to drink tea and meet up with old schoolmate Richard, who I hadn't seen since the late 1950s. Spent pleasant hour chatting, raking up old adventures, and remembering how Richard and I had spoiled the Coronation Celebrations in our village on June the 2nd, 1953. Left our friends at 3.15 p.m. and arrived home just after five. Now about to go out to 'drinks and nibbles party' a few doors away to assist neighbour to celebrate a big ZERO birthday.
More later perhaps.
11 comments:
Come on Horner, spill the beans ref the coronation... Timely with the jubilee just around the coronet eh?
Thank you again for a fab weekend, and if you need a scooter or lessons, your youngest grandson would be happy to show you some moves !!
Roy has a lot of his Dad Ted's looks about him - and some of his Mum's but I can't recall her name at the moment. Her words still ring in my memory 'Don't you boys go nigh that 'oss'. The smart family breeds true too. Is that the Richard from round Tipsend who used to cast his own air-rifle ammo and welded two bike frames side by side so you could steer while he took pot-shots with the rifle?
Mike, you can't leave it there, you'll have to tell us how you spoilt the celebrations! Did you declare the village to be a republic? Did you streak through the village square and frighten the horses? You can tell me tomorrow if you don't want to put anything in print.
Carl, yes, spot on.
Stig and Sir Bruin. To answer your question I must first of all explain that Coronation Day was wet and miserable, so that the planned racing, jumping, three legged and sack races, etc, had to be cancelled (well postponed actually, they took place on the next Saturday, which was cold and grey, but fine). To replace them it was decided that the village school children would give an exhibition of country dancing in the local farmer's vast 'glasshouse'. Every Friday afternoon we schoolchildren suffered an hour of country dancing. We didn't consent to this, considering it an unnatural and undignified sort of prancing about and posturing, but at least it was suffered in private. Richard and I discussed the matter, and decided not to lend ourselves to this sort of perverse exhibition of nancying about. So when the time approached for the dancing to begin, we slid off and hid ourselves in a grove of elder bushes nearby. This meant, when our absence was discovered, that two girls had to dance together, and even then there was only three couples in the last set rather than four. Later on when the headmistress (there were only two mistresses and the other one had been playing the piano which had been carried out to the glass house by six men under six umbrellas held by their wives - more to protect the school piano than their husbands) eventually interviewed Richard and me on the subject, we were informed that we had ruined the Coronation Celebrations for our village. We were left with the impression that if Her Majesty ever heard about our treasonable behaviour, we would spend the rest of our childhood (and probably some of our early adulthood) confined in one of Her Majesties less hospitable institutions (the lowest dungeon beneath the Tower of London sprang to mind), and might even be commanded to write out a hundred times 'I must not ruin Coronation Celebrations'.
P.s. Corrections :- meant cold, grey, but DRY.
WERE not was.
Dear Crowbard. Find I haven't answered an implied question of yours regarding Roy Beeston's mother's name. Sorry, at that stage, as far as we were concerned, it was of course Mrs. Beeston.
I'd never have guessed Mike, I was under the definite impression it was Ted Beeston's Missus.
Speaking of your memory for names, I was thinking of Duck-Puddle Drove on Jack & Les Biggs's holding; a fair way down there was a house occupied by a young couple. She was called Kitty (and the surname Bluett hovers as a possibility which I hope you can deny or confirm or explain why I have made the association but got it wrong, Please?
I quite enjoyed the dancing lessons but performing dances in public was definitely infra-dig. Even more I detested the Sunday School practice of making everyone perform or recite individually at harvest-festival and I always chose the shortest piece available as they were all such mushy or melodramatic tosh and balderdash; invariably doggerel set in a di-dum-di-dum-di-dum rhythm. For Methodists they were very catholic about employing humiliation as a tool of spiritual development.
With the golden jubilee looming, I consider it prudent NOT to relate this tale to your youngest grandson....he would find it hilarious and, more worryingly, inspirational.
What an example to set future generations, what were you thinking ??!!!!!
Much love, Stig and all the little stiggies
X
I finally caught up with your recent posts! Of course I favor the shots of the horses and architecturel You have been very busy.
Dear Daughter Stig, Sir Stig and little Stiggies, I do agree with your decision to withhold details of my cowardly and indeed, treasonable behaviour at the Coronation celebrations, from my grandchildren. I would like them to retain their respect for their revered Grandpapa, which would of course be much diminished were all to be revealed. Fortunately far from all has yet been revealed, and I shall in future endeavour to keep the venerable trap shut on past peccadilloes.
Thank you for your promised discretion, Much love, Pa.
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