GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 93) - UNMARKED YELLOW BOX

SLIDE 0617

Now, I'm guessing that this was supposed to be the first slide in the box that we're just leaving, and that this roadsign was photographed to give us a sense of place in the "slide show" that my Grandfather had prepared for our delectation and delight, despite the tiny MUFC grafitto, the unconvincing T, the adapted E, and the strangely fake-looking letter Os.

Wych Fold... perhaps...?

I dunno...

Mind you, I have no idea what "Twyohofoed" actually means and, rather bizarrely, neither does my internet.

Oddly enough, from the great scanathon, I seem to remember that it features again...

Bet you can't wait.

Anyway, this is the last slide from the unmarked yellow box, and we are about to move on and the next time I post something from the slide collection, we will be about celebrate a particular Christmastime from around forty-two-and-a-half years ago...

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 92) - UNMARKED YELLOW BOX

SLIDES 0615-0616

Some time around 1974, after the trials and tribulations of its construction, my Grandparents finally moved into the second house that my Grandfather designed and built, his innovative three-storey "bungalow" on Primrose Avenue.

Hmm... Considering where these pictures were taken, that does perhaps imply that at least some of the photographs from this mysteriously unmarked yellow slide box were taken slightly later than I had previously thought, although, at least in some instances, that's not really possible unless this roll of film sat inside the camera for an awfully long time.

I suspect that some mixing up has been done, either that or the ten-year-old me was a very late developer indeed...

Anyway, these pictures show the "patio" area of the far tinier back garden of the "bungalow" although, as you might be able to tell, both of the stone bird baths, and the "chalet" have completed the move with them.

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 91) - UNMARKED YELLOW BOX

SLIDES 0610-0613

I'm guessing these are more "Isle of Man" pictures, presumably taken at the quayside in Douglas.

I must admit that I do this if I see a moored battleship, too... photograph the blue blazes out of it, which is of course a relative term when you've got a relatively unlimited amount of SD card storage space available, as opposed to four frames out of the thirty-six on a roll of very expensive 35mm colour slide film which you'll also have to fork out more money for to get processed, only to then have your entire extended family sit in the dark asking you why you took so many pictures of a flippin' dreary old boat.

Anyway, this is some kind of battleship/minesweeper/cruiser/gunboat/corvette thingy from the late 1960s.

Helpful, aren't I...?

I can't even make out the number to tell you any more than that, although the minesweeper M1102 was HMS Snipe and doesn't look too dissimilar, even though she would have been with the Australian Navy when these shots were taken.

It's very grey, though, and is flying a union Jack, so it's almost certainly some kind of Naval something...

Aw... frigate...!

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 90) - UNMARKED YELLOW BOX

SLIDES 0604-0609

I really don't have anything much to say about this set of pictures, other than they're another selection from the Isle of Man most probably.

This is going so well, isn't it...? 

Hundreds of pictures and nothing I can tell you about most of them... Perhaps I should stop adding the words and just let the pictures get on with it? After all, if a picture's worth a thousand words I guess that I'm still in credit.

As to the Isle of Man, well, I've never been there. My Grandparents went quite often, not least because, as an aging biker, my Grandfather did seem to quite enjoy the T.T. Races (about which - more later. Stay tuned!!!), and they had several souvenirs of the island itself about the place, so I do remember growing up very aware of that big red wheel thingy, and a photograph of a view of the headland taken from somebody else's house that sat on their sideboard for several years.

Don't know what that was about.

Maybe they had some vague notion of moving there...?

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 89) - UNMARKED YELLOW BOX

SLIDE 0603

Here we reach a slightly significant moment in this unfolding crazy-paving structured saga of ours because this picture features pretty much the only time we get a "proper" look at my Grandfather's dark green two-door Volvo (I can never confirm the model it was), the one after the Rovers, and car I most remember him having when I was a child, and the last car he ever owned, despite him wittering on for years about wanting a (non-specific) BMW...

Neither of my Grandparents had much time for seat belts, I seem to recall, and so they seldom used the blue lap-straps that were available, and with my sister and my parents in the back as we were driven home from our Sunday visits, the under ten-year-old version of me used to have to sit on my Grandmother's lap for the duration of the journey.

Health and Safety would have a field-day about that nowadays, of course, but mostly I remember her charm bracelet jangling, and me trying to get a grip on her fur coat, as she reached for the bracing handle on the dashboard whenever we stopped suddenly or made a sharp turn.

There was much talk in the 1970s of the outrageous inflation and what it was doing to petrol prices, (prices that might seem shockingly cheap nowadays I suppose), and I vaguely remember some talk of how "expensive to run" a "gas-guzzler" like this "extremely heavy" car was getting.

Strangely enough, such cars are considered "classics" now and are highly sought-after, but we were not to know that when my Grandmother sold it on some time after my Grandfather died. I was only sixteen and wouldn't have a Driving Licence for at least another year when that happened, and I can't quite remember why it wasn't offered to my sister either, because I'm pretty sure she was driving by then.

Mysteries... mysteries... All is mystery...

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 88) - UNMARKED YELLOW BOX

SLIDES 0600-0602

Ah, now... I think that these three pictures return us to the Isle of Man and whilst the first and third don't really tell us very much other than this is possibly where some friends of my Grandparents probably lived, the middle one is mildly more interesting for anyone who is at least vaguely interested in such things.

I believe that the outermost boat of the three that you can see tied up together at the quayside is the Port Erin lifeboat and consequently, I think that it can reasonably be presumed that this photograph (or these photographs) are of Port Erin.

I know that this is the case because they used to talk about Port Erin a lot and, when I saw this photograph as I was scanning them, I suddenly recalled quite a lot of talk about its lifeboats when I was growing up.

Can't think why, really. For most of the year my Grandparents were almost as land-locked as I was, but I do seem to have grown up with a lot of respect for the RNLI and all that it does, and still can't go to the seaside without popping into the local RNLI shop and/or lifeboat station if I happen across one.

Perhaps rather naively, during the initial phases of this entire scanning project, when I discovered this and the other two lifeboat pictures that feature in the collection, I rather excitedly tried to send them to the RNLI via various forms of social media because I thought they might just be slightly interested in them from a historical point of view.

Rather naturally on reflection, they didn't seem to be. They are, I presume, far more interested in saving lives than adding to a whole archive of pictures that presumably millions of eager snappers have sent them over the years.

Anyway, if you like the occasional lifeboat picture (two more will appear at some point, remember), or just think that the RNLI is a pretty good thing, please feel free to make a donation any time.

https://rnli.org/donateorbecomeamember/Pages/default.aspx?servedby.flashtalking.com/click/1/59143;1813156;369310;252;0/?ft_keyword=rnli&ft_section=e&gclid=CIj3_vDd1MwCFaoy0wodJ3ANMQ

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 87) - UNMARKED YELLOW BOX

SLIDES 0597-0599

Ah...

I have no memory of these pictures being taken at all, if I'm being honest with you. At first glance I thought that they might have been taken on my first day at school, but that's nothing like our school uniform (which was predominantly green) and the whole suit jacket and tie, along with my sister's nattily posh overcoat (which I also don't remember) seems to suggest that we'd been dressed up - or asked to dress up - for some important family event or other.

From our apparent ages, it looks like this must be the very late 1960s, so it's far too early for our Grandparents' Golden Wedding anniversary, and a little late for my sister's Eleven Plus celebrations, so, unless it has something to do with my Dad being rushed to hospital during his year spent away from us at University in Newcastle, I can't think of anything else and certainly have no recollection of it.

I mean, I don't even recall having that outfit.

I do vividly remember the bright orange glass panelled door of number twenty-nine (despite my aversions, I've lived far more at odd-number homes than even numbered ones - which might explain a lot) although, such is the reflected nature of my memory, I was convinced that the lock was on the other side.

I do also vividly recall that enclosed area that took up the half of the surprisingly long back garden that we didn't have all of the bonfires in. That high brick wall that you can see was the oh-so-intriguing boundary to a very large house which had things like tennis courts in its vast garden which was either called, or belonged to, (if it wasn't just my Dad being whimsical) one "Malcolm Hall", but which I never got tall enough - or interested enough - to attempt to climb over.

A quick Google Earth search shows me that the hall has long been demolished and it's a housing estate now, which is how the fragments of our own personal version of the past that we remember slowly evaporate.

BURT

Rest In Peace Burt Kwouk A genuine face of Asia On 60s TV Surrounded by actors in make-up Who just pretended To be

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 86) - UNMARKED YELLOW BOX

SLIDES 0593-0596

Other people will recognise this sort of thing far more than I ever could, but I'm going to guess that this set of pictures are most probably from a Flower Festival that may just have taken place in somewhere like Spalding, some time towards the back end of the 1960s.

These kinds of thing go on rather a lot, apparently, and my Beloved informs me that her own father has several dozen photographs of a rather similar nature taken during his own visits to such things.

It would of course have been a massive, and no doubt mildly disturbing, coincidence had he turned up looking all youthful in the background of one of these pictures, but I'm pretty sure that he doesn't.

The cynical part of me could declare a big old "Ho-hum" to the whole idea of attending something as truly unhip as a Flower Festival, if it wasn't for the fact that for several years on the trot, starting about a decade ago (although not recently), I went to the Tatton Park Flower Show and photographed the living daylights out of that.

Nevertheless, I do rather like the racing car... I like to think that he took that picture because he thought "Martin will like that" but I doubt it.

I think that he just liked engineering-related stuff, to be honest...

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 85) - UNMARKED YELLOW BOX

SLIDE 0592

A floral display.

In a room.

Somewhere.

Yeah...

Actually, perhaps I could claim a little foreknowledge here, or at least make some vaguely educated guesses as to what this is about. Even though this single picture features just after a small collection of garden flower pictures and before (spoiler alert!) a selection of photographs from some sort of flower festival, I suspect that it is related to neither.

Later on (or was it earlier, I begin to lose track) in the whole sort of general mish-mash of scanning random boxes of pictures from my Grandparents' lives, I did come across a set from something referred to as a "Ladies' Evening" which presumably took place at the mysterious "Lodge" that I believe my Grandfather used to at least play the piano for, but several years earlier than this picture appears to be from.

At that one he appears (gawd 'elp us), to be some sort of M.C. for the thing, but the room looks very similar to this one, and those canvas and steel-tubed chairs also look terribly familiar.

Anyway, I guess that these are something to do with something similar to one of those kinds of events, and my Grandmother was always terribly impressed by floral displays and probably insisted that my Grandfather took a picture of this lot for posterity, all of which is now, of course, lost forever in the mists of time.

In later years, or perhaps earlier, or maybe even at around the same time, my mother worked for a while as a florist at the Piccadilly Hotel in Manchester. As a seven-year-old, and during the school holidays, (just ever-so-slightly before I got my own front door key to let myself in after school at age eight), I would sometimes have to go with her to work as there was no childcare option, and remember going out of the fire escape door playing on the flat roof of the hotel for most of the day.

Not the high roof, just the one off the third floor, above the shops, overlooking the bus station, and below where the hotel's main tower starts.

Happy days...

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 84) - UNMARKED YELLOW BOX

SLIDES 0587-0591

Flowers in the garden

Flowers in the park

But the flowers I like most of all

Are the flowers in the dark...

Grandmother liked daffodils.

So did Mum, especially at Easter.

It seemed that they quite liked blossom, too,...

And tulips...

And I believe that that's the Hawthorn hedge at the side of "The Hawthorns" in the fourth picture that they named the house after - although I might be completely wrong about that.

My Dad had absolutely moments of "fun" for several summers trimming that ruddy thing back, I seem to recall...

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 83) - UNMARKED YELLOW BOX

SLIDES 0585-0586

Okay, so it's not Switzerland, but my Grandparents did have a "chalet" in the back garden of the first house they built, and they liked it so much that they had it moved to the far smaller back garden of the second house that they built.

Where it spent the time that they lived in a flat after they sold the first and were building the second is anybody's guess, but I suspect that it wasn't spinning around in the space/time vortex having incredible adventures like some other garden sheds with two blue doors that I could mention.

Anyway, this looks a happy enough late-1960s day - despite my dark blue shirt and trousers combination - spent in the back garden of house number one, and I even look vaguely pleased to be there, sitting upon my canvas throne, if not as pleased as the rest of them appear to be.

If I could travel there now, what would I say to the frankly terrified young fellow that I would meet?

"Cheer up... Most of it never actually happened!"...?

"It's all rubbish... Give up now!"...?

"Whatever you do, don't go to art school!"...?

At the moment that these pictures were taken, a joke, I fear, may have just been told, possibly at my expense, and I suspect that I didn't understand it then, and might not even now if anyone could remember it and then repeated it to me.

Meanwhile, I suddenly find that I do recollect the occasional moments that I spent alone in that tiny little summerhouse. I seem to remember that it had a very distinctive smell which has now been brought to mind and just the memory of that odour is transporting me back there.

Was it the slightly perfumed smell of the paper lining the single drawer in the little triangular table that stood in the back left hand corner...? Or is it that faint hint of insect repellent and the dead flies that is taking me back...?

Odd, I haven't thought about either of those things in decades, and yet I'm immediately back there as if it was yesterday.

Maybe it was a time-machine after all?

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 82) - UNMARKED YELLOW BOX

SLIDES 0583-0584

I know very little about the Isle of Man, other than that my Grandparents went there quite a lot over the course of several years. 

Anyway, with a little bit of guesswork, and by identifying the distinctive round building on the top of that pier, I'm guessing that this is Douglas and that's probably a Manx ferry tied up at the dockside.

For a while, I did think that it must be Port Erin, because that's where their friends who lived there used to live. You know, I thought that the word "Port" might be significant in some way, but I imagine that it was far smaller a place than this is.

I used to know someone who's father was a Manxman and he was called Douglas. I wonder how common that is?

"What will we call the bairn...?"

"Well, the town's got a name that's the same as a person's name, so maybe...?"

Meanwhile the little beige(ish) Morris and/or Austin 1100 tootling up the road in the second picture looks not unlike the one my friend Mike had stolen in Cardiff when we were students. This picture was probably taken at least a decade before that dark day, of course, but for those of us who like to believe in the interconnectedness of all things, it would be nice to find out that it was exactly the same car...

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 81) - UNMARKED YELLOW BOX

SLIDES 0581-0582, SLIDE 0614

We are now going to venture into the strange and mysterious world of the individual yellow plastic (and sometimes cardboard) Kodak slide boxes which fill a large proportion of that strange box full of my Grandfather's slides which we have been exploring.

The first of them is - rather typically - completely unmarked and contains a batch of around thirty-six slides which appear to date from the early 1970s and they mostly - but not all - feature pictures taken on the Isle of Man.

Things will also be getting rather more random for a short while because it appears that I may have scanned these in the incorrect order, or, just perhaps, they were being stored in the wrong order and I just scanned them as I found them.

Whichever you choose to believe, the first two pictures and one of the last ones in this set feature either some kind of very small parade, or drumming practice for a much larger event. I can never really decide just how martial such things are (there are certainly stripes of rank upon some of the sleeves), because I'm sure at least some marching bands aren't affiliated to an armed service of any kind.

Anyway, whatever's going on, I'm fairly sure that these pictures are not from Northern Ireland at the height of the "Troubles" in the early 1970s, and that whatever practice is afoot has a more benign purpose than might otherwise be inferred.

The little kid in red running alongside the band seems excited to be there anyway.

Possibly a Grandparent themselves by now.

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 80) - MYSTERIOUS BLUE BOX

SLIDES 0579-0580

Two random pieces of loose (ie unmounted) slide film showing the Atomium in Brussels looming high at the end of a street on some unknown date possibly in the late 1950s mark the end of the images stored for all these years in that "Mysterious Blue Box" of glass-mounted slides which we've been slowly working our way through over this past few weeks.

We're approaching about a third of the way through the total archive of my Grandfather's slides, by the way, which is either good or bad news depending upon just how weary you've become of this venture...

Tomorrow we'll be making a start on the smaller individual boxes of slides that were stored alongside these more "impressive" containers which does mean that things are going to get slightly more random than they've already been, if that is at all possible.

Many have minimal labelling, but some do not have any at all, and in some instances I did, unfortunately, start scanning the pictures from the wrong point which means that I'll have to mess around with the number order a little in a manner that will probably not bother anyone other than myself.

Still, onwards and upwards, eh...?

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 79) - MYSTERIOUS BLUE BOX

SLIDE 0578

The first time around, and despite the vast number five that features in this rather lovely picture, I actually scanned this picture the wrong way around and consequently had to find devious means to mirror it and make it "correct" as certain software programmes seem to fall short when it comes to simple things like reflection tools.

Funnily enough, when I was just holding up the slide to the light, the mirror image seemed to make far more sense even though I have to admit that this way around it does, after all, make a far nicer composition.

Anyway, late-1950s European street scene, most probably (I thought) taken in Brussels, until I spotted that great big Swiss flag in the background...

Still, wherever it was taken, I bloody love it...!

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 78) - MYSTERIOUS BLUE BOX

SLIDES 0574-0577

Ah yes, we're approaching the end of the slides stored in that "Mysterious Blue (or was it really grey?) Box" now, with a final cluster of pictures seemingly taken on the banks of a Swiss lake, possibly in and around the hotel in which my Grandparents were staying, and quite possibly just before they headed home towards the perpetual greyness of post-war Britain.

I think that the last pair show my Grandmother's friend, the woman in the blue dress, demonstrating how to use the finest in precision Swiss bench design situated in various parts of the neighbourhood, but I can't be certain.

As ever, I'm more impressed by the various old cars that can be spotted sitting on streets and car parks like they are the most ordinary things in the world which, of course, they once were, even though nowadays, such a group of classic vehicles would almost certainly draw a crowd.

GRANDAD'S SLIDES (PART 77) - MYSTERIOUS BLUE BOX

SLIDES 0558-0573

Various pictures taken on and around a lake in Switzerland, during the latter half of the 1950s.

Probably.

There's really very little more that I can add to that statement, other than the boats in the second picture look not unlike the ones I saw on a lake during my own short trip to Switzerland in 1974, and that I like the "Wavy Folk" in picture number six.

Picture number seven either depicts some bizarre holes in the rock face that are might be some sort of military defence installation (but which make me think of Xenon Base in the final series of "Blake's Seven"), or might just be some passing flying blob which produces the effect of holes in the rock face.

I think picture nine is my favourite of these, to be honest. The street scene with the "Confiserie Hofmann Tea Room" and passing coach just pleases me in ways I probably couldn't attempt to adequately explain.