I made my grand entrance late one Whitsun night in the District General Hospital. I thought ( recently, not at the time ) I was one of the last of the ‘Baby-Boomers’. ( I’ve always thought that babies gurgled rather than boomed, hey ho ). According to a local magazine in my ‘Adopted Land’, it seems, the period ended about 1965, I thought it was much earlier, so the jury’s out! A short time after my first appearance, I was whisked away to the family pile or stately stack. In reality, it was just a mid-terrace house in nearby Kenton, in the London Borough of Harrow. The housing estate was located on the borders of Kenton, Queensbury and Stanmore, just off a main highway called, Honeypot Lane, the road that links Stanmore with Kingsbury. The nearest tube station was Queensbury on what was then the Bakerloo line. Previously, it was known as the Stanmore branch of the Metropolitan Railway. After I moved to ‘Adopted Land’ it became known as the Jubilee Line. I have a ‘Driver’s Eye’ DVD of the line and there’s a view of a passing train taken from a bridge that I’ve stood on many times watching the trains pass. When the Metropolitan Railway built the line, there was virtually nothing there at Queensbury. The station was built and the railway owned all the ground in the immediate area. The station is quite impressive as it includes shops and ‘apartments’ and is at least four storeys tall. The site didn’t have a name at first. The next stop is Kingsbury, so it was logical to name it Queensbury and the name stuck. On the outskirts of Kingsbury there was a Royal Observer Corps underground bunker. The main ops room was at least 60 feet down. During the ‘Cold-War’ there were people stationed there daily monitoring possible signs of a nuclear strike. We know now ( 2013 ) that such a terrible event never took place. Between Queensbury and Burnt Oak on the Northern Line tube the DeHavilland aircraft factory was located. The area had the name ‘Stag Lane Airport’. It was from here that aviator Amy Johnson flew. The aircraft factory built there was created by Geoffrey de Havilland. Many years later the factory was relocated to Hatfield in Hertfordshire alongside the A1. After WW2 when the Stag Lane airfield was developed for housing and retail and light industry, the main road through was named ‘Jim Mollison Way’, another well-known flier. It was on Jim Mollison Way that my father suffered his first road traffic accident. Just after he began his journey home from work, a dog ran into the road, it didn’t survive. He suffered a state of shock which brought on an attack of nerves and a migraine headache. A family living close by took him in, provided tea and a couple aspirin and he fell asleep on the settee. They were happy to leave him there to recover. They had no idea who he was, so were unable to ring anyone to reassure all wasn’t too bad. They hoped someone would eventually come searching. In the meantime, Mum was beginning to worry. After about an hour I volunteered to jump on my bike to look for him. My aunt and uncle who were both drivers helped get him and our car home.

Home, was built in 1932 and stood empty for about four years. During WW2 it suffered slight bomb damage, I’m not sure what the local target was. Probably the railway lines in the area. No doubt I’ll have to make inquires! Then my paternal Grandfather, Herman, came along and flashed some cash. The reason for its creation and the thousands of others like it in the area, was the fact that the Metropolitan Railway ( one of the fore-runners of the London Underground ) was expanding outwards from London. They thought it would be a good idea to buy up all the farmland close by the tracks for clearing the London slums and also re-housing the people displaced by all the railway construction work going on in London during the previous sixty-odd years. They also believed that all this new development would increase their customer numbers and so boost revenue. In the early days of building what became the ‘Underground’ the method of construction was called ‘cut-and-cover’. In other words, they dug a very deep trench down the middle of the street, prepared the ground to take the track, built up the wall on both sides and then created an arch over the top and back-filled the soil. The road surface was then replaced on top. The early rolling stock was steam hauled.

By the time I took up residence at the family pile, it had been sold jointly to two of his sons. My parents lived ‘down-stairs’ whilst Dad’s elder brother, Harry and his wife, Mary lived ‘up-stairs’. All seemed to go well until one day when my Uncle Harry came home on his large motorbike and made a lot of noise yet again. My Dad, Stan, claimed that it woke me up and that situation could not continue. A price was agreed and my Dad bought his brother’s half-share. ( I believe Dad was paying about £8 per month mortgage repayment by the time we moved ). Unfortunately after that, I rarely had any contact with Harry & Mary. Looking back, it seems a shame. Harry spent his working life as a Guard and a Driver on the London Underground, probably based at Neasden traction depot or at the terminus depot at Stanmore, close to his home and as a keen railway man had a large Hornby-OO gauge ‘3-rail’ layout in his front room. If there had been more contact perhaps I might have inherited his complete layout when he retired and moved to Wiltshire. It was all sold off, I wonder if he ever got the full value. Of all that generation, he was the longest lived and the only one not to have children.

My grandfather, Herman, came from Rochester in Kent and was married 3 times. He married first wife, Ada Alice ( nee Offord ) in 1910 and she gave birth to a daughter Ada. A week later Ada senior died and so, he became a one parent family. Joy to tragedy in less than a year. He then met the daughter of a chimney sweep ( Rosa-Maria Deer ) who lived on Gillespie Road, very close to Arsenal football club and married her on December 26th 1915. They together had 4 children, Harry, Stanley ( my dad ), Rose and Frank. The third wife ( Ethel ) was for ‘company’. She is the only one I remember, whenever we visited them tea was made using sterilised milk ugh! The bottles were 2pintish with the same cap as a beer bottle! My father Stan and my grandfather Herman both died the same year, 1976. Herman was the fourth child of eleven siblings.

Having left school I had no real idea what career path I should follow. I ended up in an electronics factory just around the corner from the hospital. Even the driving test centre was on the High Street just nearby! Small world! By the way, I passed first time. That was on the Monday, on the Wednesday, I drove with Ma & Pa to Adopted Land to view the new stately pile. Friday came and the big lorry swept us up. This bit continues on another page******* Before the move, I rode a Honda moped for a year on ‘L-plates’. It was the last item loaded onto the removal lorry. After three months learning to drive a car, I passed first time on a Monday. The Friday of that same week, we moved. All of my driving experience has been gained in ‘Adopted Land’ and its environs.

The career choice was not an apprenticeship. I suppose the thought of returning to school so soon after escaping from the other one, was a leap too far. Although I only spent 13 months there before relocating to ‘Adopted Land’, I did learn a few things. As the ‘boy’, I was sent to several parts of London to ferry things around. In the early days of computers or test equipment there was a front panel which had to have holes cut for the knobs and dials. This work was carried out ‘downstairs’ in the parent company’s tool and instrument works. Close to these holes, words and other symbols had to be engraved before the panel had to be painted or perhaps, powder-coated and then the words and symbols had to be highlighted with ‘Noddy’ brand crayons. So you can see, I did a lot of travelling on the Underground and a lot of highlighting! I think I was the shop’s only customer to need a receipt for crayons! But, please don’t think that that was the extent of my working life. I did get to handle the components and wires and join them together. After I had moved it was nigh on impossible to get back into this type of work and I drifted. I should have been guided by a careers expert instead of being left to float. Looking back I think I should have gone into electrical installations. I still enjoy this type of activity.

At the present time Oct-Nov 2012, I’m currently creating a new page covering my employment history. Some of it comes to memory easily but other bits are stuck in the mist. Hey ho!

You’ll see from other pages, that I have an interest in most things to do with railways. But, its not all trains. From the age of about 14ish I began spending lots of time at either London Heathrow or Gatwick. The purpose of course, was to watch planes. I had with me on these outings the usual sandwiches ( thanks Mum ), notepad & pen, pocket telescope and a small radio to overhear the pilots and control tower chatter. I soon learned the phonetic alphabet and I still use it today. Looking back, I believe my favourite plane was the Vickers Vanguard. Yes, I have a book about them as yet, unread. Before I forget, The Beatles song on the White Album called ‘Back In The USSR’, I’m sure features the sound of a passing Vickers Viscount. The problem is that the mentioned airline didn’t fly them, ooooops! The Viscount was a very successful plane for the maker, Vickers-Armstrong. It was one of the first ‘post-war’ turboprop airliners to sell in America. The Vanguard was sold mainly to BEA and a Canadian airline. I don’t think there are any examples flying. I’ll make enquiries……   …….. ok, in the time I’ve been away getting on with life, the best I can learn is that there is an almost flying example maintained by a bunch of supporters at Brookmans. They regularly fire up its engines to stop them sticking solid. Just to prove that sometimes I’m an anorak, I’ve bought a model of a Vanguard in DHL livery. Made by ‘Aeroclassics’ its 1:400 scale. I found it on ebay, where else? The livery used on this model seems appropriate. Its one of the companies that I have a small investment in. Recently whilst looking on Youtube at something else, I found these…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmakSwlYLs0&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAlxZR5yFs0&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTZEyjRuHZ0&feature=related

 

The White Album, before I forget. I bought a copy and at the time I was using my parent’s radiogram. Somehow, whilst playing side 2 the tone-arm skidded across the surface leaving a trail of carnage. This meant I had to buy another and I still have it. I now use the CD version I’ve bought since. They’ve certainly made a lotta wonger out of me! Technology has now moved on in this household. I am in the process of transferring all of my music onto a device that connects to the internet router, which means that I can now listen to the music as is, or as part of a preselected playlist, via a portable radio that has wifi as an option. I can even take the radio outside and still listen in stereo. A neighbour who heard the music one afternoon, later asked me what station had I been listening to, she said she had tried hard to retune hers without success. She was definately jealous when I said I had been listening to my own station! When the White Album was first released the BBC played every track with some expert giving  his tuppennys worth of wisdom! By the time I tuned in, the Beeb had got as far as ‘Why don’t we do it in the road?’ and I thought wot-a-loada-******. It was several weeks before I had heard other tracks and succumbed. I suppose my favourite has to be…….errrrrr…….Martha my Dear. Wot-a-tease! Just an update here….. I still haven’t made any effort to listen to this album. Whilst editing this paragraph and thinking about it, some of the major favourites have to be:-

Ob La Di,  Ob La Da

Martha My Dear

Dear Prudence

Piggies

Happiness Is A Warm Gun

Revolution 1

there are lesser favourites which might get listed here. Wot a tease!

Whilst talking about favourite Beatles songs generally, other major choices are currently:

Strawberry Fields Forever

I Am The Walrus

Good Day Sunshine

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer

I’m Down

Don’t Let Me Down

 

Having mentioned Stanmore earlier, I’ve since discoverted that the former politician, Michael Portillo lived there.

 

 

To be continued…….