Guess....

The weather improved, the ceased, the dark glowering clouds glowered, the chill cut like a knife, but I ventured out into the real world today.  I was out all day and am worn out now.  I have to sort out some 183 pictures before posting so I will do that tomorrow as I am beat tonight.  A good day out was had by all, well by me!  Maybe these pictures will give a clue as to where I was.

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Plans, Plans, Plans.

I had plans for this week. I had plans for today.  Nothing occurred because today it rained.  It did not drizzle, it was not damp, it rained.  It rained from late last night it rained this morning and rained until lunchtime!  Rain falling straight down constantly, non stop, and the time also.  My plans for walking the streets taking pictures of interesting places has come to nought.  We are supposed to see an eclipse sometime on Friday, I suspect this will be rained off!  The sun may shine and all we will hear is the hissing as the suns rays turn the rain clouds to steam!  I've just noticed the Edinburgh Evening News is offering 5 ways to see the eclipse in Scotland!  Fat chance mate!

So I have been lumbered with the laundry, removing the Christmas cards that I forgot to take from the mantelpiece,  wondering where all the dust on the mantelpiece came from, staring into the laptop too hurt my eyes and go back to bed as Carol said it was bedtime.  
In between I cogitated how a lassie in Perth, Western Aussieland could grumble that 25% was too hot and 85% humidity a pest.  Come here and grumble I say! How anyone can complain when it is too hot I do not comprehend.  Bah!

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Something to Crow About

After an indolent Sunday in which not much occurred I forced my bundle of lard out on the bike for twenty minutes this morning.  This was not a good idea.  For a start the engine was not happy, indeed it was heavy, lethargic and worse still facing the eastern wind.  Strangely the enthusiasm of the other day had left this engine and the grunting as the speed touched four miles an hour was similar to that heard at women's tennis matches.  Also I met the early morning boys racing to work, some indeed awake but one or two clearly far from it.  Those chaps who have to cover 15 miles before eight o'clock to get into work were not happy to be stuck behind me avoiding the holes in the road, especially as they only had fifteen minutes to cover the ground.  It also did appear that if the women's cycle race does come this way in June then a lot of roadworks will be required.  Lots of drains at the side are two inches deep from the surface, some surfaces are very rough and recent repairs are sinking already.  I suspect more late night overtime for some is coming this way soon.
I survived the main road and turned off down the side streets to avoid the wind and found it there before me.  Quite how it knows where I will be at any one time is interesting.  Also many workers were beginning the day with a Monday morning smile as they backed the car out, walked the dog or shouted at the kids as they prepared for school.  Always a gentleman I allowed them to go first, smiling indulgently as I have none of that stress these days and I was busy dreaming off the breakfast that my weary hulk was desperate for.
Going down the gant (see Gant) as I headed for the teapot I stopped at the noise high above.  These trees, oaks mostly, have for many years, possibly hundreds of years, been home to the crows (or are they Rooks?).  This is a sample of the nests high above with a few of the birds cawing loudly, very loudly if you are trying to sleep in the house at the foot of the trees, cawing and jumping about while preparing for Spring.  In a few months young birds will arrive and spend the day screeching loudly, so loud you can hear them for miles above the traffic!   I wonder if these houses sell well?

Now it's home for a healthy Multiseed bread breakfast with lots of healthy stuff to keep me on the run. The deepening gray sky flowing in from the east indicates life will not offer much fun today and I may well spend more time hurting my eyes on the laptop rather than enjoying the world outside.

Later.
Typical, the gray sky forecast faded away and I could have made more use of the time.  Bah!  Ah well, back to bed to make up for it...

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Morning Cycle for Fuit & Veg

Just after half six this morning I got on my clean, oiled, yet still rusty in many places bike, and forced my knees to whirl me around town.  As the blinding sun rose I snapped with my new camera, a present from above, this bird enjoying the rising warmth while trying to avoid the chill in the wind.  All around the birds were either finishing breakfast or like this one sitting in the sun awaiting a mate. Spring is in the air indeed!
The early morn is a lovely time to be up and about.  Traffic is slight, only those forced to work bleary eyed pass by, and occasional dog walkers, just as bleary, mutter 'Good morning' while following the English manner of pretending they did not see you until you speak.  The dogs are more open about their thoughts.  

   
'Ichabod' and I have been together now for almost 18 years.  One day I will ensure everything is in the right position and that the gears are at the right tension, until then we travel on happily, but very slowly! These days many have become infatuated with professional cycle racing and this area is flat enough for those who consider themselves manly enough to wear Lycra and tear along the roads for a hundred miles or so.  I worked with one or two who have done this around here, I am not one of them!  The term 'flat' maybe true in comparison to the Scottish highlands however I can assure you there are hills and long slopes which while a delight to go down are a pain to go up.  My attempts at the 'manly' approach failed long before 'Ichabod' arrived.  
Thinking on this in a couple of months the women's cycle race will pass by my door.  A letter recently fell through the door informing me of the road closures etc.  Such a shame the 'Tour de France' came close last year but never passed by my window.  At least the roads will get some treatment and we will all benefit from that.  Canny have a cycle race where potholes exist.

In an effort to stop these virii that keep giving me nasty symptoms I am endeavouring to eat more fruit and veg.  After getting off the bike I hobbled, slower than usual, round to Tesco and obtained some of the goodies from there and the rest from my usual fruit & veg man.  That done I have already stuffed a healthy breakfast down the throat and am convinced this will keep me on the run! An attempt must be made to eat more fruit and veg as it is better for us than the muck we normally have.  So much we eat contains things that do us no harm if eaten occasionally but build up and make us suffer.  No wonder kids go mad with things when they are pumped full of sugar and additives and things we do not get told about.  I am reminded of that biblical king who went mad and ate grass like a donkey for seven years. The reason was obvious, Daniel the prophet refused the rich foods given him and ate veg, he remained healthy, the king stuffed only with the richest food became toxic and the grass cured him, though slowly. I am told this has been recorded elsewhere among others also but have no links.  I am sufficiently donkey like in every way to wish to avoid being found in the park amongst the pigeons and crows early in the day eating grass.  The council would not like this.

Now I have the day before me and my knees are beginning to seize up, I'm back off to bed! 

Busy

I was threatened first thing by a couple of Texans this morning.  Now as you (and they) know I am avoiding things just now but still find myself required. Tsk!
Monday saw me in the museum, Tuesday however saw me in 'Costa Coffee' slurping a small 'Americana' with hot milk, whatever an 'Americana' happens to be.  My two aged cronies and I had an enjoyable time, especially as I had inadvertently left my wallet with my world's treasures at home. Tsk!  Still it was almost a day off by the time I got rid of them back home.
Wednesday saw me typing my notes from Monday, which I could not read as my writing was different from when I scribbled them.  This was irritating.  However I then had t deal with more of the WW2 memorial which is still not finished.
Then I had to burn my dinner properly.
Life is so hard when you are taking time off!  I should be taking pictures of the Victorian houses that line Colchester's streets but I have not been allowed to so far.  Tomorrow maybe. 
So here is a film to keep you busy.

Flagging Today

Rising at the thunderous crack of dawn I was ready by 9:30 to wander slowly round to the Town Hall for the Commonwealth Flag Raining Ceremony.  This year it included a commemoration for the Greta War also and I was employed to bring along a couple of descendants off the fallen.  
Two at least arrived, along with the British legion and others concerned.  The ceremony went off smoothly enough, the commemoration likewise.  This then involved chat with many while stuffing fattening cakes down ones throat.  I suffered this happily.  

This was followed by searching through one or two boring books in the museum as I had been instructed to search for info by this weeks boss.  Having done so I was then employed aiding the other boss deal with one of the schools in for the Victorian day.  This went very well and a decent bunch of kids came and went with feather pens and stretchy men, but what stretchy men had to do with Victoria I do not know!  Home pooped and still not recovered.
Sleep wherefore art thou mush? 

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Leeds and London apparently

I recognise much of the London scene but it appears the grimy shots are from 'up t'north' in Leeds.  Someone will provide evidence!  great pictures, I could look at this for hours, not just ten minutes.

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An Ancient Post

Facts & Details

You may well have noticed the latest ISIL publicity stunt, smashing up the monuments and buildings in Nineveh once the major capital of the Assyrian empire.  Nimrud, another ancient Assyrian capital (then called Calah) also suffers.  Power broking in the past meant that each Emperor made a city whose priests were on his side the capital.  Nineveh was the main centre and a huge city for it's day. Looking at Google maps (it's next to Mosul) you can see the size and then add the urban sprawl that must have existed around the walls.  With the sudden desire to destroy the ancient remains I am tempted to believe that resentment at to many museum trips when a young lad has upset some folks! Tsk!

It is not unusual for the victor in a war to destroy an enemies architectural memorials. Nazi signs disappeared, often in smoke, after 1945 for instance. Christians and Muslims and other religious groups have removed pagan images on occasion but rarely have they wiped out the entire history of a nation. The ISIL folks are happy to destroy ancient gods that have long since lost any meaning, I wonder why?
Publicity, and bad publicity at that, appears to be at the heart of ISIL.  Chopping of the heads of prisoners, Christians and the like got good coverage worldwide. Kidnapping Christian or other women and forcing them into marriage or just raping them is not news ISIL wish to hide, neither is throwing gays of rooftops. Today we see hands of thieves being chopped off and children watching film of the murders of what ISIL call 'bad guys.'  
Now the attack of ancient Nineveh.
What are they trying to tell us?  Can it be that much of the news is just propaganda issuing from ISIL themselves?  Possibly they think such zeal will entice new followers?  Youth gets excited when it considers the world can be changed for 'the better' by following a movement of some sort, this is an effective movement that has touched many young hearts, especially those who do not understand what is going on.  
Ancient history such as the Assyrian Empire can do us no harm today so the publicity re the destruction is what ISIL wish for.  To what point I wonder?  


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Books

Today is it appears World Book day.  This sounds good to me but it appears this is directed only at children!  That is somewhat annoying!  Books are so important as they open the world  to us. Everything involving human life, both good and bad, can be found on convenient small paperback books somewhere in this world.  I accept that most waste their lives by reading story books rather than something useful but nonetheless a vast library is available to us all.  

It is a wonder that writing took so long to emerge some three and a half thousand years BC.  The needs of trade among a growing population brought versions of writing into use in what is now south Iraq then India and China and South America.  The style was very different from today and tales until then spoken or acted by travelling minstrels were written down on a variety of materials. The clay tablets bearing Cuneiform writing found in Nineveh in the 19th century were only part of a huge library Assurbanipal collected during his forty year rein.  What is lost is the parchments that decayed during their stay under the sand or indeed were burnt during the loss to the victorious Medes an Persians.  The fantastic thing is that we can read their words today - in translation!  While no Akkadian books gather dust on the shelf those written in Greek or Latin do.  Not only but once copied laboriously onto long scrolls by hand we now have the delight of the concise books we see above.  How much easier it is to read today than it was 500 years B.C?

     
There is a strange fascination in reading the words of those who lived thousands of years ago.  No longer just a dot in history but a real individual struggling with the same problems facing us today, but with less complicated technology.  The sad thing is that many did not leave behind writing, often just designs on walls and large structure difficult to interpret.  If only Stone Age man could have found a way of communicating with us, or the people who wandered over the earth into China or South America.  What stories they could tell.  Indeed they would have been telling stories to one another, the lure of the 'soap opera' sadly is always with us!  Tales of daring do, romance and history of the people must have been told and retold for centuries before writing arrived.  Some are still kept in the tribal tales of some peoples.  

This World Book Day sounds as if they are scared kids do not read but as billions of books are thrust at them each Christmas and many happily read daily I see no problem.  They must use computers, there is no way of avoiding this, but they do read that is why so many books for the little horrors exist.  The brighter child reads about the subject that interests him, the dumb one reads stories but they read and this can only be a good thing.  One day this will pay off when reading the small print on all those documents that we face in our free world!

Oh and by the way, this one is still available:- Amazon

  

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An Empty Chair

Friends of mine are at an interesting but none to pleasant juncture in their lives. Well into their seventies they see their friends of long standing and those of their acquaintance passing away. Once you get into your fifties this does affect all of us.  Those who have filled our television sets, acted in films or been football heroes when young begin to die as age and illness take their toll.  It has to happen and cannot be avoided.  One by one friends leave us, pop/film/TV stars appear old, youngsters ask "Who were the Beatles?"and our Christmas card list shorten in length.  Such is life.  For us three score years and ten or thereabouts is indeed our lot.  Life is short and once you realise that you realise you are no longer young.  Your ageing is reflected in the appearance of friends, the gray hair, wide midriff, grumbles about grandchildren!     

My friends problem however is that they love too much and in this latest situation the dying man was his 'Best Man' well over forty years ago and has always been part of their life.  To see his life ebb away through a horrid illness was not easy for them.  

When my mother died at 94 years of age she was the last of her lot as it were. All her family had gone before her, husband, father, brothers, sisters, even many nephews and one of her own daughters.  Her friends, some going back to the 1930's, had left before her.  As she looked around she could say she was the last remaining member of her family and her 'crowd,' and how lonely must that have been for her? Actually in a sense it was not too bad as she was the type to talk to anyone and would always find a woman with nothing to say to talk about the nothing for hours with!  However if you are used to people being there and suddenly there is an empty chair it is a strange experience and difficult for some to deal with.

   

Amongst those leaving us is one Dave MacKay!  This man supported the Heart of Midlothian as a boy and became a player at the age of 16.  By the time he was 24 he was captaining the side to the greatest ever League Championship in Scottish or British football.  The team that was the 1957/58 competition scored 132 league goals, losing only 29, losing also only one game and finished the season 13 points ahead of their nearest challengers.  Well over two hundred goals were scored in all games that season.

MacKay's determination to win as well as his ability to play football made him a legend in the game. Against his will, he remained a Hearts man all his life, he was transferred to Tottenham Hotspur at the end of the great season for a mere £32,000.   A bargains for Spurs and rather typical of the Heart of Midlothian board.  At Spurs he participated in winning the League and Cup double, winning the Cup Winners Cup and continued as a stalwart of the great Scotland side of the sixties. 

When his time at Spurs had come to an end he intended to return to Hearts and become player manager but Brian Clough locked him in a room and would not allow him out until he joined him at Derby County. A shrewd move as this began Clough's managerial career and extended MacKays.  A few years later he managed Derby himself and won the League Championship.  

He continued in football at lesser clubs for some time before retiring and left behind a legacy few can equal.  His hard tackling, his fair play, his gentleman like behaviour was not forgotten.  A tough man capable of hard work and tough on those around him to get the best out of them.  George Best, a real world class player, one of the greatest, considered MacKay his hardest opponent. Jimmy Greaves the great English forward who played alongside him at Spurs and spent much time with him on the field and in the bar knew that many of his goals came from the talent shown by Dave MacKay.  This man was unusual in that he is considered a football leged by three clubs, the Heart of Midlothian, Tottenham Hotspur and Derby County.  I doubt any man has equalled that record!

However Dave MacKays real heart was seen when watching a Spurs side play Derby County.  A TV commentator asked him what team he would support, came the reply "I'm a Hearts fan son!"   

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A Sunny Lark

It was as I was raking through the dust at the back of the sofa for enough lost coins for some breakfast bread  I realised something was different.  It took me a while to comprehend that the colour (note correct spelling) on the floor was yellow.  Yellow indeed because the sun was shining through the grimy window! I was so shocked after days of gray cloud that I rushed outside at once! I rushed straight back in and put some clothes on and then walked up to the shops in the sunshine. Of course the wind chill made it cold but the sky was blue, daffodils were showing yellow heads and discarded beer cans in the park reflected the sunshine.  
Nothing else happened mind you so here's a Lark ascending.

Mixed Feelings

Mixed feelings today.  The good side is the deserved victory the Heart of Midlothian obtained by defeating their opponents today by ten goals to nil!  Such an event I have never witnessed in the flesh, a mere five or six goals at one time is as far as I can recall being scored.  History tells us in the days of yore such scores were not uncommon but today they are indeed rare.  The Heart of Midlothian in their present mood were not slow to take advantage of their despairing visitors.  This victory sounds cruel but in the world of football such events must happen, the team at the top must show the killer instinct to defeat this opponent and ensure fear is offered to the next.
I regret not being there in person, but living four hundred miles away, and in abject poverty at that (oh yes I am!), being there is not possible.  Such a victory, even over a part time side with limited resources, is to be relished!  Sadly such sides know before the season starts such an event may occur, yet as always they go out full of hope anyway.  I suspect they will not be too happy tonight however while our young men will be boasting (quietly) of their prowess!  It must be stated their women will I suspect be more interested in 'The Voice' or 'Ant and Dec' and other drivel!

The other side of the situation is that the team we defeated is Cowdenbeath.  I have a soft spot, not the one in my head, for this town.  My mother came from Cowdenbeath and we often visited there, indeed the house was on the hill overlooking Central Park and in days of your the boys would climb up onto the roof to watch the game and save sixpence!   When the ground was open the town was awash with money.  24,000 persons lived there, the vast majority employed in the coal mines that once dominated the area.  My uncles were all miners, and what a tough life they had!  The people running the football team appear to have thought the good times would continue for ever, Cowdenbeath was called the 'Chicago of Fife' and the ground at opening day could they say hold 70,000 people!  Changes to the ground, deterioration, Health and Safety and common sense now limit the crowd to a couple of thousand.  The population might reach 15,000 today and the mines have long since disappeared.

So I am grateful for the victory but I wish it could have been against a more worthy opponent, Hibernian perhaps?  
       

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Senility Dawns.

I put the used teabags into the teapot, as you do, recycling means a lot if it saves money.  I placed the mug at the side, filled the kettle and switched it on. I took the milk from the fridge and began to pout the milk into the teapot. It was then I stopped as it dawned on me something was not right.  
This was typical of my week. 
OK we have all walked in front of cars because we didn't look, everybody has walked out the door in their slippers, all have forgotten the lunch was still sitting on the cooker instead of inside it cooking, all forget dinner is in the oven and go on to eat burnt things.  I've done that this week.
It was judicious of me to stay indoors this week, I was feared to go outside into the real world!

My plight did not get ignored however.  As I lay on my bed I noticed eyes watching me.  Up in the tree the, vulture like, the crows gathered around eyeing me up and muttering about 'road kill.'  It was a bit anxious like when one of them started to grumble 'Let's do something!'  I shut the curtains quickly and asked the neighbour to send the cats out!  I locked the doors also just in case. I have seen that Hitchcock film!

Pleasure came from watching endless repeats of 'Time Team,' and one or two of the better 'Top Gear' programmes and several dozen football matches!  Falkirk ought to have stuffed the blue bigots tonight by the way.  I also have been reading Tacitus, WW2 diaries and Jerry's latest book. More of that later. The rest of the time I lay on the floor watching the Ladybird walk around the lampshade while I cried "Why me?  Why me?" plaintively.

I did no work of any sort, as the mess in the place reveals.     
 

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There's a hole...

...in my bag today. 

Thinking is not working.

Mind has stuttered and closed down.

Confusion reigns.

I've switched myself off and back on but it makes no difference.

I'm back off to bed until my mind restarts again.

Sunday Night Sounds

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Talk to the Wall

I've been talking to the wall.
Early this morning I had a word with one or two folks at the market stalls, later I phoned a woman and listened for fifteen minutes, and after making the stew I spoke to the wall.
It struck me this wall had something to say about the life that had passed by since 1812 when it was erected, possibly as cottages for workers at the 'Big Hoose' behind us.
The 'Big Hoose' has long since gone and been replaced with the Police station, hence the regular sirens you hear while reading this.  Whether the owner of the 'Big Hoose' remains there is unknown.
So I asked the wall about previous residents, mostly in recent years short term tenants of a few months to a couple of years, except me obviously.  
The landlord took over the place from the doctor.  He moved in during the thirties and used the house as it then was as his surgery.  Scratching around it appears to me his dad lived round the corner in one of the expensive houses there, dying in 1944, and the doctor happily practiced for many years until selling out to my landlord.  Why I ask did he have to practice?  Did he not study enough?  Anyway I have the feeling he served in the Notts & Derby regiment during the Great War, being 'gazetted' in 1918.  This a regiment that was billeted on this town during that war but would they be billeted on such a house as this was then?  My neighbour heard tow women mention this as 'that used to be the doctors house' as they passed.  Doctors appear to be something women do not forget. This however makes me wonder how the house was set up then. Certainly it was changed when the landlord converted it into flats and rebuilt the back end with little major change since.  Did he live upstairs and operate, if you see what I mean downstairs?  Not much room and lots of nosey people looking in as they pass too.
Before this  a couple married in 1930 moved in.  No idea what he did but to buy or rent this place at that time he must have been well paid.  Too little time at the moment to investigate and relying on details I discovered a long time back. Certainly he moved out when the doctor needle arrived and lived until 1981 somewhere cheaper in the town.
Before him, at least during 1926, a woman describing herself as a 'corsetiere' worked from here. She knew how to get around women!  I suppose that explains the whale bones that turn up every now and again.  
The wall saw them all.
It saw some strange things when the doctor was here, his examinations, his explanations and the often tearful response of his patients.  The couple with a possible family may have been more fun of course while the wonders of corsets and the sight of those requiring them may have made the wall look away!
During that time the town was lit by gas, the street lighting until 1956 indeed. The houses may have had electric light but did they have bathrooms by the first world war?  The wall saw, or heard, bombs fall during two wars but remained unmoved, horses clip-clopped past while folks ran out to help their roses grow. Gas lamps and more often oil lamps, candles and roaring coal fires lit the house during the hours of darkness.  No radios until the thirties, no TV, no noise for most of its life bar human voice and movement.  A occasional phone when the doctor was here perhaps.  
The original dwellers may have had a family of up to a dozen children running around.  Possibly a senior employee of the big house moved in, maybe a manager on a farm, there were lots around.
Just how many folks have lived here intrigues.  Their ups and downs would make a better TV show than that shown today.  The wall however will not reveal if any buried treasure in the garden, it claims he could not see from here!  Bah!

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Friday Night Music

A Walk in the Past.

Having slept well I disobeyed orders and changed my mind about trekking to Chelmsford and the Record Office as I wished to go back to bed catch up with things.  This I singularly failed to do!  Instead I fiddled, fuddled and avoided things that could be avoided and caught up with emails regarding fallen soldiers. That did take a while mind.  
The bright sun fooling people into thinking it was warm tempted me out to capture pictures of the blue sky and something nice.  All I found was a chimney. It so happened that yesterday I was busy browsing a book on a local village housing.  The old houses date back to the 1300's in some cases though more came later and all have been constantly revamped.  One thing that struck me was the use of chimneys. These appeared in the late 1400's so what did they do before I wondered. However work meant I was unable to read further and satisfy my curiosity.  This building, like many down this street, are worth looking at, try it here Bradford Street.  This one started in the 15th century and was added to in the 16th and 17th, constantly improved but showing some style, even if somewhat mixed.  I have always been attracted to the scene at the side, reminiscent of an old world look.  Most of these houses have connections to the wool trade later evolving into weaving, dying and so on.  The Flemish weavers and their 'Bays and Stays' were so honest that once ordered people never checked the goods as they knew it would be as required with no cheating.  The cloth trade continued until recently when Courtauld's closed down in the 90's.

Once home I attempted work and failed.  

That was not a new experience.

  

I'm Tired....

I'm so tired!  Half term holiday and thousands of kids arrived at my door.  Just after Jean remarked that it was quiet, 10:30 ish is always quiet, we were inundated with mum's bringing the kids in.  The sun shining brightly fooled them into thinking it was warm, it wasn't really, but they had to get put of the house and here they arrived.  Not only but also there were human beings also visiting, lots of them. Many others came with queries, asking re photographs or tourist information, one visitor liked to talk as being far from home and alone he was a bit lonely, very nice he was.  Then I had to return later as the lass had to go visit a woman to record information re her wartime experiences. So I missed my much needed afternoon siesta and this is not good.  Adrenalin kept me going and now it has ceased!  
I might not be able to keep my eyes open during the football, this is bad....

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Night & Football

Having spent most of the weekend watching mediocre football matches on TV or laptop I took myself out into the dark night.  The place I headed to was unobtainable so I wandered around streets I have not known for a while.
How different everything is in the early Sunday evening when dark.  
Away from the main roads all is relatively quiet, even those main roads have much less traffic. Lights at windows shine out revealing through open curtains adults wasting their minds on brain blurring TV, kids playing with tablets and policemen asking why I am looking at the buildings.  The family is quiet and at rest, the kids safely locked into their rooms, all is quiet.  
Had I ventured round here late on Saturday it may not be quite so quiet.  Late night revellers, parties here and there, an occasional police car.   At least when I delivered in this area that was the norm.  The austerity life has changed this somewhat I suspect.  
One noticeable thing then was the unfortunates who fell for Thatchers foolhardy idea of selling council houses.  These were erected to give folks a decent home, and the Conservatives under Harold MacMillan built three million themselves, she flogged them for a few votes!  The problem came when sickness or unemployment arrived and these people, fooled into buying cheap, selling high and moving 'upwards' now found themselves out on the street or in Council 'half way houses.'
In the past few years I suspect many more from here have fallen this way.  The happy contented families may be less contented than my quiet walk indicated.

      
I spent so much time watching football and being unsatisfied I had to start the day watching a game rerun on BT Sport.  It also was rubbish!  From Airdrie to Rome the games were not good. Still it's better than working.  Anyway I must go, Preston play Man U tonight and I have to watch it in case something relevant to the WW2 research comes in.....

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