Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

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“We ate offal of all kinds in our house. Chitterlings for breakfast, roast stuffed heart for lunch, liver and bacon for supper. Sometimes golden fried sweetbreads with butter and capers, sometimes boiled pig’s trotters, hot and gelatinous, with salt and pepper and vinegar, and on cold winter days tripe in a creamy onion sauce with doorsteps of bread and butter. Hogs’ puddings (white puddings) with fried bread; thick slices of fat bacon with field mushrooms; crisp slices of black pudding, marbled with diamonds of pork fat and grilled tomatoes.”

“But my favourite meal of all was Faggots and Peas”

This was really what it was like all those years ago, but this was not written by me but by Keith Floyd. It is from the introduction in one of his cookbooks that I have.

He was actually a year younger than me and those lines above spell out exactly what it was like in my early days. I remember it all so well and I loved all that real tasty English cooking.

The only item I can’t recall having was sweetbreads with capers. Our Mom wouldn’t have heard of capers or sweetbreads let alone known how to cook them!

And now I read with regret of Keith’s passing.

I loved his programs and still have many of his series recorded on video and a couple of his books in my kitchen. Thanks Keith for all those recipes and entertaining times.

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Cheers

"Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the Sea"

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Last Saturday I played this for the children at the Birthday party. It always goes down well and always has done since it was written in 1963. The group who I always associate with this song, were Peter, Paul and Mary.

I was saddened to read this in yesterdays papers.

"Mary Travers, one-third of the 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary who helped popularize the work of Bob Dylan and sang hits such as "Puff The Magic Dragon" has died, aged 72.

The group's version of "Blowin' in the Wind" by a young Bob Dylan helped transform the song into a civil rights anthem and introduced his music to a wider audience.

The group also scored big hits with "If I Had a Hammer" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?," co-written by folk artist Pete Seeger.

Along with "Puff," the group's other hits were "Lemon Tree," and "Leaving on a Jet Plane.

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Travers grew up in the Greenwich Village section of New York City. She was influenced at an early age by Woody Guthrie, the Weavers, Leadbelly and other major folk musicians."

I still treasure my old long playing records.

Be at rest Mary.

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