Play it again, Sam!

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I'm going through a bit of a quiet patch

on this here blog of mine!

But then I've noticed that a few others are

also having a break or a rest.

Well, it is the holiday season and perhaps quite a few

are enjoying the stimulus of a new environment.

Reading other blogs can give you ideas,

and Molly was saying that she was a bit stuck as she seems to be writing about the same things she did twelve months ago.

I have also found this to be the case.

Someone said "Do it again, it will be new to people who

were not readers last year."

OK.

So, what am I doing today that I also did this time last year?

Well, in a minute, I will be loading up the car and setting

off to North Dean for their annual fete.

Looks like a lovely day....

as it was last year.......

Now this below is a repeat.

(I shall take my camera and no doubt

take a few pictures, - but I bet they will not

be very different from last year.)

July 2010

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As you know I like to include a front sheet of some music with my posts -

and this was the best I could think of today.

On Saturday I was playing, not Nellie Dean but,

at a delightful little village up in Chilterns called North Dean.

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I took a few pictures at the start before the crowds arrived.

That's my pitch on the right.

I tried to find out something about North Dean, but all my books cover Speen, but nothing about the two Dean's - North & South. The whole area is beautiful farming countryside and years ago would have been home to lace makers, farmers and chair makers working in the Hampden woods.

This Saturday was, however, the day of the Village Fete

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My friend Dennis (another Deane - but with an ' e') was asked to play there, as he had on previous years, but this time he was booked to play elsewhere. I was asked if I would take his place.

How could I miss out on such a charming location and only a few miles from home.

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Some familiar stopping places.

Dennis, unfortunately didn't make it to either of the locations this year!

Last week, whilst cutting back his apple tree,

he fell off the ladder and damaged his knee.

Look what you missed out on!

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And just look at the size of those sausages!

They looked like real Farmer's sausages to me.

I was tempted - but being on a low fat diet, I resisted.

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A real Coconuts Shy

And I just had to take a closer look at that those fantastic houses behind where I was playing.

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Idyllic.

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There was a slight difference however.

This year I played all the new music I had

arranged and punched over these last 12 months.

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PS - Just got back home.

It was a great day out. Wall to wall sun.

There were more people there than last year,

and so many people were interested in my music and playing,

that I never got round to taking pictures this year.

You missed nothin', (except my music).

It was very much the same events, as Molly said.

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"Those were the Days, my Friend"

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It was Kath that asked the question -

"What do little boys play with?"

I was of course tempted to say, we played with little girls,

but,

I thought I had better rephrase that to say,

we played games with little girls.

So, I sat down to make a list of some of the real toys we played with,

and the blog got longer and longer.

I thought no one will read 48 pages - I'll have to reduce it to just a couple of subjects this time round.

In the nineteen forties, you played with anything you could find, even banging on an upturned bucket with a stick!

There were few toys.

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I expect I did have a drum, but I thought I'd kick off with a photo of my father with his drum, taken around the end of WW1.

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"Off to the Front" with of course his Teddy Bear,

or perhaps it's his toy dog?

I found this in that box of old pictures I was sorting through.

I expect I had a Teddy bear as do most children, but I do remember being given a 'Nurse doll'. I remember it having a white apron with a big red cross on the front. How I got to be given a doll, I do not know, except that toys were not something you bought during the war years (WW2 now).

I expect someone had 'grown out of it' and had passed it on to my mother.

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I didn't find many pictures of me with toys, as I said earlier,

we played with anything to hand.

Like this....

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Little B - Summer 1943.

No elf 'n Safety in those days. I lived dangerously!

Later on of course I had my own little mower,

from our old friend Dinky.

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This is not mine: all my toys, as I grew up, were passed down to younger brothers and maybe even sister?

Then where? Who knows?

One toy I do know the history of is one my Father made for me.

He was stationed at Market Drayton (I blogged here if I remember) and he managed to get bits and pieces to make toys for me.

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The horse you see below was made for Christmas 1943, and Dad told me how on the train home for leave, he got umpteen offers from people wanting to buy it.

But it arrived safely at Linden Road.

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It was Christmas Day in the Garden....

An interesting technical bit now.

Those little wheels on it were old 'ball races' recovered from WW2 aircraft. Probably old wheel bearings from a Spitfire?

It didn't go like a Spitfire though, it gave a rather rough ride on solid metal tyres!

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All boys had trains.

We had lots of them.

Starting off with clockwork...

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This is a three rail electric. Ours was two rail clockwork.

Living in Bournville this was a 'must have'.

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Ah, those were the days.

Eventually we did progress to Hornby Dublo electric.

We had a baseboard in the spare room and painted it green with sponge trees and hedges.

I wonder where it has all gone?

Go on, ask me.

You didn't think I was going to throw out

'goodies' like that!

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From the loft.

"Those were the days my Friend.

We thought they'd never end."

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Sorry, sorry, sorry!

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I’m sorry, sorry, sorry sorry!

I’ve dropped a Bloomer!

I’d forgotten that I had “comment moderation “ turned on,

and I missed all your comments from Sunday 17th until now.

Sorry again.

It turns on/off automatically after seven days,

and I forgot to go and look to see if any were waiting.

They’re all showing now.

I’ve been quite busy these last few weeks and have got distracted several times from trying to put a bit of a blog together. There are three in the pipeline, so to speak.

So, thanks to those like Sylve, who kept trying. Mind you, it is sometimes blogger that is playing up with error 503’s, whatever that is?

So thank you all for your comments on that NOTW post.

As Foody says, we are all getting a bit fed up with it dominating the news every day. But, the bbc is always like that. Get’s its teeth into a ’news item’ and won’t let it go.

Angus had tried four times - but was all blogger’s fault as my moderation didn’t kick in until 17th.

And Myrna tried twice - and that was my fault for it not showing. Sorry, and now I have them both! Thanks for trying again.

And thanks also to Ann, Jane and Dizzy for popping over. I hope you didn’t think I was ignoring you all.

No Monster Munch this year Foody. I was supposed to be going up to play at their school fete on Saturday but I had to cancel my trip because of the weather.

As I mentioned before, I have been to all the usual Steam Rallies and Fairs but as they were similar to the previous years I didn’t like to do them again. However, I have decided to put all the shows together into a longer slideshow with a bit of music thrown in for good measure. I’m still working on it.

Of course, last years blogs are still up if anyone wants a peep.

Marsworth steam do was here and here.

The Cherry Fair was so crowded this year it was nigh on impossible to get any interesting pictures apart from ‘walls of people‘ on all sides. Never mind, it was a huge success for the organisers. Last years Cherry Fair is here.

And of course there was Prestwood Steam Rally here and here

I did take loads of new photos at Prestwood this year, but I just haven’t found time to blog about it.

Coming up soon I hope.

Hazel's going to miss NOTW.

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It's not easy to find "News of the World" music!

Best I could do.

However, I do have a copy of the so called 'newspaper.'

Not last weeks, nor the very last edition today,

but one from Sunday 23 December 1917.

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Bernard hoards anything!

I am a great one for raking around antique shops although these days there tends to be more junk than antiques.

But it is the 'junk' that firstly, I find more interesting and secondly more affordable.

I will always 'home in' on a pile of old music. Some places sell this at £1-2 per sheet, but others, in a bit to get rid of it may sell a whole pile for a fiver.

These piles hold hidden secrets, for between the sheets of music, all kinds of things can be found.

I have come across newspaper cuttings and even old family photographs.

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This bit above is of the First World War song "Goodbye" sang to the troops as they went off to the trenches. It was here reproduced in the newspaper and someone had saved it in with their music.

Just imagine that bit of news had been tucked in with that music for around 94 years!

The date was Sunday 23 December 1917......and look at the circulation...2,750,000 copies.

.....and an advert for Lipton's Tea. And how about a 94 year old 'tea stain'?

Here's a few bits of news -

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This paper dates back to the First World War,

when the ‘in joke’ was:-

“What is the difference between Lord Kitchener and a Beechams Pill?”

“One sends you out to the front and the other sends you out to the back.”

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and....

Real men playing real football in 1917.

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Someone in the news this morning said:-

"It was an important piece of the furniture of the UK, and closing it so abruptly as a cynical commercial manoeuvre is a disgrace, given its popularity.

Furniture!?!

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and....

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When I was a paper-boy I can remember taking a peep

into the NOTW, and also a wee publication

called 'Tit-bits'.

Anyone remember that?

This chap has given up on NOTW and moved up

in intellectual reading matter!

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I like to give Hazel something to read

when she is sitting on her 'throne'.

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Under her litter tray!

You see, I don't buy/read any newspapers.

Never have - all my life.

So I have to beg old newspapers off friends,

not only for Hazel's box, but also for lighting the fire,

in the winter.

No NOTW anymore Hazel.......

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You'll have to make do with the Bucks Free Press.

under your 'potty'!

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Talking of news papers....here's another joke to finish.

Murphy was sitting there in the Pub reading the Dublin Times, and he turns to his mate Pat and says

“Isn’t it amazing how just enough things seem to happen every day to exactly fill a newspaper!”

Must dash! - off to Flackwell Heath Cherry Fair.

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"If I had a Talking Picture"

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When I first started blogging - I only did ‘text‘.

I didn’t own a digital camera you see,

but after a while I did manage to use my printer/scanner

and upload my first images.

What a difference -

‘A picture paints a thousand words’ they say, and so it did.

Having failed English Language (O level) at school three times,

this introduction of pictures came to my rescue,

and I didn’t have to write as much.

Well, it was about two years ago that I thought about trying video clips.

I thought you needed a video camera

and fancy editing software to get started.

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It must have been last year,

I discovered my digital camera took ‘moving pictures’,

provided you had enough memory in the camera.

Thirty frames a second soon gobbles up a few Mbytes.

‘Discovered’ is perhaps not quite the right word,

as I knew about it when I bought the camera,

it was that I just never tried it out and additionally,

to make it more difficult,

all the instructions were provided on a CD rather than a ‘real’ document.

So I did try a short clip of still pictures first, -

at a Steam rally - and used blogger to upload it.

tracker-bar.blogspot.com/2010/10/medley-of-summer-days-out.html

Since then I have done short movies of the cats but no headers or music.

monkey-organ.blogspot.com/2010/10/two-overnight-movie-stars.html

monkey-organ.blogspot.com/2011/02/yesterdays-birthday-boy.html

So I dabbled with the Vista version of ‘Windows Movie Maker’.

This is how I produced the slideshows for the last two posts.

(There are now four up on YouTube, by the way.)

I’m sure you can tell that I’m no expert,

but you have to start somewhere and the best way is to ’suck it and see’. You will make mistakes and you will learn from it.

I didn’t sit down with the User Guide open alongside,

it was more a case of “I wonder what this does?“

and then finding out!

Helen asked me for a Movie Maker tutorial, no doubt she is planning to entertain us with a slideshow of her English holiday perhaps. I gather she took hundreds of photographs whilst over here this May.

So I will describe what I did.

I am not an expert and I’m sure there are better ways of doing things - and I’m sure there are probably help videos up on YouTube although I haven’t checked.

I am doing a write up over on the my other blog for any interested.

here:-

tracker-bar.blogspot.com/2011/07/using-vista-movie-maker.html

This means I can carry on here with my usual ramblings later.

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"And Nice and Round and Fat."

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My word, I've been busy this week!

It was Prestwood Steam Rally this weekend just gone,

and boy was it hot.

I'm glad I wasn't driving or stoking those traction engines.

I was going to post up a few pics for you,

but as I went last year and the year before,

and

did blogs about them both.....

.....it was very difficult to find something

new and interesting.

However, following on from my last post,

and reading how much you liked the Amersham 'Movie',

I thought I would have another go.

In my music collection, I have loads of 'Comedy Songs',

and I have always fancied having a go

at putting a few pictures along with the tune.

So, here is my first go.

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"The Marrow Song."

Now I have to admit,

it was impossible to get loads of pictures of Marrows,

(unless I went to Welshpool)

without the whole thing becoming a wee bit boring.

So, using editors licence,

I have included a few extra 'Beauties'!

(Like all my videos it should

enlarge to full screen if you like.)

"Oh! What a Beauty"

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As the much missed Fred Dibnah would have said :-

"Did ye like that?"

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