Saturday 22nd - Notes From the Week

 I started the week limping - thought I broken my little toe  on Sunday morning, stubbed it hard on the leg of the bed- somehow. What I should have done was to put ice on it straight away but I was heading out so didn't get ice on it until much later. Probably not broken but it didn't half hurt for a few days and is still a bit sore.

We had rain overnight Monday/Tuesday and Tuesday/Wednesday -and a shower on Thursday it added a bit to the water butt off the living room roof. Nothing added to the water butt off the greenhouse because I hadn't realised the pipe had become disconnected - Duh!

 There's also rain in the forecast now and again on some days until the end of the month which is hopeful for greening up the half dead stuff everywhere.

On Tuesday afternoon I went to ex-husbands funeral. Strange to think the last two times I went to a funeral in that church ex was at both. First it was for his Father - way back in 1984 and then later in the 1980s for a Scout Leader who we had both known.

At Tuesday's funeral  I was able to give Paul's  two sons some photos of their Dad when he was 16, one was him on his BSA Bantam motorbike, and tell them about when he did his Duke of Edinburgh Gold award camping and hiking challenge and had to arrange a rescue for one of the guys he was with who broke his leg and how we went to Buckingham Palace to receive the award and how he won an award for Top Apprentice at ICI in 1975. They didn't know any of that as he'd split from their Mum when they were still quite young. They didn't even know he'd been married before he was married to their Mum until quite recently, which I find very strange. My children have always known I was married for a short while before Colin, it wasn't a secret. 

Paul is now buried in the churchyard where his Mum and Dad are buried - and Col's Mum and Dad are also there. (Their funerals were in their Methodist Chapel which has no burial ground).

So.......... The Sussex's - Harry and Meghan are coming back to live here, so their children can go to school here and she can get back to acting on a TV programme here - they need the money obviously, as he's got a massive bill to pay for losing a lawsuit.

 Doesn't bother me what they do either way ........just have to hope we don't have endless news about what they are doing - although I expect we will. I heard that the Daily Mail had managed to fill 18 pages about them on Friday - Thank Goodness I don't have to read it!

You know Autumn is coming when there are new crime series on TV  ..........Professor T and Ludwig both started this week. Hopefully more than 3 in the  series which is all there were of Van Der Valk.   

Benidorm is Murder with John Hannah has a couple more episodes - it's quite 'light' but fun and sunny. Can't say the same about 'The Hairdresser Mysteries' - a daytime cosy crime thing ................dreadful.

I'm sure I've seen something else trailed but can't remember what it was.

Also on TV is the first of the last series of this summers Cricket Test Matches - it rained of course!

The Great British Sewing Bee has been much the same as usual - I wasn't sad to see Tim go, didn't like him much in our Suffolk Smallholders Society and he came over the same in the Sewing Bee - a bit too pleased with himself!

And the football season has started and Ipswich are of course back in the Premiership so they'll be featured on TV a few times which will be good to see for everyone who can't afford a ticket.

Have a Good Weekend, and remember not to take my blog too seriously. 

I'll be back Monday.

Sad?

 I had a phone call from an unknown number last week, it told me my first husband who I'd been briefly in contact with a couple of years ago, after a gap of nearly 50 years, had died in hospital. He  lost his driving licence due to drink driving at the end of 2024 and I only heard  from him a couple of times after that, but he must have kept my phone number in his phone. His current and third wife, who he'd also split up from, said he had been ill since February. He was 71 - same age as me........

He didn't remember anything about our 7 years together, was as hopeless with money as he'd been 50 years ago and having left wife #3  was living in one rented room with a shared kitchen and bathroom, he had very little contact with his two sons and grandchildren (from the wife after me),  told me several lies and didn't have many interests. We had even less in common than we had in the 1970s. 

So why do I feel sad to hear of his death?

Those Who Died Too Soon

In history thousands of well known people have died much sooner than their 'Three Score Years and ten'. There are long lists online.

Apart from Colin who was only 61, here are a couple of others  that I missed when they died. 

The first was Richard Beckinsale. The actor who starred alongside Ronnie Barker in the comedy Porridge and at the same time was  in Rising Damp with Leonard Rossiter and Don Warrington who of course is still going strong in Death in Paradise.

He died in 1979 aged just 31.

 Paul Hunter, who was a talented  snooker player he died in 2006 aged just 27. He would have won more titles for sure.

And what other incredible music would Freddie Mercury (45) and Amy Winehouse (27) have gone on to give us if they were still around.

People often say they know where they were when they heard that famous people died (JFK and John Lennon are often mentioned) but the only person I can say that about is Princess Diana in 1997. I came downstairs to make a cuppa early on the Sunday morning and youngest daughter had the TV on - that was when there were childrens programmes on early mornings at weekends. She said " Princess Diana has died" and I said "are you sure - she's much too young, maybe you mean Princess Alice or one of the others". Of course I soon found YD was right and then we had the weeks and weeks of news and mourning which all got a bit too much.

Back Soon

The Strange Things Found ............

...........at Car Boot Sales.

A group of us from Stowmarket Grammar School  went on an Educational School Cruise on board the SS Nevasa in October 1969  but I  have nothing left to remind me of it - and very few memories .

So spotting this among the house clearance stuff at last Saturdays car-boot sale was a Huge surprise. 

It's a  scrapbook by Sally-Ann Rogers, a Bury St Edmunds Silver Jubilee pupil (a girls Secondary Modern school that amalgameted with the boys school in 1971 and no longer exists) who went on an educational cruise on the SS Nevasa in 1966.

She had kept a lot of the brochures they must have been given - I don't think we had any of these.

I kept my log book - like Sally's below for many years but don't have it now.

Her cruise was two weeks and they went to different places to our cruise (except for Gibralter). She even received letters from her mother and a friend sent to the ship and they did lessons everyday too. I don't think we did and certainly no one sent letters to the ship. From what I can see there were also other adult independent passengers on the cruise apart from the various school groups and their teachers, that's something I don't think happened on our cruise.

I'd not thought about my 1969 cruise for ages - I have no photos. My dad was into slides for photography and so any photos I took were made into slides and I don't remember seeing them. I do remember my camera going wrong somewhere so maybe I didn't get any photos at all.

I googled SS Nevasa to see what I could find online  and discovered a facebook group HERE just in case you are curious!  By the time of our cruise there were just two ships doing Educational Cruises - The Nevassa and the SS Uganda.

I spent £2 on the scrapbook and it's been interesting looking at all the pages and finding things online about the ships and the cruises.

You just never know what's lurking in boxes at boot sales!

Do You Remember?

 The cars that had loudspeakers and drove around the streets before General Elections reminding people to vote?

How libraries worked before computers?

Nightdress cases, you put your nightie or PJs in it in the morning and took them out at again at bedtime? My sister had one shaped like a poodle. Youngest daughter said she had one that was a clown with bits attached like a zip and buttons and laces for learning - I'd forgotten - she said it was a happy clown and she wasn't traumatized!

Two years ago Ipswich Town Football Club went from Championship to Premiership - the  top tier of  British football. They had one season playing all the big names like Man U, Man City, Arsenal etc etc but at the end of the season they went straight back down to second tier again. On Saturday the were automatically promoted again - Whoop Whoop! I have no idea how they'll get on with the 'Big Boys' next season but for now it's made a lot of people very happy!

Have a good Bank Holiday Monday for everyone in the UK.

Wash Day?

 Is Monday still washing day?

This is one of the pages in my scrapbook--------------

I came across some old sayings about wash day

They that wash on a Monday

Have all the week to dry;

They that wash on a Tuesday

Are not so much awry;

They that wash on a Wednesday

Are not so much to blame;

They that wash on a Thursday

Wash for shame;

They that wash on a Friday

Wash for need;

And they that wash on Saturday

Oh, slovens are indeed.

Wash your clothes on New Years Day and you'll be 'Washing for the dead' or washing a loved one away, meaning someone in your household will die in the coming year!

Why is wash day on a Monday? One story says "the Pilgrims disembarked from the Mayflower on a Sunday and the first priority of the women after the voyage was to wash all the clothes, thereby setting a schedule from that day forth that continued for centuries".

I was reminded of this old song that used to be on children's radio 'Listen with Mother' in the late 1950s

Back Tomorrow

E is for Eggs

 Come with me around the field...................that's what I said in March 2014. The link will take you around the field at the smallholding when we regularly kept between 120 and 180  chickens and sold eggs at the gate. In the County Council Highways Bridge Office where Colin worked, when he wasn't out bridge inspecting, he was known as the 'egg man' because every Monday morning he would take in a several dozen eggs for all his colleagues.

Nowadays eggs have to come from a shop or, more preferably, a roadside stall, I'm sure they're not so good as our own were, and now I often find I've run out of eggs, just when I want to bake a cake and that's something that never happened in chicken-keeping days! Buying from the village shop is an expensive business - £2.25  for half a dozen , the ones I can get from the roadside stall are still just £1- a real bargain.

I've been eating more eggs lately, trying to push up protein intake a little. Usually scrambled or poached on toast. Fried are good too but what on earth are coddled eggs? And who owns an egg coddler in the 21st century?

Illustration from internet but it comes from a nursery rhyme book that I once had.

Back Tomorrow

Short of Ideas - Have a look at July 2015

 HERE'S a post from smallholding days 10 years ago .July 2015 

For context - this was a year or so after Colin had heart problems and stents done, when we had decided to sell the smallholding and do some travelling while we could. We never got to do that because the smallholding took months to sell and  by November 2015 the first symptoms of  Non Hodgkins Lymphoma had started to appear and it was  diagnosed properly in March 2016.

Back Soon

Last of the Old Photos (For Now Anyway!)

Just to fill another blog post here are a few more of the old photos.

First is me and my Grandma - on Dad's side. Sadly she died before I was a year old. She had a heart attack and was found laying by the pond on their farm. I would have loved to have known her, she was a practical person, living on a farm, making butter and cheese etc.

As a bridesmaid aged 7 - on the right. The wedding was one of Dad's cousins.

 I didn't know I had this photo below among a bundle of loose photos - it's a bit random. On the back it says 'Michael Hailes wedding Horringer'. Michael Hailes was one of the younger blokes who worked in Dad's building business for many years. This must be about 1968 ish.

There's me, Mum and Sister in front and Mrs Kerry, Mr Kerry and Dad at the back heading into church I guess. Mr Kerry was the Carpenter who worked for Dad for as long as I can remember. He smoked a pipe all the time, his teeth were pipe-shaped! - a true London family who had come to Suffolk after the war. As well as always having the pipe on the go he also whistled through his teeth and pipe- tunelessly!

After Mum died in 1999 and with Dad being totally lost after being a carer for Mum for 10 years my sister took him round churches and family looking for family history. They had some help from someone who put lots of family photos onto a computer CD. Later Eldest daughter had the CD and printed off these two photos below, which along with a photo of my grandma (the one above) as a young woman, she put into a frame for a present.

Definitely family, but I have no idea who they are or where the CD is now.

That's the end of the old photos for now.

Back Soon

How many Grandads?

 I'm short of ideas for blog posts so thought I'd share a few more old photos. Most of the photos I have come from my Dad's side of the family, they were all country people - farm workers and then farm owners.

First is my Grandad F. My Dad's Father. Photo is probably sometime in the 1960s. He died when I was about 18 so I do remember him, although Mum wasn't a fan so I'm not sure he visited often and even less after he remarried someone Mum also didn't like. 

My Grandad's Father in Law, wish I knew more about this picture

Below is Grandad's father, he died in 1955 the same year as I was born. 

And the grave of my Grandad's Grandfather over the road in the churchyard 

In comparison there are hardly any photos of Grandad W. on my Mum's side of the family. Always living in town, working in factories, totally different to Dad's family.

Just this one, where he is far right on this photo at my Mum's wedding. I just about remember him, he died when I was in my early teens after being very unwell for several years. The results of working in a dusty factory, smoking un tipped cigarettes and being in the fire brigade during the war.

No photo's of anyone further back on this side of the family, I don't think any exist.

Back Soon

Sue

Old Photos of an Old House

 It's not surprising that my Grandma was horrified when her daughter and new husband bought this cottage in  1952 for £500.

Front of the cottage, with my Grandad - centre- but even with a magnifier I can't tell who it is sitting on the step

Side of the cottage with the pump for water

After renovation to the side, and the pump still stood for many years, long enough for me to remember it.

The cottage came with nearly one acre of land, a separate vegetable garden - just along the lane but it had these condemned cottages below out the back.

My dad (real Dad) and his brother (later my Step Dad) had just started a builders business and the land at the back was ideal for their new business. Room for sheds and heaps of bricks.

What a shock to everyone when my real dad was killed in a motorbike accident a couple of years later.

The lean-to kitchen out the back

The old lean-to kitchen was replaced with this kitchen on the left and bathroom to the right. It must have been wonderful for my Mum after a few years with an outside bucket and chuck it privie and a tin bath in the kitchen.

I was surprised to have a closer look at this photo of 7 month old me below, about a year after my Dad was killed and to find the old condemned cottages were still there.

Years later you can imagine the 'treasure' we dug up in the land behind the house, after those cottages had been cleared. With six families burying their rubbish - before rubbish collection was invented. There were bits of clay pipes and broken pottery, old bottles and if we were lucky the marbles from Codswallop bottles. 

( just a PS edited in to say thank you for all the comments about doing the washing yesterday, apologies for not replying. Seems no one likes those scent boosters - so I wonder who is buying them?)

Back Soon

Sue

From 11 Years Ago

 Short of ideas for blog posts this month so here's one from 11 years ago - February 2014.................. still at the smallholding of course.

You know how some days you can be busy without seeming to achieve much, well today I was busy and I can actually see what I've done.

The day started with my usual walk around the field to let out the chickens from their 3 different sheds, check they are all still upright and collect the eggs. Then a basket of washing was hung out good and early with sunshine and a drying wind forecast.
Next job was to get two loaves of bread started and rising in front of the Rayburn.
After a cuppa, I pricked out the next batch of seedlings comprising of a few of each of three types of tomato and a few peppers. Then the small seed trays were refilled with seed compost and some more tomatoes sown and popped into the windowsill propagator.
Then I got a shout to go over and help put the plastic over the small poly-tunnel at our neighbours. Him outside has now finished the job, the boat has been wheeled inside and our neighbour is very pleased.
I had a tidy up in the shed and then a tidy up indoors.
The postman  brought me some books that I'd ordered using my Christmas money. "5 acres and a dream" and "Skeoch - our new life on a Scottish Hill farm". Both look like a good read and both are by people who write blogs.
The bread was baked and turned out well.
The washing dried.
I covered two clumps of rhubarb with bottomless dustbins to get them going.
Leeks done for fritters to go with bacon chops for dinner.

But the best job of all, which will make such a difference, is that after 4 dry days with drying wind Him Outside managed to get the middle sized chicken shed moved away from the sea of mud onto fresh grass - AT LAST!

So many weeks of rain had turned more than half of their run into  a sticky mud mess.

 The shed is on 2 wide metal skids, with a chain attached, they can be moved with the tractor.

A while later after moving water butt, feed bin, straw bin, drinkers, electric fence and the connection to mains electric for the lighting, the chickens are in seventh heaven on fresh grass.

So a good productive day. Our neighbour is happy with her boat shelter, the chickens are happy on fresh grass, Him Outside is happy to have done both those things and I'm happy with two new books, dry washing, fresh bread, seedlings growing and seeds sown.

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Days were always as busy as this back then...........now is so different.

Back in 2025 Soon

Sue

Advent 2024 and December Mornings

 Once upon a time in December several years ago now, I forced myself out of bed at 6 in the dark, pulled on many layers of clothes and headed out to feed and milk the goats, to make sure to get back indoors in good time to get the children up, fed and out to catch the school bus before half past eight.

The joy of retirement in December is staying in bed until it's almost daylight, then a while later dallying over breakfast, of home made toast and marmalade with coffee and  taking as long as I like.

(BTW Colin wasn't  lazing in bed while I was milking goats, he always did their water and letting out and feeding chickens and then back in for his breakfast, because as we always said "the sooner he went to work - the sooner he'd be home again" - flexi hours were very handy for a smallholding!)

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Last Week in Mid Suffolk

The only way I could get past the sadness of Friday's post was to delete it without looking at, or having to read it again -in 11 years of blogging I've never felt the need to do that before.

The weather last week was mainly cloudy, heavy and humid (although yesterday was just plain chilly) and very headache inducing - at least I Hope that's the reason for the headaches I've been having. Just recently a neighbour and friend of BiL  went to bed early with a headache and was fast asleep when her husband went to bed but when he woke in the morning he found her laying dead beside him - what an awful shock -  since hearing that it feels worrying to go to sleep with a headache.

 I had a very surreal experience last week when I spent an hour having a coffee in the church café with my ex husband who I had not really seen since we split in 1978. We'd been together for 7 years from aged 16 and got engaged and married young as many people who didn't go to Uni did back then. I think he married 3 more times after me but I'm not sure he really knew how many!  he's in the process of the current divorce! I don't regret our meeting and marrying all those years ago as otherwise I wouldn't have got involved in Scouting so wouldn't have met Colin, so wouldn't have had 38 wonderful years, three children and five grandchildren and all the smallholding life - plus getting on the housing ladder in 1975 turned out to be a very good thing from a purely material point of view. House prices started shooting up after that and Col and I might never have afforded anything!

It reminded me of the Grammar School Reunion in 1988 or was it 89?, 17 years after we had all left school, that was a very surreal evening too. 

What else  happened last week?  Well, it was a very bad Wordle week - I had two fails in a week - never been known before. Just too many choices to go round the letters I had  - and I chose wrong too many times - good thing it's not a competition.

Had to get to grips with a new phone too, my old one started playing up too often. When I say 'get to grips' I really mean 'attempt to work out the differences while getting very confused!' I do wish they came with an instruction book, at least we have 'real people' to sort things in the Tesco phone shop in Stowmarket and thank goodness they weren't busy so he set the phone up for me and answered my probably daft questions but I  can't see how it's turned right off to reboot it when it needs doing sometime in the future so will have to go back and ask.

And  I've also been eating courgettes......................almost everyday.

Yesterday was nearly the end of Wimbledon, I didn't watch the Women's final but the men's doubles was a really good match.  It ends properly today with the Men's finals and then later the probable pain of watching England play football in the Euro finals. I'm not a fan of women's football so won't be watching their Euros qualifying and can't get cricket or golf for free so I reckon it's just the last week of  the Tour de France to follow next week. Then a blank week before the Olympics.

Back Soon

Sue

The Beans That Nearly Got Away + S.O.S. 2024

 The climbing French Beans didn't do much climbing for weeks. I'd surrounded the tripod with fences to keep out next door neighbours cat and didn't notice that right at the bottom, only just a little way up the canes some beans had formed. 

Luckily I moved the fences away to do some weeding and discovered all these...........

Very good they were too.

I'm watering regularly now after no rain for a week and the plants are climbing well at last. Hopeful for more to come soon.

S.O.S. 2024 isn't a cry for help! But Summer of Sport. The last one was 2021, when all the things cancelled the year before because of Covid, were held. That year, like this year I loved all the tennis and Olympics and wrote about them on the blog starting with the French Open. I looked back at those old posts and saw that Jack Draper - a young unknown Brit had a wild card entry into Queens Club and had a win against Jannik Sinner. 3 Years on and Jack did really well at Queens Club is now seeded 28 at Wimbledon and Jannik is seeded number 1 this year, above moany Djocovic and last years winner Alcaraz. 

This year so far  the French Open was followed by the first grass court tournament of the season from Nottingham then Queens Club tournament , Wimbledon Qualifiers and now Wimbledon. And at the weekend the British Athletic Championships were on TV to watch, with many up and coming athletes trying to qualify for the Olympics.

 I've just labelled some of my posts mentioning tennis with 'Summer of Sport 2024',  so that in 2028 - the next Olympic Year  - if I'm still about! - I'll be able to look back and see what was going on.

A memory.............

At 2pm on a Monday afternoon in late June or early July 1980 I settled the 2 month old baby down and settled myself down, excited for my first ever time at home to watch the start of Wimbledon live.......it Rained! - there was no play - nothing to watch!

Now it no longer matters, with two courts having roofs there is always something to see and a huge choice of what to watch via BBC Red Button.

Just proves that not everything has got worse in the intervening 44 years! 

Back Soon

Sue

PS for Euros Football and Tour De France commentary see Rachel in Norfolk's Blog! 

And another PS Thanks to Aril for reminding me about the Paul Heaton set from Glastonbury - so good.

Red Dead Nettle and the Play Shed

  Lamium Purpureum is a small  common plant of wasteland, disturbed ground and road verges. It isn't in the Urtica family and doesn't sting like some other nettles.

 A plant remembered from childhood. Growing up in a builders yard, for many years without a proper flower garden, these were the flowers that we picked for our play-shed  vase - always a small jar.

They are very useful for lots of different insects like the red mason bee and bumble bees and the caterpillars of several moths feed on the leaves. 

This is what I found about ways they were used in the past..............

The leaves and flowers can be used, either fresh or dry, “to make a decoction for checking any kind of haemorrhage.”

Mash the leaves so they’re bruised, and apply them to minor skin abrasions and wounds.

Make the dried leaves into a tea and sweeten with honey, to help promote perspiration and urination.

Cecily Mary Barker has a Red Dead Nettle Fairy

This is the only  photo I have of our play-shed, it was never called  a play house - always a shed. With Dad being a builder he would have made this easily out of rescued asbestos/concrete panels, which could be drawn on with chalks. Inside we had an old table that had the legs cut down, some stools and an old wooden 3 sided clothes horse with a plank across to make the 'kitchen', with an old washing up bowl. The dolls cot that someone made was out there and a dolls pram and the shed was well used.

Back Soon 

Sue

6 Years Ago

 Yes, it really is 6 years today since  Colin died - how is that possible?

Still missed so much every single day. The coping gets easier, the emptyness doesn't.

Back Soon

Sue

ITFC, Old Photos and Back to Daily Posting?

 First of all have to say WELL DONE to Ipswich Town Football Club , automatically promoted to the Premiership - the top tier of English Football. It's 22 Years since they were last there. This time last year they were promoted from the third tier to the second so it's an amazing turn around in two seasons after some very dismal years. Being in the Premiership brings many bonuses - mainly money and recognition. Ipswich really needs this as I've mentioned before about how sad the town is looking. This might herald a turn around for our County Town.

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My photo sorting is providing lots of old pictures to share to local Facebook village and town history groups.

The hamlet of  14 homes where I lived for my first 20 years - Although I wasn't there when this photo was taken! definitely before my time! The 'busy' road was actually the A45 which has become the A14 main road from Felixstowe to the Midlands so thank heavens the hamlet was bypassed in the early 70's. Our house was the one just left of centre and facing forward. Behind it you can just see the roofs of a row of 6 cottages that were condemned and unfit to live in when Mum and Dad bought everything in about 1951.

A Suffolk village school photo from 1913 with my grandmother in the centre - someone in the past put an inked circle round her head and the boy in front who is someone I've not heard of - perhaps a friend.

My grandparents (on the binder and holding the horse) and their children, my Aunt, her twin brother = my Real Dad and Step Dad on their farm in Mid Suffolk around 1930ish

Outing to the beach - Sunday School probably or perhaps Cub Scouts. That's Colin in the front and his brother on the far left.

My Mum was a Cub Scout Leader In Stowmarket - in the years just after the war, she's on the left. Her younger brother - my Uncle is the  third boy from Mum.

Colin's  Primary School photo, same school that our two eldest children went to for a few years before we moved to the coast and the same school which two of my Grandchildren now attend.

My primary school had no school photos while I was there which is disappointing.

Still lots more recent photos to remove from old albums...........It's taking a while! especially after posting the very old photos on Facebook Groups as I then have to go back and answer the questions asked.

Blogging..........I might go back to 6 days a week posting, it depends where I go and what I do to write about. If I don't appear some days it will be because there's nothing to mention. So instead of saying 'Back Tomorrow' I'll say 'Back Soon'!

So................

Back Soon (although I will be back tomorrow as I have some church visits in drafts)

Sue

Photo Sorting

 A birthday present from the family was this photo storage box that I'd put on my wish list.  I have 8 photo albums and lots of loose photos, the albums are falling to pieces or those old type with sticky pages that have turned the photos a strange colour. 

The box is supposedly fireproof and water proof and has room to store more than 1,000 photos in separate plastic boxes, which can be labelled and sorted into years or subjects. 

My wedding album and my late mum's two photo albums I'll keep as they are.

I started emptying an album full of old Scouting photos that I would show the new Cubs to give them an idea of what we did. Shared those below on the local Facebook page but only heard from one former Cub Scout.

My Cub Scout football team - we took part in the District Football Tournament each year and won it once.

I used to 'train' them - using the same way that we practised Hockey at School many years earlier. I think this is about 1978 or 79.

The tournament had to stop a few years later when some parents took everything far too seriously and started bullying the boys and the refs and leaders. What a sad situation.

St Georges Day Parade probably around 1982. Colin is the Scout leader in the centre of the photo. Later he helped me as a Cub Scout Leader.

Me and my Cubs the same year getting ready to parade

A few years earlier this is the Scouts at Cromer in Norfolk - Colin is the one in the shades on the right. I think it's the second year I took half a dozen older Cubs for a couple of nights to Scout Camp in 1979 - the summer before we got married.

I can see this photo sorting is going to take me several weeks!

Back Tomorrow

Sue