Hobbies
James Sanderson
Barry recently started a thread on childhood hobbies which in his case was trainspotting. I feel that what interested you depended on your personal circumstances, where you lived and on what influences - unintended or not - the adults close to you had. The flat roof on Barry’s flats probably provided a near perfect platform to overlook the trains coming in and out of Highbury Station, while Roger’s story speaks for itself.
My mother worked for Harraps, the educational book publishers; this provided me writing paper, stamps and books. The A4 paper might have acted as padding for all the parcels that arrived from around the world and these parcels of books would have been heavy and therefore carried many stamps of various values to pay for the transit. So every now and then my mum would arrive home with a big envelope stuffed full of stamps on brown paper which had been torn off the packages by her fellow workers who knew that I had a small stamp collection. What came first, their envelopes or a start-up album from someone else, I do not know. A definite chicken and egg situation. I was hooked, though. I was one of those people, more common in men, that liked to collect.
In later years I came to realise that the ‘gifts’ I received nearly always contained the stamps of average values. I only saw high-value stamps which were torn or so badly postmarked as to make them worthless. My mum’s friends obviously collected themselves and kept the best for their own collections.
A by-product of my collection was my knowledge of the geographical information of the countries which always headed a new page in the albums that were mass produced in those days. Invariably it was one page per country; more if it was France or Germany, countries like that, but it always told you what the capital was, what the exports were, how big the population and occasionally other odd facts. I soaked it up effortlessly.
Fourth year, Commerce with Mr. Matthews. Not a subject I liked then but when I look back now, I realise I should have sailed through every lesson I took. Anyway, there I was, towards the front, sitting next to Percy Montoute, the only black kid in our class. He had terrible handwriting, I couldn’t ever cheat. I hear Mr. Matthews ask the class what is Liberia famous for? A strange question, but I knew, I collected stamps. They issued triangle ones, like Monaco. Everyone had them and they weren’t worth a penny. The class was silent. Matthews, at the back of the room, got annoyed. The class stayed silent. Finally I put my hand up. I don’t think he could believe it. Tell the class, boy, he said. I started to speak, he stopped me and said, stand up, boy, turn round, let us all hear you. I stood. Resigned. Why did I put my hand up? Slowly turned.
“Liberia was the first Free State in Africa for freed Negro slaves,” I said.
The silence lengthened. Percy pulled my sleeve and whispered, “You’re a genius, Sandy.” Didn’t have time to think about that, Matthews was thundering towards me. Exasperated, he shook me by the shoulders, and as I recall, he couldn’t understand if I knew something like that, why didn’t I actually participate in his lesson? Do better, boy? How was he to know I was a fool to myself? Some things you don’t forget.
Trains and buses were not for me, although I can understand the passion some people have for the vehicles themselves. Stamps I left behind and then looked at again many years later. Nowadays, unless you spend big money, you are paying out money for coloured pieces of paper. The history of it all is what counts. Age counts. Dinky toys? I had my army but they were something to play with and crash around the front room floor. These days I have a small eclectic DVD library. Some old, scratched London American 45’s. And books. Lots of books.
In the late fifties my step-granddad, who had also worked for Harraps, gave me the only two stamps he had. Gave me. A Penny Black and a Twopenny Blue; both imperforate. The first two issues. Ever. I had a Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue of the World and knew they were pukka. In 1958 the ‘Blue’ was catalogued at £14.
My Dad worked with a know-all. He said imperforate stamps were counterfeit; not worth a penny. For some reason I believed my dad and threw the ‘Blue’ into the fire. The know-all was wrong, wasn't he? I kept the ‘Black’, don’t know why, and sold it in the early eighties. We all live with regrets, don’t we?
I also collected football programmes. I saw the Arsenal versus Manchester United game pre-Munich. Clock End, at the front, right side of the goal. After the game I did what I always did, went round picking up the discarded programmes and keeping the best of them. Reckon I had ten good ones. I also wrote to every league club, enclosing a stamp-addressed envelope and asked if they had a programme left over from the last game. They always replied with the goods. It wasn’t about money in them days.
A man at Harraps went to Spurs one weekend and Leyton Orient the next. Gave my mum the programmes to give to me. I had some collection. Always over Arsenal getting the autographs. Jack Kelsey, Bill Dodgin, Vic Groves, David Herd, Joe Haverty, Danny Clapton and Joe Mercer, the manager. They treated us kids well.
Several years later in a fit of largesse I gave them all to Alan Droy, the youngest of the three Droy brothers who lived in Lewis Buildings as I did. One evening during the mid-seventies, at Danny Droy’s home at Highbury Barn, Micky Droy kindly told me that Alan had sold them for £35. More regrets, eh?
John Tythe
Back in 1965, we were given books to read for the CSE English exams, coming up in May/June 1966. One was: The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham, whose full name was John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris. You can understand why he only used the first two as his pen name.
Three years earlier a film had been made of the book, which was having a re-run showing at the ABC (formally the Savoy) in Stoke Newington Road and it was suggested (by the English teacher, whose name has been long forgotten), that we go see it, to help us with the exam. Off I went to the cinema, only to find it was X Certificate. At age fifteen, there was no way I was going to convince anyone that I was even 15, let alone 16. But I gave it a go, and was refused entry, by the over zealous ticket office attendant. When I explained why I needed to see it, she softened and said I could go in, but not to cause any trouble.
Anyway, the film was watched and like all films based on books, it was not a true representation of the book and so it was a total waste of time and money. I’m sure that the suggestion to watch the film was made because he, (the English Teacher) knew that most of us wouldn’t read the book and that we might at least get to know the basic plot, if we saw the film.
The other books were: A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute and Animal Farm by George Orwell, with the Play, Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw for a bit of Drama in out lives. As good as the books, (which I now know), were then, they held my interest not a jot and so I retained very little of their contents in my head, come exam time.
However, I had prior to the exam, read other books and the one that stuck in my head and still does was: The Technicolor Time Machine, by Harry Harrison. It sparked my fascination with Science Fiction, especially time travel.
The question posed in the exam was something along the lines of this: Write a review and outline the plot of a book that you have recently read and enjoyed.
So I wrote “ I assume that the instruction refers to one of the set books provided for the English Course, none of which I can say I really enjoyed, but as the instruction is non specific about the books, I will write about a book that fulfils the criteria”.
I got a C !
Now some of you may think that Time Travel is a load of old tosh, but think on this: I read the book in 1966 and sat the exam the same year, but if you Google the book, it wasn’t published until 1967. Which strangely echoes the story line plot!
Trainspotting – as recalled by some Barnsbury boys
That terrific compact book, the Ian Allen Trainspotters, was a real precious item of mine.
A few stories to tell. One was the time I bunked into the engine sheds at Kings Cross. This was with another Barnsbury lad, would have been after school. I just wish I could remember his name. What I do remember is, he was a wizard at gymnastics. We really pushed the boat out in so much as we stood on the engine platforms and had a good view of the cabins. There were engines still steaming and, being so close to them, was a revelation. I now realise what a cheeky thing it was to do as we could have been arrested or cautioned. After a while we did get our collars felt; it was inevitable. The railway police found us out and gave us a stiff warning. Not too bad as the risk we took was really worth it. I wonder how many other GoBBs have achieved this?
Another occasion was train spotting in Finsbury Park. There was a railway bridge not far from the boating lake. This was a favourite spot as we could see the Mallard Class travelling at high speed by the time they passed under this bridge. Red Biro lines drawn under the engine's plate numbers were usual in the collectors book. I have to admit the Busspotters book was important also, and another important event was when the Routemaster was brought into service. Those RTs were getting boring, I think. I used to look forward to the following year's edition.
I did try sitting at the end of the platforms at Kings Cross and then St. Pancras with a duffel bag full of sandwiches looking for the train numbers but gave that the elbow quickly as there seemed to be lots of adults doing the same thing. Couldn't have that.
I think my train and bus spotting years finished when I started going out with girls. I mean, surely, I couldn't take the Ian Allen books out on a date!!!
Alan French
Yep, I too was a train spotting anorak but as I spent all school holidays in Wales. My region of choice and necessity was LMS or The London Midland Railway. My interest was born in the fact that my grandfather was a main mine guard out of Euston to Holyhead and, at a tender age of six or seven, I was entrusted to the guard at Euston to chaperone my journey to Penmaenmawr, N. Wales, if he was not on duty.
Inevitably the guards were keen to pass on their rolls whilst on duty and I soaked it up. I was also able to collect numbers not normally available in the southern end of the service when the trains stopped at Crewe and Stafford, main intersections for North Wales, the Midlands and Scotland. My favourite engine was The Duchess of Montrose in its maroon livery, an engine that only occasionally did the Holyhead route.
My grandfather later transferred to become station telegraph officer at Llandudno Junction Station. This opened up a whole new area of spotting as there were engine and carriage sidings with small shunters, tank and mainline tank engines; as well as the larger long-distance engines, Princess and Coronation classes. In addition there appeared the first diesel railcars used on the
Betws-y-Coed single track line where a key was required to designate that train had right of passage on the line.
Unofficially I had rides on the footplates on engines in the sidings, travelled with the driver in the railcar on the single track and helped fire up some engines in the yard, and the adventure playground was the derelict hulks awaiting the breakers.
My interest in steam engines has never declined and in true anorak fashion I recently purchased an Ian Allan All Regions numbers book, and whilst it is not as easy now to spot those wonderful pieces of engineering, and age and physical ability is not what I’d like, it is possible to observe them from nostalgia clips appearing on the box. It is surprising just how many and of what diversity there are of engines still operational with heritage sites across the country and there still remains that thrill when observing another engine salvaged from the breakers back on the line.
Anoraks never die, they may deny they were ever of that ilk, but the interest is still there it remains dormant till it is rekindled by a innocent enquiry or a child's new found interest.
Roger Bartlett
Oh yeah, those were the days. I too spent nearly all my early days trainspotting at Kings Cross either at the end of platform 10 or preferably on a small branch line platform on that sat directly parallel to the tunnels. I have many fond memories of those famous giants of steam bursting out from the tunnel in their full glory as they headed in the platforms. I also spent loads of time on that bridge at Finsbury Park, but my favourite was down in the shunting yard that was adjacent to the Essoldo cinema in Caledonian Road. I managed to get to know a couple of shunter drivers and joined them bumping freight trucks in place. Great fun. All this along with watching the mainline trains at full steam as they headed North and then cruising back into Kings Cross.
Another story was I managed to befriend an adult trainspotter at the end of platform 10 ...one that didn't want me to accompany him to the nearest toilet for a bit of fun... yes there were plenty of those types! Instead he took a few of us to Nine Elms sheds where he knew someone and, like Alan, we spent an afternoon in the cabs and stood next to some magnificent machinery. He also took a few of us on a round trip on the Brighton Belle ...I think he had more money than sense! Great memories and Happy days!!
Barry recently started a thread on childhood hobbies which in his case was trainspotting. I feel that what interested you depended on your personal circumstances, where you lived and on what influences - unintended or not - the adults close to you had. The flat roof on Barry’s flats probably provided a near perfect platform to overlook the trains coming in and out of Highbury Station, while Roger’s story speaks for itself.
My mother worked for Harraps, the educational book publishers; this provided me writing paper, stamps and books. The A4 paper might have acted as padding for all the parcels that arrived from around the world and these parcels of books would have been heavy and therefore carried many stamps of various values to pay for the transit. So every now and then my mum would arrive home with a big envelope stuffed full of stamps on brown paper which had been torn off the packages by her fellow workers who knew that I had a small stamp collection. What came first, their envelopes or a start-up album from someone else, I do not know. A definite chicken and egg situation. I was hooked, though. I was one of those people, more common in men, that liked to collect.
In later years I came to realise that the ‘gifts’ I received nearly always contained the stamps of average values. I only saw high-value stamps which were torn or so badly postmarked as to make them worthless. My mum’s friends obviously collected themselves and kept the best for their own collections.
A by-product of my collection was my knowledge of the geographical information of the countries which always headed a new page in the albums that were mass produced in those days. Invariably it was one page per country; more if it was France or Germany, countries like that, but it always told you what the capital was, what the exports were, how big the population and occasionally other odd facts. I soaked it up effortlessly.
Fourth year, Commerce with Mr. Matthews. Not a subject I liked then but when I look back now, I realise I should have sailed through every lesson I took. Anyway, there I was, towards the front, sitting next to Percy Montoute, the only black kid in our class. He had terrible handwriting, I couldn’t ever cheat. I hear Mr. Matthews ask the class what is Liberia famous for? A strange question, but I knew, I collected stamps. They issued triangle ones, like Monaco. Everyone had them and they weren’t worth a penny. The class was silent. Matthews, at the back of the room, got annoyed. The class stayed silent. Finally I put my hand up. I don’t think he could believe it. Tell the class, boy, he said. I started to speak, he stopped me and said, stand up, boy, turn round, let us all hear you. I stood. Resigned. Why did I put my hand up? Slowly turned.
“Liberia was the first Free State in Africa for freed Negro slaves,” I said.
The silence lengthened. Percy pulled my sleeve and whispered, “You’re a genius, Sandy.” Didn’t have time to think about that, Matthews was thundering towards me. Exasperated, he shook me by the shoulders, and as I recall, he couldn’t understand if I knew something like that, why didn’t I actually participate in his lesson? Do better, boy? How was he to know I was a fool to myself? Some things you don’t forget.
Trains and buses were not for me, although I can understand the passion some people have for the vehicles themselves. Stamps I left behind and then looked at again many years later. Nowadays, unless you spend big money, you are paying out money for coloured pieces of paper. The history of it all is what counts. Age counts. Dinky toys? I had my army but they were something to play with and crash around the front room floor. These days I have a small eclectic DVD library. Some old, scratched London American 45’s. And books. Lots of books.
In the late fifties my step-granddad, who had also worked for Harraps, gave me the only two stamps he had. Gave me. A Penny Black and a Twopenny Blue; both imperforate. The first two issues. Ever. I had a Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue of the World and knew they were pukka. In 1958 the ‘Blue’ was catalogued at £14.
My Dad worked with a know-all. He said imperforate stamps were counterfeit; not worth a penny. For some reason I believed my dad and threw the ‘Blue’ into the fire. The know-all was wrong, wasn't he? I kept the ‘Black’, don’t know why, and sold it in the early eighties. We all live with regrets, don’t we?
I also collected football programmes. I saw the Arsenal versus Manchester United game pre-Munich. Clock End, at the front, right side of the goal. After the game I did what I always did, went round picking up the discarded programmes and keeping the best of them. Reckon I had ten good ones. I also wrote to every league club, enclosing a stamp-addressed envelope and asked if they had a programme left over from the last game. They always replied with the goods. It wasn’t about money in them days.
A man at Harraps went to Spurs one weekend and Leyton Orient the next. Gave my mum the programmes to give to me. I had some collection. Always over Arsenal getting the autographs. Jack Kelsey, Bill Dodgin, Vic Groves, David Herd, Joe Haverty, Danny Clapton and Joe Mercer, the manager. They treated us kids well.
Several years later in a fit of largesse I gave them all to Alan Droy, the youngest of the three Droy brothers who lived in Lewis Buildings as I did. One evening during the mid-seventies, at Danny Droy’s home at Highbury Barn, Micky Droy kindly told me that Alan had sold them for £35. More regrets, eh?
John Tythe
Back in 1965, we were given books to read for the CSE English exams, coming up in May/June 1966. One was: The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham, whose full name was John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris. You can understand why he only used the first two as his pen name.
Three years earlier a film had been made of the book, which was having a re-run showing at the ABC (formally the Savoy) in Stoke Newington Road and it was suggested (by the English teacher, whose name has been long forgotten), that we go see it, to help us with the exam. Off I went to the cinema, only to find it was X Certificate. At age fifteen, there was no way I was going to convince anyone that I was even 15, let alone 16. But I gave it a go, and was refused entry, by the over zealous ticket office attendant. When I explained why I needed to see it, she softened and said I could go in, but not to cause any trouble.
Anyway, the film was watched and like all films based on books, it was not a true representation of the book and so it was a total waste of time and money. I’m sure that the suggestion to watch the film was made because he, (the English Teacher) knew that most of us wouldn’t read the book and that we might at least get to know the basic plot, if we saw the film.
The other books were: A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute and Animal Farm by George Orwell, with the Play, Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw for a bit of Drama in out lives. As good as the books, (which I now know), were then, they held my interest not a jot and so I retained very little of their contents in my head, come exam time.
However, I had prior to the exam, read other books and the one that stuck in my head and still does was: The Technicolor Time Machine, by Harry Harrison. It sparked my fascination with Science Fiction, especially time travel.
The question posed in the exam was something along the lines of this: Write a review and outline the plot of a book that you have recently read and enjoyed.
So I wrote “ I assume that the instruction refers to one of the set books provided for the English Course, none of which I can say I really enjoyed, but as the instruction is non specific about the books, I will write about a book that fulfils the criteria”.
I got a C !
Now some of you may think that Time Travel is a load of old tosh, but think on this: I read the book in 1966 and sat the exam the same year, but if you Google the book, it wasn’t published until 1967. Which strangely echoes the story line plot!
Trainspotting – as recalled by some Barnsbury boys
That terrific compact book, the Ian Allen Trainspotters, was a real precious item of mine.
A few stories to tell. One was the time I bunked into the engine sheds at Kings Cross. This was with another Barnsbury lad, would have been after school. I just wish I could remember his name. What I do remember is, he was a wizard at gymnastics. We really pushed the boat out in so much as we stood on the engine platforms and had a good view of the cabins. There were engines still steaming and, being so close to them, was a revelation. I now realise what a cheeky thing it was to do as we could have been arrested or cautioned. After a while we did get our collars felt; it was inevitable. The railway police found us out and gave us a stiff warning. Not too bad as the risk we took was really worth it. I wonder how many other GoBBs have achieved this?
Another occasion was train spotting in Finsbury Park. There was a railway bridge not far from the boating lake. This was a favourite spot as we could see the Mallard Class travelling at high speed by the time they passed under this bridge. Red Biro lines drawn under the engine's plate numbers were usual in the collectors book. I have to admit the Busspotters book was important also, and another important event was when the Routemaster was brought into service. Those RTs were getting boring, I think. I used to look forward to the following year's edition.
I did try sitting at the end of the platforms at Kings Cross and then St. Pancras with a duffel bag full of sandwiches looking for the train numbers but gave that the elbow quickly as there seemed to be lots of adults doing the same thing. Couldn't have that.
I think my train and bus spotting years finished when I started going out with girls. I mean, surely, I couldn't take the Ian Allen books out on a date!!!
Alan French
Yep, I too was a train spotting anorak but as I spent all school holidays in Wales. My region of choice and necessity was LMS or The London Midland Railway. My interest was born in the fact that my grandfather was a main mine guard out of Euston to Holyhead and, at a tender age of six or seven, I was entrusted to the guard at Euston to chaperone my journey to Penmaenmawr, N. Wales, if he was not on duty.
Inevitably the guards were keen to pass on their rolls whilst on duty and I soaked it up. I was also able to collect numbers not normally available in the southern end of the service when the trains stopped at Crewe and Stafford, main intersections for North Wales, the Midlands and Scotland. My favourite engine was The Duchess of Montrose in its maroon livery, an engine that only occasionally did the Holyhead route.
My grandfather later transferred to become station telegraph officer at Llandudno Junction Station. This opened up a whole new area of spotting as there were engine and carriage sidings with small shunters, tank and mainline tank engines; as well as the larger long-distance engines, Princess and Coronation classes. In addition there appeared the first diesel railcars used on the
Betws-y-Coed single track line where a key was required to designate that train had right of passage on the line.
Unofficially I had rides on the footplates on engines in the sidings, travelled with the driver in the railcar on the single track and helped fire up some engines in the yard, and the adventure playground was the derelict hulks awaiting the breakers.
My interest in steam engines has never declined and in true anorak fashion I recently purchased an Ian Allan All Regions numbers book, and whilst it is not as easy now to spot those wonderful pieces of engineering, and age and physical ability is not what I’d like, it is possible to observe them from nostalgia clips appearing on the box. It is surprising just how many and of what diversity there are of engines still operational with heritage sites across the country and there still remains that thrill when observing another engine salvaged from the breakers back on the line.
Anoraks never die, they may deny they were ever of that ilk, but the interest is still there it remains dormant till it is rekindled by a innocent enquiry or a child's new found interest.
Roger Bartlett
Oh yeah, those were the days. I too spent nearly all my early days trainspotting at Kings Cross either at the end of platform 10 or preferably on a small branch line platform on that sat directly parallel to the tunnels. I have many fond memories of those famous giants of steam bursting out from the tunnel in their full glory as they headed in the platforms. I also spent loads of time on that bridge at Finsbury Park, but my favourite was down in the shunting yard that was adjacent to the Essoldo cinema in Caledonian Road. I managed to get to know a couple of shunter drivers and joined them bumping freight trucks in place. Great fun. All this along with watching the mainline trains at full steam as they headed North and then cruising back into Kings Cross.
Another story was I managed to befriend an adult trainspotter at the end of platform 10 ...one that didn't want me to accompany him to the nearest toilet for a bit of fun... yes there were plenty of those types! Instead he took a few of us to Nine Elms sheds where he knew someone and, like Alan, we spent an afternoon in the cabs and stood next to some magnificent machinery. He also took a few of us on a round trip on the Brighton Belle ...I think he had more money than sense! Great memories and Happy days!!