An update

By shendyNo Comments
That brings us to the end of the first box of 50 black & white films, which takes us to 1958 and basically the end of the student and National Service period.I've brought home about half of his slides, so I'm currently having a detour into some 1950s colour. I shall be posting some of those in the near future, before a return to the second box of black and white....
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"A" Company Sports Day

By shendy1 Comment
These shots are from the 16th May 1958, at the "A" Company sports day at Arborfield. The mandatory Tug O War, 5 Platoon. Quartermaster Wells in the long jump. "Keith" in the high jump. Is it just me, or is he going to have to be very careful about his landing in order to avoid it being really painful/dangerous? I've never seen anyone doing the high jump with a head-first dive before... Sgts Williams and Clarke, at what is presumably the refreshment area. More of that infernal Watneys!...
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"Pubs with the Wrens"

By shendyNo Comments
They certainly knew how to make their own entertainment in those days! This shot, from April 1958, is on a film titled "Pubs with the Wrens". Two of them appear to have been known as "Thing" and "It"... One thing to note is that my dad was just short of 26 when this was taken, and he has a noticeably, ahem, "high forehead". Fortunately I have not been blessed with quite such active genes in that department. ...
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"Blizzard"

By shendyNo Comments
I think the word "blizzard" might be a little excessive for what doesn't really appear to be too much snow, although nowadays this much snowfall would cause the entire country to grind to a halt for a couple of days.What's really interesting is to see a policeman still out there directing traffic in Piccadilly Circus. Actually, the surprise is not that they're still out there in the snow, it's that they're out there in the first place......
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Going Underground

By shendy1 Comment
These are Piccadilly Circus and Hyde Park Corner tube stations, from February 1958. In so many ways, these look pretty much as they do today. The second one is remarkable in that there's no-one else there - when did you last see an empty tube station? The advert in the first one caught my eye - "We Want Watney's Brown Ale". From what I understand, it was a reasonable brew in those days, long before the dreaded Watney's Red Barrel and Party Seven....
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Skiffle Group

By shendyNo Comments
August 1957, and some sort of street fair in Soho, with a skiffle group playing in the street - you can tell it's skiffle because someone is playing a tea chest. Even if you wanted one and could afford one, you weren't allowed to use a proper bass - it had to be the piece of string attached to a tea chest. It's in the rules of the International Skiffle Federation - look it up if you don't believe me....
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National Service

By shendy1 Comment
And now we get to one bit that I was quite looking forward to seeing - photos from my dad's time in National Service. This is early 1957, so probably early on in basic training. Not really too much that I can say about these, not knowing anything about it, but I think they are really interesting pictures - it's very obvious that it's not modern. This one is captioned "Murray, extinguished" This is from a bit later, and is simply titled "Ron reading comic". I'm sure a military expert out there would be able to identify the beret badge. There are more photos from National Service, and there is one film labelled "Pubs with the Wrens", which sounds mildly interesting! ...
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