In Starting Again

I have to say again that this is not a journal or a diary. My idea was to notice something that reminds me of a past memory. I'm now entering my 9th decade so with 8 to play with I have plenty to choose from. Born in1935, dare I say it, the same year as the King of Rock and Roll, I have lived through a war, a cold war and now a war on terror. All of them except the first nominally named Peace Time. Some hopes, somebody has always been fighting somewhere.
Today I have been musing on this and my other blog, History for 2525, on the changes that there have been in my life since I last wrote here. One, my husband has now retired and, bless him, is home with me all day. He is quite a bit younger than me so I have had some retirement on my own doing my own thing. No more. I have also gone back to real painting, watercolour and pen &ink, as versus digital virtual painting. I now work on an iPad, don't think I had it before, so time is limited. Plus I am doing lots of online university courses at Futurelearn.com. Can't recommend them highly enough. All to keep this old brain working.
This is all so different to old age as I observed in my youth. A few, very few, managed to keep lively and life expectancy was far less. Only my mother manage what is now considered almost normal and died aged 93 but father popped off at 77. My grand parents were in their 50s. So that is back to being born late 1800s. My great Grandmother, so I'm told, came downstairs on her 30th birthday with a black shawl over her head and announced she was 'now old'. Me, I remarried in my 30s.  Still going 44 year later.
I can't recall people talking about dementia, strokes or many other illnesses such as cancer. Now its pushed at one everywhere you go. Well I'm fighting it all the way. Though have to admit my short term memory is shot. So I am off and running again, I will write here when some memory hits me.

Back Again

I see I have not written anything since 2011! That is terrible and a shame. So much has happened since them. I am going to be 80 in three days time. We have just seen the 70th anniversary of VE day, the end of WWII. I now work on an Apple iPad and an iMac. Gone are Micrsoft Windows. And I am doing actual painting rather than virtual and this weekendI won a first prize for drawing. I am going to put this up on my other blog and then try to resume them - because they are worth it.

Memories of WWII as a child

I haven’t written anything on this blog for a while but something jogged my memory today. We are on holiday (vacation) for a week but having what has been termed in the fullest sense a ‘stay-cation’ Usually we travel somewhere and rent a cottage or a caravan as we have a dog. As we live in a town considered a holiday seaside town and live in a nice modern cottage with all mod cons and kitted out just how we like it – we said ‘why go away?’. Petrol costs, the cottages and caravans cost and may not be as comfortable. So we have stayed home. It has done nothing but rain. Today was the first dry day so grabbing the dog by its lead we walked down town, about a mile away, sat in our favourite café and had a coffee, booked to go to our local amateur theatre and then strolled round town.

In the centre is a lovely little park known as ‘The Lawns’ with a brook, full of ducks and black swans, running down to the sea. On the lawn they were holding a charity do with stalls selling anything they could. One had china and glass bric-a-brac and this is where the memory was stirred. Two wall plates depicted aeroplanes of the second world war, bombers a Lancaster and a Wellington flying over farms and fields with a child in the foreground running and happily pointing upwards.

Now my memories were not so idyllic as this but when I was just rising seven years old I was out on my own, I’m an only child, pushing my doll’s pram and generally playing on some nearby waste ground. I heard the roar of a plane coming and looking up a fighter was coming right towards me very low. I was terrified as I had already been machine gunned by a plane earlier in the war. I started to run home pushing my pram and I remember ducking as is sped over me. I thought it was a German plane but as it swooped over I saw the British red, white and blue roundels. It was so close I could see the pilot in the cockpit.

When I hear about wars today and children being caught up in raids I remember my time of fear. I was lucky, I lived in a town that wasn’t bombed too much as the Germans were saving it to take and use as a command centre to take London. We did suffer the flying bombs or doodle bugs as they were called. One never knew where they would land. If you heard the engine stop you stood still and waited until you heard it explode. If you were still there you breathed again and carried on with life. This was all part of my life from the age of four to ten. I still jump at loud noises and know if it is an explosion by the ‘woof-woof’ in the ears as the air passes. Yes I heard explosions since, in London, set off by the IRA.

I didn’t buy the plates but only because I didn’t have the cash on me to do so. I had enough to buy a pair of knitted mittens and a blue bead necklace. Probably better.

Happy New Year for 2011

Started a new blog page today with the idea I have been working on of writing up today’s happenings as a history for the future. I couldn’t get any of the titles I wanted so had to go with historyin2525


Hopefully it will be a kind of social history for people in the far future to be able to see how an older person lives in 2011 or more.

I have got over my Gallbladder operation now or at least I think I have. The only unpleasant bit is a scar that is not healing well and hurts. Another trip to the docs. I haven’t been doing much except putting weight back on that I now have to remove --- again. I have been doing a lot of old lady knitting trying to keep my fingers working. Oh yes one of my knee replacements is playing up, another reason for a trip to the doctors. Other than that we, like the rest of the country have had snow and its been very cold even for Devon and particularly where I live which generally does not have snow.



Happy new year to one and all. Julie

HOMAGE TO LORD SUGAR AND HIS AMSTRAD COMPUTERS.

      Having downloaded  Lord Alan Sugars book just out, ‘What you see is what you get’, onto my latest tablet computer sporting ‘Kindle’ its contents reminded me of my early assays into computing and the fact that without the then Mr. Alan Sugar I would not have had two books published nor have a very full computer life in my 75th year.

      My first introduction to using a computer was as an input operator in St Thomas’ hospital in London in the mid ‘70s. My terminal was all one piece connected to a giant mainframe computer locked away in the bowels of the hospital. Slow was not the word I would have used to describe the turn over rate, sometimes one would input a few details, press ‘Return’ and have time to do a full manicure. Having been a pretty poor typist I found the fact that you could undo and redo fantastic. If ever they bring out a computer to use at home, I declared to my husband, I am going to have one.

                            Me on my first computer at the hospital

        Home computers did appear but were way beyond my financial reach even if I had got to the giddy heights of £20.00 a week. A good wage for a woman in those days. Circumstances changed and it was many years before I heard about the Amstrad 8512 called by everyone ‘A Word Processor’. By this time I had moved to Devon and I knew I had to find a job to save up to buy one. Work was hard to come by and I managed to find a part time job in a pie factory. Six months later I had enough and with my husband went into Exeter to buy my first computer.

       I loved it – Locoscript, floppy discs and all. In no time I was writing articles, books, and much more. I had always did like writing but my typing and spelling were awful. I joined the local writing circle and sometime later I started writng a book that I managed to get published. At this time I became interested in Numerology and thinking it needed a hand book the ordinary person could follow I wrote that too. This I had published by Thorsons of Harper Collins. I am afraid that was the height of my 15 minutes of fame.

       I went on to use the ‘word processor’ to publish a local magazine and edit a national club’s magazine. I wanted to move onto a better computer and bought a 2000 Amstrad series. This was the computer that bombed for Amstrad although I found it fairly OK. It was a little light on power but it did have a Windows program on it. We tried it and sent a short letter to the printer. We sent it and sent it – until three a.m. when we gave up and sat taking for ten minutes. Then lo and behold – it printed! Windows came off and we went back to Locoscript. I even started a Numerology business sending out readings that I printed on the computer.

      Later we bought more and more powerful computers, not Amstrad. I even had a business teaching people Windows and Word. We are still very computer minded and have several different kinds around the house and touch screen phones that work like computers. Not bad for a 75 year old. Many thanks Lord Sugar, without you I could not do the computer art I enjoy so much – and a bit of blog writing now and then. Thank you.
      Some of my computer art. More on http://www.flickr.com/photos/philipjulie/

Another Operation

I've had another operation, gallbladder this time. At least it is not in an embarrassing place this time. A modern keyhole surgery op as well. I am supposed to get better quicker and the anesthetics are so much better as well. I used to feel like I was a piece of silver paper being crushed and thrown out of my body but now you just drift off to sleep. Wonderful and very little after effect. I don't know if I am getting better any quicker as I am in quite a lot of pain at the moment, sitting up from lying down is the worst. Best of all it was day surgery and I was home that day.
I have no complaints about our health service I personally think we are so, so lucky to have it. The people who looked after me on my day in hospital could not have been better or kinder, Thank you to all of them in day surgery, Torbay Hospital, Devon.

Battle of Britain Memories

I was only five but yes, I do remember the Battle of Britain in the air. I remember watching vapour trails and hearing the wine of planes chasing each other and having 'Dog Fights'. I was in Kent and it all went on overhead. I suppose I heard many thongs said by the adults in the family.


One Sunday we were all gathered at my Grandfather's house when a deep noise was heard of hundreds of German bombers coming over us. They reached from horizon to horizon and the men said things like

'London has had it this time'

Me on the terrace that Sunday

The droning noise gradually went away and I and my young cousins were allowed out of the Morrison table shelter. The noise started again but with the added whine of the fighters and bangs and crashes. Back under the table we went but the men of the family wanted to look so my memories were through them. They shouted and cheered for ages and watched planes coming down with trailing black smoke. My French Grandmother went hysterical trying to make them come indoors but they stayed out on the terrace for a long time. Eventually they gave in as shrapnel, shell cases and bombs began to rain down. Later we heard a nearby woof of a close bomb, no noise if it was close. And it certainly was. We were told later that a bomb had been watched coming right down on our house but a something made it turn and hit a house two doors up the road.

The next day the garden was filled with bits of metal any which could have kill somebody out there. Grandma was right. The formation so uniform in going to London came back in every direction chased by Spitfires and I suppose Hurricanes. So my memories are more of the sounds but I had a glimpse of those German bombers going to London before Grandma dragged us indoors.