Working for an airline sometimes (very occasionally) we were offered cheap trips on a particular route if the airline was doing a ‘promo’ to encourage people to fly to a particular destination. Air France in the early 1970’s offered a round trip ticket to Paris via their Caravelle service for £7, (£100 today or US […]
It is fifty years since Richmal Crompton died at the age of 78 in 1969. Her original idea was to write stories of children for adults, but they ended up becoming favourites of the children instead, and still are today. Over 12 million copies of her books were sold in the UK, at the time […]
At 122, 000 gt, I thought that perhaps Celebrity Silhouette was too large to berth in Stockholm, and this was the reason why we berthed at Nynashamn, which is forty five minutes, by coach, from Stockholm. I have since found out the Emerald Princess (113,561 gt) was able to berth in Stockholm during her visit, and […]
Two and a half times around the deck equals one mile (1.66 km) Yesterday we thought we’d do the mile before breakfast, only to find that the deck we wished to use was ‘closed’ due to the crew washing down and they didn’t want anyone to slip and hurt themselves. We climbed to various other […]
After leaving Nuddea I was asked to attend an interview in London. I was a little apprehensive because I thought it was because of the near closing of Liverpool docks, when I asked a crane driver not to rip the bottom out of the cargo. It wasn’t, it was to tell me that I was […]
Over fifty-five years of flying as a passenger, with comments on various airlines that I have used. In alphabetical order, not in historical order. I flew part way across the Pacific Ocean in the above aircraft, and years later I found her at a small aerodrome near where I live – no longer in service. […]
Over the sea We put the house with a Real Estate agent this time and on the 20th March 1980 we sold it again, but this time to another family. The problem was that they would not sign the contract until they had sold their house – which was understandable when mortgage rates were at […]
James Brooke (29th April 1803 – 11 June 1868) The picture is from a painting by Sir Francis Grant in 1847 Sarawak, the name brings forth ideas of head hunters and ‘daring do’ from comics that I read in the 1950’s. Little did I know that one day I would sail up the Sarawak River to the town […]
Chakdara We loaded tea in Trincomalee for five days before sailing to Madras. I stayed on board this time because I was not going to be accused of not being aware of our sailing time. Our next leg took us from Madras to Aden, which is across the harbour from Little Aden – at least we […]
Sir Charles James Jessel. 1st Baronet (1860 – 1928) In 1899 the British North Borneo Company decided that the area, opposite Gaya island, on the main island of Borneo, was a good place to create a settlement. The area was developed and it was called Api-api (which means ‘fire’ in English) and later changed to […]
James Brooke (29th April 1803 – 11 June 1868) The picture is from a painting by Sir Francis Grant in 1847 Sarawak, the name brings forth ideas of head hunters and ‘daring do’ from comics that I read in the 1950’s. Little did I know that one day I would sail up the Sarawak River to the town […]
Our third and final promo was with Aer Lingus – the above shows Aer Lingus B 707 at Manchester Airport.We picked New York again, but this time we didn’t fly direct, but via Dublin and Shannon. The memorable thing about this flight for me was at Dublin Airport while we were in transit. I visited […]
There comes a time when all this gender neutral rubbish has to be laughed out of sight. We now have ‘neutral’ Mother’s Day cards, so that a very small minority are not ‘offended’. How about the rest of who might be offended? What happened to the child celebrating their own mother’s special day? In the […]
A friend of mine commented on an old post, (which I posted in 2015), about cooking a Christmas turkey that doesn’t dry out, so I thought I’d post the recipe again, because Christmas is only a few weeks away. Christmas comes but once and year, & this is the only time my wife and I […]