20th Century
Desert Journey, Part One
In 1961 my uncle, John Alldridge spent some time on the set of Lawrence of Arabia and reported his experiences for the Birmingham Mail – Jerry F Akaba, Jordan I am writing this on the [more…]
20th Century
20th Century
Report From Israel, 1957 – Part Six
In 1957 my uncle, John Alldridge visited Israel for the Birmingham Mail. This is the last of his reports. – Jerry F When an Israeli defines a civilian as a soldier on leave for eleven [more…]
20th Century
Report From Israel, 1957 – Part Five
In 1957 my uncle, John Alldridge visited Israel for the Birmingham Mail. This is the fifth of his reports. – Jerry F Eilat, Gulf of Akaba You can’t go home (they said) until you’ve bathed [more…]
20th Century
Postcard From Oman
Bob? Remember when I told you despite all the tall tales of derring-do in exotic locations, I work in a supermarket and don’t actually have a passport? Tempted the fates. Something’s cropped up. The sort [more…]
20th Century
Report From Israel, 1957 – Part Four
In 1957 my uncle, John Alldridge visited Israel for the Birmingham Mail. This is the fourth of his reports. – Jerry F Kefar Hanasi, Upper Galilee Not so very long ago, Gershon Epstein was a [more…]
20th Century
Crash of Bristol 175 Britannia 101– 4th February 1954
On the morning of February 4, 1954, G-ALRX took off from Filton on a test flight, with Captain A.J. ‘Bill’ Pegg at the controls. Flight Engineers for the trip were Ken Fitzgerald and Gareth Jones. [more…]
20th Century
Monuments, Ley Lines And a White-Coated Jobsworth
Salisbury Plain The 1949 page of our old family photo album is confidently captioned ‘Bournemouth’ but neglects any images of the Hampshire Riviera resort. Not to worry. They say that getting there is half of [more…]
20th Century
Postcard From Kaunas
As 2nd cities go Kaunas, seems at least, at first glance, to be a pretty unprepossessing sort of place regardless of whether you arrive by air, road or rail. Arriving by train reveals an industrial [more…]
20th Century
Teh 1970’s & all that
One of the problems with claims that our situation is “just like the 1970s,” is that very few adults of the period are still around to share the memory. It is only later in life [more…]