20/08/2009 by admin.

Today my grandson and also my great nephew are expecting A level results. I wish them both well and will look forward to hearing from them.. Doesn’t it take you back to your own waiting day - in my case, and showing my generation, “Higher School Certificate”? With heart in mouth I opened my results and confirmed my expectations (or hopes) in three papers but was slightly disappointed in two others. I wanted to read English Literature at first and since the high marks were there I got immediate admission to Manchester under the then famous H.B. Charlton. But I didn’t go there. An ambitious headmaster wanted me to stay on and take the Cambridge Open Scholarship exams. In December of the same year I was awarded an Open Scholarship, not by my chosen college but by a neighbouring one, and diverted my interests to another subject . Was I sorry I didn’t read English at Manchester? Well maybe I was - after all I could have ended up as a best-selling author or, maybe, even better, as a highly-paid advertising copywriter. Regrets I (might) have had a few.

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16/08/2009 by admin.

Well the answer is yes it is nearly. On that fateful day in September 1939 I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing as do most people of my age or older. I was 9 and we had just graduated from an old battery radio which used heavy and dangerous “accumulators” to Radio Rentals - a kind of low voltage cable radio - and my mam, dad and sister who was eight years my senior huddled around it to hear Mr Chamberlain pronounce his famous words. As a 9 year old I was already an eager newspaper reader so I had a pretty good idea of what it was all about but not exactly why it had happened. I say “huddled” but I have an idea that it was a reasonably pleasant day and I don’t remember a coal fire (our only means of heating). I remember my dad speculating on whether he would be called up but doubting it - correctly as it turned out - since he was just about to celebrate his 50th birthday and had served in the First World War (which seemed a long time ago in 1939 but had finished only 12  years before I was born). What I don’t remember is whether or not I was pleased with this observation or whether I might have been quite glad if he had been young enough to go. Later on he seemed a bit sad himself that he was too old though he made a rather bad air raid warden especially as we had no air raids nearer than about 12 miles. Still he had never been unemployed since i was born and enjoyed “doing his bit” in his spare time though it kept him from the pub a bit.

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