Time passes too quickly

Taken in 1986. Drew was three and Lauren was six years old and we were having a holiday in a house near a beach at Bateman's Bay.
The kids had just finished lunch when I sat them down on the front porch and snapped what has become my favourite photo of them when they were young. The smiley faces are heart-warming.

Lauren is now a mother and her children - my grandchildren - are the same ages as the two shown above.
Matilda is nearly three and William is six.

Time really does fly past.

".....пять, четыре, три, два, одно, воспламенения"

The heading translates as the last six seconds in the countdown for a rocket launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome, USSR.
What on earth (or in space) does that have to do with anything? I hear you ask.

Well, I was a child of the space-age.
When the USSR launched Sputnik in 1957, I was just on 11 years old and from that moment I followed the space-race so keenly that I would lay awake at night in my boarding-school bed listening (on a small transistor radio with ear-piece) to The Voice Of America short-wave broadcasts of every US space launch.
The Russians weren't as forth-coming; they would only publicly announce after the event (and then only if it was successful) but the excitement I felt wasn't any less.

On 12th. April 1961 the first man went into space: Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth.
This was science-fiction come to life and it didn't matter that the hero was Russian - it was the event itself that was awesome.

Anyway - getting to the point - I recently discovered that the type of watch that Gagarin wore into space was available on the internet and, after doing some research, I happened upon the example shown here.

The watch-band and the dial are reproductions - modern replacements for what must have been very tired 50-year old originals - but the movement, case, crystal and back-plate are exactly as issued in 1961.

It was a hand-wound Shturmanskie (often spelt without the 'h') with central seconds complication and a hacking feature that allowed the watch to be precisely stopped and synchronised with a given time signal.

The Shturmanskie that Gagarin wore into space had a highly finished (including Geneva striping!) 17 jewel, shock protected movement. The movement was housed in a chrome plated, two-piece case measuring 33 mm across, 12 mm high, with a 16 mm lug size and had a stainless steel screw back.

A little item of nostalgia with which to commemorate the 48th. anniversary of the event and something which I will enjoy wearing occasionally.

Once Upon a Time....

I was wandering through an old family photo album recently and in amongst the collection was this one of my youngest sister, Venette. She was 2 or 3 years old and appearing in her first concert.
The venue would have been the Kendall School of Arts, the centre of culture for the Camden Haven valley in the 1950's.

Down through the years this photograph has become known in the family as "The Reluctant Fairy". It's about time it was shared with a wider audience.

It's his eyes!

We were having a barbecue and I noticed that my son's dark-glasses perfectly reflected a plate of sausages.......

Note the hat; it used to be mine!

I demand your attention!

There are times when we all have to pause whatever task in which we may be involved, for many different reasons. One reason might be that one's office assistant is demanding one's attention and, until given, he or she will not budge from their position.

Such was the case when I was doing some work at home and my assistant decided that it was time for a meal-break........

(Photo taken with Nokia mobile telephone held out to side in right hand)
This staring contest lasted for about twenty seconds before I caved in.
After all - who wants to explain to their boss that the work couldn't be completed because a cat was sitting on it?

Collectible retro-toys

Two weeks ago we visited Braidwood - a small, heritage-listed, town between Canberra and the coast. It has some interesting shops which sell a wide range of items, from antiques, to oil lamps, to 1950's clothing.

One of the shops happens to be an outlet for reproduction 1950's clock-work, Japanese, tin-plate toys. These days the toys are made in China and are produced for a limited world-market - they aren't the type of thing that you would always find in your local "Toys-R-Us".

I happened to pick up two of these, the first being a robotic figure named "Chief Robot."
When the chief is wound up and placed on a flat surface he moves ahead and then turns to the right, repeating this action until the mechanism winds down. This is accompanied by sparks shooting about behind the little window in his mid-section. No doubt these sparks are produced by a flint-and-wheel arrangement similar to a cigarette lighter.
Underneath is a protruding cam-operated lever which operates on a cyclic basis, pushing against the table surface and lifting the left-hand wheel off the table, thus causing the robot to turn right and then continue its march.

The other character I bought is called the "Happy Wanderer" and this item is made for only two distributors - one in Spain and the other here in Australia.

This is a real delight.
When wound up the duck-like figure pedals his tricycle in a large arc, with his articulated legs flying up and down on the pedals and the three-bladed propeller on his hat whirling around in a blur.
Very colourful when operating.

I was interested to learn - and be shown - that originals of such toys bring vast sums at auctions, a nice copy of the Wanderer realising over AUS$2000 when sold last year in the USA.

At least mine are affordable and, because of that, I can demonstrate them when the grand-children visit without having to do so behind armoured glass!

Easter, 1972. The "Dirty Weekend"

(Scanned from a 35mm slide; camera Olympus Trip)
Exactly thirty-seven years ago - one year before we were married - my girlfriend and I decided to spend Easter fishing for trout at the base of Tantangara Dam, in the Snowy Mountains of NSW. This is where the Murrumbidgee River rises and starts its journey to the Murray-Darling system.

So we packed the little 1965 VW Beetle with the hired 2-man tent, sleeping bags, fishing gear and supplies and, on a windy and cold Good Friday we departed Toongabbie, in Sydney's western suburbs, and headed off down the Hume Highway into what was to be an abbreviated "dirty weekend" (all our friends reckoned that's why we were going away, as the GF was living with her parents).


(Scanned from a 35mm slide; camera Olympus Trip)
It was the coldest Easter for many, many years.
Not only did we have a howling gale to contend with but also sleet. It was snowing at a slightly higher altitude than where we were situated.
Although it was a very picturesque location, the natural beauty was completely unappreciated by both of us as we froze our backsides off. I even had to create a makeshift wind-break by stringing a tarp between two trees in an effort to reduce the wind-strength at base camp to something less than cyclonic!

We stayed one night (Friday) and, as it was so cold, we slept in our clothes, each in his/her own sleeping bag and kept awake by the snuffling of wombats as they ate the bread that we left outside the tent..


(Scanned from 35mm slide; camera Olympus Trip)
On the Saturday afternoon, with no improvement in the weather, we packed up and headed off to Old Adaminaby, arriving at the camping site in near darkness.
I had great trouble getting the tent pegs into the ground and it wasn't until the following morning that we discovered I'd been trying to pound them into the solid sandstone base of what had been an old building site.
At least we were able to have hot showers and warm ourselves but this night we slept in the car seeing that the tent looked like a partially collapsed hot air balloon.

Sunday morning we headed back to Sydney, suffering from a flat tyre en-route, which we had fixed at Queanbeyan.

And so ended our weekend of rampant passion.
We still laugh about it every Easter.

School-days (continued)

The period is now towards the end of my first year of high-school - the start of summer, November 1958.
In the senior-college we were offered a choice of summer sports; cricket, rowing or tennis. As I hated cricket and loved boats I chose rowing, which I didn't do much of due to my small and light stature. So I was made a coxswain, starting off coxing fours and, in the final year in which I was active in the sport (1962), the college 2nd. eight.

This photo was taken - as mentioned above - in November 1958. I can remember the names of two of the crew - not bad after 50 years.

Here's a version that I colourised so as to display the school colours - blue and gold.

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Fast-forward 5 years and it is November 1963. I had been a member of the college pipe-band for three years and had attained the rank of Drum Sergeant - I played the side drum (or "snare" drum, as some know it).

The college band was the largest school pipe-band in the world at one time and a decade after I finished my schooling the band was invited to the renowned Edinburgh Military Tattoo, in Scotland. I was very envious.

Incidentally, the cost to be fully kitted out in my regalia (see below) was very high, somewhere in the region of (in today's prices) AUS$2,000.
Fortunately for the parents, the school supplied the entire uniform, which was returned at the end of one's membership of the band.

Every ANZAC Day we would lead a contingent in the annual march through the streets of Sydney and throughout the school year we would be invited to attend fairs, garden parties, fetes, openings, balls......the list was endless. It was a very, VERY successful way to meet girls!

The photo above is of those band members who were leaving the college at the end of the 1963 school year - as was I (photo below). (Note: We are sans headgear - it was a deliberately informal pose.)

This was a very emotional time, saying goodbye to good friends, most of whom we would never see again. Funnily enough, down the years and quite by chance I met up with two of the lads in this photo.
Life is funny.

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The final photo in this series is of the Macintyre House seniors.
There were six boarding houses and I was in "Mac", as it was known, from 1958 through 1963 - my last year. In our final year the senior boys had a few perks and were treated as young adults rather than boys.
The best year at college, definitely.
Several of us even chipped in to buy an old 1939 Pontiac so that we could get from Bellevue Hill to Bondi Beach. When we finished the year we just walked away from the old heap and left it parked in the street.

That's me in the centre (the smallest). Two very good mates are also in the pic and, do you know, I can remember the names of everyone shown.

That completes this visit into the past.

Nostalgia - BK's Schooldays.

Just a few days ago one of my internet-forum friends posted a photo of himself which was taken in 1961 for his high-school yearbook.
This led to a bit of discussion, including how here in Australia we have a tradition of end-of-year group photos rather than the "yearbook" so common in the USofA.
So I threatened to post these types of pix, taken when I was at boarding school in Sydney between 1956 and 1963. Fortunately my mother had kept these and had given them back to me after I became a parent myself and understood the sentimental (and family history) value of such things.
Tonight I scanned a few of what I consider to be the most memorable and present them for your amusement. They are in chronological order.
This first one was taken at the end of 1956 - late November, just before school broke up for the annual summer holidays which, back then, extended from end of November until the end of January.
I had just had my 11th. birthday (November), having joined the college at the start of the school year back in January of 1956, and would have been finishing my 5th. Year, or penultimate year in primary school.
(Like all the images in this blog, if you click on them you will be able to see a much larger version)
The photo is of all the boarders who were in the prep-school for that year. I am the small, dark-haired kid in the 4th. row, extreme right....in front of the column.
We were wearing our summer uniform of khaki shirt, shorts, leather sandals and the school tie....blue with gold/yellow diagonal stripes.
The adults comprised the various house-masters and the school matron and assistant matron.
The location was at Bellevue Hill, in Sydney's eastern suburbs.

This next one was also at prep-school, but in 1957. It is of the 4th.XV - Rugby, of course! I played fly-half some weeks and break-away other weeks.

I'm the one holding the ball. I would have been going on 12 here, as the photo was taken at the end of the football season - about September.
Uniform was yellow/gold jersey, dark-blue shorts and dark-blue socks with yellow/gold tops.
My mum - bless her - always considered this as my cutest photo from college!

I think this is enough to be going on with tonight - I don't want to scare you off!
I'll pop the others up over Easter.

Time on my hands.

Quite recently - like, within the past month or two - I have developed an interest in the collection of small horological devices......watches.
Not just any old watch but specifically the Seiko Bell-matic model, which was made between 1966 and 1978.I remember wanting one of these back then but could not afford it, as they were very expensive; newly-weds also have different priorities, like setting up house and paying mortgages.

I'm not quite sure what has sparked my interest 30 years on from that period in my life.
I think I may have seen mention of the Bell-matic somewhere on the 'net and, as usually happens, one link led to another link and so on, until I discovered a web-site forum devoted to the model.So I bought a couple of them - not pristine, concours-winning examples but in good running order, quite presentable and very reasonably priced.
This is they (these are those?)......
(If you click on each image you can view them full-size)
The reason they are termed "Bell-matic" is that they have an alarm feature.
This is set by rotating the inner bezel (using the crown, pulled out to its first "click"), with the red segment and little arrow, to the time that you wish the alarm to sound. The crown is then pushed back in and used to wind the alarm and the little button at the 2 o'clock position is pulled out to make the alarm "live" and pushed in to stop it. (The crown is also used, in the conventional fashion, to adjust the time by pulling it out to the second "click").

The alarm is mechanical: a tiny striker inside the movement actually beats against the inside of the watch case, creating a metallic buzz and vibration.

They came in a range of styles and colours for the dials and were available in 17-jewel movements (the most common), 27-jewel and 21-jewel (the rarest and most expensive).That on the left, with the gold face, was manufactured in October 1977 and the one on the right is from July 1976. Both are 17-jewel movements.
Mint-condition Bell-matics may cost in the region of three or four-hundred Australian dollars.
Mine cost far less than that!

34 Keswick Street, Cowra

In June 2008 I was successful in tracking down the address in Cowra at which we lived when I was between 6-months and 3-years of age.
I was curious about what might be at 34 Keswick Street - maybe the old home had been torn down, replaced by a service station or a block of flats or something. Other than a couple of old small, sepia-toned and faded snapshots taken by my mother, showing the backyard and part of the front veranda, I had no idea what the place looked like.

You can imagine my amazement when I pulled up in front of the residence shown in the photograph (if you click on the image you will get a larger view).
Unfortunately the owner and his wife were not there on the Saturday morning that I arrived unannounced, but the kindly neighbour saw me and, after introductions, showed me around the outside of the house, which is listed on the National Heritage Trust.

I don't think we could have had the whole place back then (1946 - 1948), as it is way too big for just two parents and one child. I reckon it was a twin-tenancy, with the house effectively becoming two apartments.
I was able to match the old photos with the positions from where they were taken so long ago and sure enough, apart from new paint, the architecture is identical.

I feel as if I can say with some truth that, for part of my life, I lived in a mansion!