Saturday, August 26, 2006

I remember when the bar staff used to give you a warm welcome when you walked into the Anchor.

I remember (long pause) "mmm, that Condor moment". It was an advert, I think, for a particular brand of tobacco.

I remember one of my OU tutors called Joan - a very nice lady - who couldn't come in one week because, we were told, she had the flu. The next week we found out that she had been diagnosed with leukaemia. A week or so later a few of us attended her funeral.

I remember a young dog - a golden labrador called Lucy - who used to follow the children around the estate at Elmer Sands each year. She would even follow them down on to the beach. Or perhaps it was they that followed her.

I remember R.... C......, an old Star sub who took redundancy and came to work for me at the Staines News. He used to say that local papers were a great place to start your journalism career and a great place to come back to. I learned some time after I had left that the editor "had to let him go" because he was subbing an agony aunt's column in the Leader, the sister free paper, and in an answer to a letter about child behaviour problems, needing an extra couple of lines, he had added words to the effect: "If that fails, give him a clip round the ear".

I remember Green Shield Stamps.

I remember The Lotus Eaters, a TV series set somewhere mediterranean starring Ian Hendry, Wanda Ventham and Maurice Denham.

I remember frequently getting Maurice Denham and Denholm Elliot mixed up. Although they have very different names, in my defence they were both such excellent actors.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

I remember receiving a rejection slip from the script unit at The Bill. It was the highlight of my career.

I remember Potter's Museum of Curiosities when it was in Arundel.

I remember Transformers (robots in disguise).

I remember in the TV series Kung Fu, as Kwai Chang Caine (David Carradine, quite possibly as American as apple pie) strolled into town each week, people would stare and say "look at his slitty eyes" and curse him for being Chinese. But apart from him looking a bit myopic, I just couldn't see what they were on about. Loved the series though.

I remember an excellent BBC television series based on the ghost stories of M R James. David Buck and the wonderful Freddie Jones were involved. There were maggots falling out of the eye sockets of a corpse so my schoolboy imagination was quite excited. I'd never seen anything like it.

I remember the TV Comic.

I remember a book I used to read at my grandmother's all about fishing and cooking the fish that you caught. In the chapter on the chub, its advice was to cook the chub on a piece of wood, throw away the fish and eat the wood.

I remember my first American Hot at Pizza Express. My palate was obviously more delicate then, because I couldn't eat all the chillies.