Hokey Kokey.

I pulled up at the lights next to an Ice Cream Van this week and was amazed at how little they have changed since my own career as an Ice Cream Man, killing time in the summer holidays. Still on offer was the ‘99’ and the ‘Oyster’. Even the boxes of wafers and cones looked exactly the same. How on Earth can they make a living in these days of marvellous Hagen Daas and Ben & Jerry’s available at all hours from Supermarkets?
For your amusement I have included a picture taken in 1972 of my pal, John Littlejohn, now a U.S.A. resident, and me on the right, with two cameras around my neck. The 35mm rangfinder camera was a Contax 2 and the twin lens reflex a MPP Microcord. I sold the Contax, but the Microcord bounced out of a shopping bag loosely fastened to the rack of a moped in Crete some years later. Gone forever, as have Suncream Dairies, my employer.

The Last Post

In the constantly changing urban environment, that is Queens Road, one thing remains a steady constant. This post box, now at a rather jaunty angle, probably following a dice with a delivery van, has been a link with the outside world since Clarendon Park was first built. Even in this age of super fast internet connections and e-mail, the humble envelope and stamp combination still has its place, be it to send a birthday card to a mate in a far flung place or to partake in the greatest pleasure available to the self employed, sending a clutch of invoices off at the end of a busy month. Odd how we take that red 2 inch x 10 inch slot so much for granted and grumble at a slight rise in cost every year. I actually think its pretty good value to be able to spend 30p and have something delivered to the other end of the country for the next day.... hopefully.