Category Archives: Nostalgia

Favourite Books

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I’ve nearly finished reading The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins which I am enjoying. I had been thinking of doing a blog post about favourite books as I often find that people have one particular book which they go back to time and time again at times of stress or just to cheer themselves up. Sort of comfort blanket books. By coincidence the character of Mr. Betteredge in the The Moonstone has a comfort book and his is Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.

So I thought it was about time I got around to this post.

My mother-in-law’s comfort book was Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I dread to think how many times she must have read it and for that reason it is a book which I would never read. Not even if it was the only book which I had on a desert island.

While there are books which I re-read every now and then like Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and all of Jane Austen’s, I think the one which fits the bill best as my comfort read is Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. True it isn’t very comforting and in parts it is positively uncomfortable but there is just something about it and it grabs you in from the very first sentence – “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

If you wanted to write a book I would say it would be a good idea to avoid doing what is basically an updated re-write of a classic, as you would think that it would be bound to be a pale shadow of the original. But du Maurier certainly managed to come up with something which is itself worthy of the description of classic.

And if you don’t feel up to reading the book the original film starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine is always a treat to watch.

So, if you have some favourite comfort reads, I would be interested to know what they are.

Scottish Words

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I think that the various countries and regions that make up Britain all have dialect words of their own which are in danger of being lost.

My son’s partner comes from Rochdale and the only word which she knows from that area is ‘crockle’ – which apparently means to go over on your ankle. I really like it, but it isn’t a word which you can use very often, unless you’re unlucky enough to have very weak ankles.

I’ve noticed recently that quite a few Scottish words have found their way into mainstream British vocabulary. The words manky and minging spring to mind and I think that possibly we have Justin and Colin to thank for those ones being taken up by the rest of the country. At first my attitude was — they’re nicking our culture, but I’ve decided that it is a better option than the alternative, which is losing the words altogether.

Scottish dialect words tend to be looked down upon by the so called ‘middle classes’, I think they are seen as being ‘common’, and we can’t have that can we? So quite a lot of words have been in danger of dying out, which would be a real shame.

To combat this I’m starting a series of weekly blog posts featuring one Scottish word each week.

This week’s word is – scunnered.

Scunnered means that you are sick fed up with something or someone, you are totally disgusted to the point of feeling ill.
In the childrens T.V. programme Supergran there was a character called Skunner Campbell, slightly different spelling but he had the name because he was a dastardly character whom Supergran was absolutely scunnered with.

I am scunnered with the government because they seem to be letting the bankers away with everything and won’t step in to stop them from giving themselves massive bonuses.

So you get the general idea of scunnered, I’m sure. Use it – don’t lose it.

Upstairs Downstairs

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I was really pleased to discover from enchanted serenity of period films that Upstairs Downstairs is being done by the BBC next year. It will be set around 165 Eaton Place again with Jean Marsh playing the part of Rose as usual. She now has the position of housekeeper and the action takes place in 1936.

When I first heard about this I thought that they were going to do a straight remake, just casting different actors in the parts of Mrs. Bridges and Mr. Hudson and company, which I’m sure would have been disastrous, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Now I’m really looking forward to seeing the updated version, which should be very interesting given what was going on in the country at that time.

Kelvingrove Museum & Art Gallery

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Kelvingrove

Kelvingrove Museum And Art Gallery

This Museum and Art Gallery is a real home from home to just about everyone who grew up in or around the Glasgow area. It is the most visited museum in Britain if you don’t count the London ones which obviously get masses of tourist trade.

I think our mothers took us from a very early age partly because it was somewhere to take kids which was warm and dry, which is always a bonus when you live in such a wet climate.

It’s a great habit to get into though and I’m sure that it has given millions of people a real love and appreciation of the arts over the years.

We were deprived of it for four whole years whilst refurbishment took place and I was chewing at the bit to get there when it re-opened. So was everybody else apparently because the place was absolutely heaving with people and it was great to see so many youngsters for whom it must have been their first visit.

Kelvingrove was built for the 1901 International Exhibition and although other buildings were erected for it they were only ever meant to be temporary for the duration of the exhibition.

The International Exhibition was a great success and the profits from it were kept in a fund which was used to purchase art works and artefacts.

It seems hard to believe but in 1951 the fund still had £8,200 in it. In London the Salvador Dali painting called Christ of St. John of the Cross was being exhibited with a price tag of £12,000 on it.

I think there must have been quite a lot of haggling but eventually Dali accepted the £8,200 and the Dali belonged to Glasgow. Much to the horror of quite a lot of people who thought it was a ridiculous sum of money to give to a living artist.

It must be worth several million now and although I really don’t like religious art I must admit to a fondness for this one. Especially the bottom section of it. If you happen to be in the Glasgow area be sure to check it out.

When people think of Dali nowadays they think of his surrealist art. My favourite has always been the melting clocks. For more information on him check out Echostains’s blogpost here.

Children’s Games

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When my kids were at primary school a woman ‘advisor’ was given the job of teaching the children games which they could play at break-time. Well, can you believe that tag (tig or chasies) or whatever it is called in your area was actually banned by the school?

Apparently it was too competitive and it was seen as a contact sport and therefore ‘too risky’. So no fun there then. Needless to say that none of the newly made up ‘safe’ games caught on with the kids, so the whole thing was a complete waste of time and money.

But I have been thinking recently that none of the games and pastimes that I did at school seem to have survived. Or maybe they have and I just haven’t realised it.

Each game seemed to have its own season and without saying anything to each other the seasons magically changed as at the same time we decided to take our skipping ropes to school or Chinese ropes (coloured elastic bands all looped together) or small rubber hand balls. We bounced the balls one after the other onto the ground near the base of a flat wall whilst singing songs and twirling around and performing all sorts of feats, but always quickly enough to catch the balls again.

Well it kept you very fit and it was great fun. Then there were the scraps which we all brought in, kept safe and flat in thick
books, just to admire each other’s or to swap them. I used to know loads of songs and rhymes for use during skipping but I can’t remember any of them now.

And remember Klackers. What would Health and Safety say about them? Mind you sometimes being cracked by them was so agonising you couldn’t even yell in pain.

Ah, those were the days. I’d like to think that wee girls were still playing like that but I haven’t seen any evidence of it in the local school playground.

The boys just played football. Or with yoyos. But yoyo crazes seemed to be about every 5 years or so, so I don’t think that you could call that a season.

And I’ve just remembered ‘jacks’. Five bits of metal and a small rubber ball. The boys used to play at that too. I’m thinking that maybe the boys were just attracted to round or spherical things.

Hhhhmmmm.

Anyway, I’d be interested to know if any of these games are still played nowadays.