Film Friday

A little break from my film photography this week, but I have again been digging through old albums and photo’s that I boxed up when Mum died, and I came across one that she started just after I was born, through to when I was 10 years old. It was cool to look through my early years, most of which I don’t remember and mortifying to see the dreadful haircuts I had to endure. So I thought I’d give you all a laugh (we need that at this time of plague I think!) and share some of what I came across. 🙂

Mum and me in 1959, I was 3 months old here. Obviously a stunningly gorgeous baby. 🤣

August 1960 I was 1 yr old and we went on holiday to Southport. This elegant pose which I am performing, is one of many very similar ones throughout my younger years. My Mum looks suitably impressed.

Still 1960. Mum and I lived with my Grandparents, and this is me on Grandma’s knee having a story. She died a year later so there are not many pictures of me with her.

In 1961 I seem to have reached the cute toddler stage.

1962 ~ a bit blurry but this is the only one in the album for that year. That was a Silver Cross toy pram, and I had a Tiny Tears to put in it at one point.

1963 and on holiday at the seaside, I think possibly at St.Annes, Blackpool. Do they still do donkey rides I wonder? This is the last of the cuteness phase, it’s all downhill from here!

My lovely Grandad was with us, he was a surrogate Dad to me until he died when I was 6yrs old. In those days gentlemen wore a suit and tie on the beach!

1964, Mum had a thing for circular photo’s to fit more into the album.

1965 and I’m not sure what the hell I’m doing here. It doesn’t look like health and safety were involved!

1966 and a family gathering. From left to right, My Grandad, Frank, Uncle Bill, (he wasn’t related- back then if Mum had a boyfriend they were ‘Uncles”), my cousin Jeanette (real Aunty Irene’s girl) Aunty Irene, Mum’s older sister, Mum and then me holding a recorder. Three blind mice I can still do! This is where the dodgy pudding bowl haircuts begin. 🙄

also in 1966 I rode a horse! I have no memory of this at all . That’s Uncle Bill with me again, so Mum must be taking the photo. I look very serious. Smile girl!

Still looking serious in 1967, on holiday at Treaddur Bay in Wales in a caravan. We took my friend Mandy with us. Both of us had poodles, mine was called Candy and was a pedigree pooch with a proper full name – Princess Candy of Snowlea and a certificate.

1968 and THE worst haircut. But at least I’m smiling!

In 1969 Aunty Irene came to stay with us as a few months as she had a new baby, Jamie. She’d had an affair and Jamie was the result. Her husband was divorcing her and eventually she went to live with the new chap, I don’t remember his name. I know Mum was relieved when she went, it hadn’t been easy having the bossy older sister living with her, and I also remember Mum upset as Irene took Grandads war medals with her without asking. Never got them back. We visited a couple of times, but when Jamie was 4 or 5 Aunty Irene had a massive stroke one night and died. After the funeral her husband and Jamie disappeared, moved house and never got in touch, so I don’t know what became of him. I look a bit worried here.

Also in the 1969 section a colour picture of me seemingly in a river somewhere on a lilo. The dodgy haircut was here to stay.

And so to the last page in Mum’s album, 1970, I’m 10 years old here and Mum had me taking dance classes to try and girlify me. It didn’t work 😀

Finally me in our back garden on Lamb Hall Rd in Huddersfield. You can see top left My grandad’s old potting shed, and there I am with Candy.

Isn’t it strange how much we change in our formative years? Anyway hope you all had a giggle at my haircuts, and get inspired to dig out your own early days photo’s. Something fun to do while we’re all stuck indoors!

Marseille & Dijon ~ Sept 2000 ~ part 1~Marseille

Back in 2000 I went on a road trip with my pal Gaz. Neither of us could afford a ‘proper’ holiday so we decided to drive down to the South of France, find a B&B soak up some rays, and explore the area for a while. We ended up in Marseille. It has an interesting history, named Massilia, a Greek colony originally, being founded around 600BC and populated by settlers from Phocaea (modern Turkey). It became the preeminent Greek city in the Hellenized region of southern Gaul. The city-state sided with the Roman Republic against Carthage during the Second Punic War (218-201 BC), retaining its independence and commercial empire throughout the western Mediterranean even as Rome expanded into Western Europe and North Africa. However, the city lost its independence following the Roman Siege of Massilia in 49 BC, during Caesar’s Civil War, in which Massalia sided with the exiled faction at war with Julius Caesar.

Ships have docked for more than 26 centuries at the city’s birthplace, the colourful old port, and it remains a thriving harbour for fishing boats, pleasure yachts and tourists. Guarding either side of the harbour are Fort St-Nicolas and Fort St-Jean, founded in the 13th century by the Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem and we took a boat trip out to see them.

Porte d’Aix (also known as the Porte Royale) is a triumphal arch in Marseille, in the south of France, marking the old entry point to the city on the road from Aix-en-Provence. The classical design by Michel-Robert Penchaud was inspired by the triumphal arches of the Roman Empire. The Porte d’Aix was initially conceived in 1784 to honour Louis XIV and to commemorate the Peace of Paris (1783) that ended the American war of independence. Following the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814-15, the project was resumed in 1823, now to commemorate French victories in the Spanish Expedition, notably at the Battle of Trocadero, August 31, 1823. It was eventually completed in 1839, with a more general theme of victory. This is just the worst shot of it!

The port at night was gorgeous and we were treated to a lovely sunset

 

We sat in the square and had a glass of wine or two in the evenings, and watched the world go by

there was a chanteuse in the bar

and street musicians came round wanting money!

There was a beautiful old carousel in the town and I got a shot of it by day and night

It was a strange time, the Rough Guide, my travel bible at the time, warned that people in Marseille could come across as arrogant, and I certainly found that to be true.  I speak passable French but if I went to a shop and asked for things in French, I’d be cut off and given short shrift in English. One night we went to a restaurant that had outside seating. One half had a few people seated but also a few empty tables, but the waiter seated us away from everyone in the empty half. After our dinner we asked for coffee and when the waiter came with it he pretended to trip and tipped the cups into my lap. Of course it was a shock as I thought the cups were full, but they just had sugar cubes in them.  The waiter and everyone in the other half of the restaurant found it all very funny, we paid up and left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thailand 2001~part 1

In 2001 I was working as an Op. Theatre Sister and became friends with Stacey one of the care assistants. She was such a good laugh and we had fun times. Stacey hadn’t seen her Dad for 12 years, as he lived out in Thailand, with his 2nd wife. Stacey wanted to go and visit him and asked me to go with her as she’d never been abroad before and was all nervous. So I accompanied her out there, stayed for 2 weeks and came home alone, as Stacey stayed another 2 weeks after.

I don’t have too many photo’s considering, blimey if I went now I’d need a stack of memory cards! I have a feeling these are from a one use throw away camera. Eeeek!

Anyhow onto the pics.

The reunion at the airport.

AT our hotel, god knows why I have a rictus grin. But I’m rocking that pink streak in my hair. Groan. What was I thinking.

We only had a couple of days in Bangkok, so after arriving, we got ourselves sorted and headed out into Bangkok. One Night in Bangkok, great song, and I can now relate 🙂

Stacey’s Dad lived on the Island Koh Samui so made the most of coming to meet us in Bangkok, his friend joined us (can’t remember his name) and they took us to some well seedy nightclubs. The ladies working the bars (and working the blokes!) were all stunning and were all absolutely lovely, they took a shine to me and Stacey and we had a great night out. The pictures are rubbish but have to be included.

Stacey’s Dad and his Pal, both were mortal drunk at this point.

The four of us

Stacey pulled 🙂

This is, I think, a shot of Stacey, her Dad & The Friend it’s so bad it makes me laugh.

The next day we went out to see some of Bangkok, and took a trip on a river boat on the Chao Phraya River which runs through the city.

ME & Stacey

Blurry river shot, (didn’t know about panning & a fast shutter speed back then )

At the exit jetty there was a market, and I took this shot of fruits I’d never seen before.

The whole purpose of the trip was to visit The Grand Palace, as it would be a crime to miss this out of a trip to Bangkok. The palace has been the official residence of the Kings of Siam (and later Thailand) since 1782. The king, his court and his royal government were based on the grounds of the palace until 1925. They still use it for official occasions.Ade up of several ornate buildings, it’s an amazing place.

WE turned up in shorts, which is not approved of, but they provide sarongs and stuff for tourists who don’t know the dress code! So we were given matching maroon sarongs. Nice. 🙂

More of The Grand palace next time.

Fuerteventura 1997 ~ Part 3

Part 1        Part 2

Our second trip out was to visit El Cotillo, a little fishing village with a pretty harbour and beautiful beaches and lagoons. At the time we were there it was very untouristy, but I believe thats changed now. On the way there we passed the dunes of Corralejo so had to stop and take photo’s.

The Harbour

We went to lunch at one of the cafe’s in the harbour and this was our view as we sat outside.

Couldn’t resist this little doggy..

Then we went and found a secluded bit of beach and had a sunbathe.

Not sure what the heck we are doing here!

There was plenty of nightlife around Caleta de Fuste and we ate out most nights, all manner of restaurants, excellent chinese that we visited twice, but also a Portuguese restaurant and as neither of us had ‘done’ Portuguese before we tried that. This is Nicki’s flaming sausage, though the flame went out before I got the shot!

There were dancing girls in the restaurant area

not the best of shots.

Our favourite night spot was called The Latin Lover, and we went there every night so got friendly with the regulars and owners, it was such good fun we rarely got home to bed before 4am.

Miguel & Sylvie who owned the bar.

Nicki & Ramone, a local

Ramone & Us

Ramone & his brothers!

Ramone teaching me the lambada or some dance or other

Declan, an irishman working at the bar, and my holiday romance, playing pool with Nicki.

Declan hated the English, though he liked me well enough as I was sympathetic to the history, and called all tourists ‘the whorists’ (pronounced ‘hoorists’) we wrote to each other for a while after I came back to England, but as with most holiday romances, it fizzled out. But so much fun while it lasted, and on his days off he would come out with us and show us the sights, mainly of pubs 🙂

Me & Nicki

and finally on our last night

and thats the end of the trip!

Fuerteventura 1997~part 2

Part 1 here

We hired a little jeep for 3 days, and took it in turn to drive.

note the bikini top tied to the window frame, drying on the go 🙂

We drove from Corralejo to Betancuria

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and saw a lot of mountains along the way.

We named this one Nipple Mountain, for obvious reasons 🙂

The road we travelled

Apparently there are more goats than people in Fuerteventura but we only saw these ones.

Betancuria is named after Jean de Béthencourt, who founded the town in 1404 with Gadifer de La Salle. It was the original capital of the Kingdom of the Canary Islands, and later capital of Fuerteventura. It was razed by pirates in 1593, but remained capital of Fuerteventura until 1834, when Antigua became capital.

This is one of the churches, but it was closed!

View from Betancuria

We had coffee at the cactus cafe

and watched the artisans do their stuff.

And then we drove home.

The next & last post will cover our trip to El Cotillo and our nightlife experiences!

Fuerteventura 1997 ~part 1

Fuerteventura loosely translated as “Strong Winds” or a corruption of the French term for “Great Adventure” is one of the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa, politically part of Spain. In 1997 my best friend at the time Nicki and I went for a girls week away. Apart from a couple of school trips to France this was the first time I’d ever been on holiday abroad, the first time I’d been on an aeroplane. I was a bit of a late starter being 38 (though I’ve made up for it since then) 🙂 Nicki and I had met in the operating theatres where we both worked, and being young (ish) free and single, became good pals. In September 1997 we decided to have a weeks holiday in Fuerteventura, so I packed Ben off to my mums for the week, and off we went.

Leaving Luton Airport

The White Cliffs of Dover

Flying over Northern Spain

Coming in to land

We stayed at a resort Caleta De Fuste, now it’s one of the largest tourist areas and on googling pictures of it, it’s a lot more built up on the sea front, but when we were there there was a lot of construction still going on. But our resort at least was finished.

Our apartment No.30 Castillo Mar

Inside

so annoyed I can’t remember what camera I had, that’s its case on the table but I can’t make out any details.

Have had a giggle at all the nail polish we brought!

It had an upstairs too, and these are the views from the balcony

and of course there was a pool

we were self catering, but I think this is the only time we did any! Here’s Nicki making us lunch on our first day.

I think every where I’ve travelled I’ve been adopted by a cat for the duration!

The harbour at Caleta de Fuste was full of boats, and as Fuerte is particularly known for it’s windy demeanour, also wind surfing.

So that’s where we lived, and played, but we also hired a car for 3 days and went touring the island, so that will be what the next post is all about.

Turkey 1999~part 2~Cappadocia

In the middle of our holiday we took a 3 day coach tour into central Anatolia,especially Cappadocia. The coach broke down along the way 😀

but they got it fixed and off we went. We visited the Goreme National Rock Park, which has amazing topography, and underground cities largely used by early Christians as hiding places before Christianity became an accepted religion. The underground cities have vast defence networks of traps throughout their many levels. These traps are very creative, including such devices as large round stones to block doors and holes in the ceiling through which the defenders may drop spears.

The tour guy put all on the coach trip together for a photo, and we all got a copy.

We 4 were kind of ‘the poor relations’ on the trip, we were on a tight budget and our fellow tourists were not so much. We had packed lunches whilst everyone else had paid extra to go into the restaurant at lunch time for a slap up meal. It was really embarrassing sitting outside eating our spam sandwiches! We also hadn’t thought it would be a colder climate inland, so didn’t have any other clothes than shorts and T-shirts and were often shivering! Them we’rt days!! I’m a no less than 4 star hotel kind of girl now for sure!
One of my best memories of the trip though was that we stayed a night in what looked like a palace in the middle of nowhere, it was really ornate & lush. All the other tourists were off out on a night out with a dinner, dancing and smashing plates kind of bit, but we couldn’t afford that so we went down to the huge and sumptuous TV room of the hotel, and watched Manchester United beat Bayern Munich and become European champions. Waiters in black suits with white tea towels over their arms stood ready at all times to fetch our drinks. A lovely couple from Yorkshire had also stayed behind (they were Man.Utd fans) and we had a great night in being treated like royalty!

Anyways, back to the pictures 😀

The rocks of Cappadocia near Göreme eroded into hundreds of spectacular pillars and minaret-like forms. People of the villages at the heart of the Cappadocia Region carved out houses, churches and monasteries from the soft rocks of volcanic deposits. Göreme became a monastic centre in 300–1200 AD.

The first period of settlement in Göreme goes back to the Roman period. The Yusuf Koç, Ortahane, Durmus Kadir and Bezirhane churches in Göreme, and houses and churches carved into rocks in the Uzundere, Bağıldere and Zemi Valleys all illustrate history and can be seen today. The Göreme Open Air Museum is the most visited site of the monastic communities in Cappadocia and is one of the most famous sites in central Turkey. The complex contains more than 30 carved-from-rock churches and chapels, some having superb frescoes inside, dating from the 9th century to the 11th century. Unfortunately we were not to take photo’s inside the churches as it’s dark, you need flash and that damages the murals. 😦

Us lot at the entrance to one of the churches. I don’t know what was going on with my hair this holiday!!

Gaz,Ben & Mat in the landscape.

Mat & me inside one of the rock houses

rock houses

Fairy Chimneys

Camel?

I found out later the people who live here expect you to give them some money if you want to take their picture, but I didn’t realise that so I think that’s why this lady looks grumpy.

Flowers, I think Irises growing at the base of some of the chimneys

And a great view to finish off with.

Norfolk, 1995

When I was an operating theatre sister down south, one of my best friends was an anaesthetic assistant, Peter, that’s him in the red jersey, and his best friend from school days in his native Norfolk, was a guy called Mel, a  deep sea fisherman.  Mel would often come down and stay with Pete for long periods when he couldn’t get work, and we all became good friends.  One weekend Pete took Mel and I up to see his parents in Norfolk, I remember his Dad had Parkinson’s, which was sad. One afternoon Pete decided we’d walk down the Suffolk coast which wasn’t that far away, from Walberswick to Dunwich to visit a fine pub there called The Ship. It’s a 14 mile round trip along the beach, with the Dunwich river running parallel just across some marshy land.  It was a long old walk, windy and none too warm, but we had a laugh the whole way there and back, had a fab meal at The Ship, and I took photos. I loved finding these photo’s, hadn’t looked at them for years. I love how happy and smiley we are in this moment in time. I lost touch with both guys over the years, plus ca change and all that. Think I had a pentax SLR, but can’t remember the model. Kodak film but can’t remember the type. My memory has holes in it nowadays. 🙂

Mel and Pete at the beginning of our walk.

Me & Mel

Pete reflecting

Mel Rolling

Fight club

Victory

At the pub

And on the way back

Sunset over the Dunwich marsh land