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21. 

    brenda midgley
    Member

    Monica Langstaff !! - how can you intimate that the Ilford Palais wasn't upmarket - shame on you.... I absolutely loved my Wednesday evenings there. It was Over 21's Night on Wednesday evenings and at that time although there was a bar inside no one under 21 was allowed inside it to drink. Over 21's was just a name really as there were probably lots of us who were only 20 or what have you. So - because we were not allowed in the bar my chums and I would sit upstairs on the balcony bit that ran round the top and have an Ice Cream Soda with Coca-Cola. You slurped the Cola bit through a straw and sucked the soggy ice-cream bit off a spoon. Many happy evenings there. Have very fond recollections of 'Dreamtime' at the end of the evening. The music would be low - always Shirley Bassey singing The Party's Over; the lights would be virtually off - just a glitterball revolving casting sparks of light about - and probably a lot of naughty fumbling going on as couples danced in the dark!

    Barbara - no, I can't remember anyone coming round collecting our farthings, but I don't doubt your word. I do though remember the Royal Mint was based at Debden - went out for a while with a chap who worked there during the daytime. Evenings he was my driving instructor - Derek if I remember correctly - but he worked evenings at Kim's Driving School at Maryland Point - do you remember them. I do recall you know Maryland Point as you once said you knew of Pollard's the wool shop where my mum always got her knitting wool from......

    Goodness me, what a memory trip we are going on here.....

    Oh what a brilliant idea to make masks for the Sainsbury's staff where you live. Well done on that one. As for them being Skull and Crossbones patterned - laughed at that..Sainsbury's workers must all look like bloody pirates at their checkouts! What a hoot!

    The transformation challenge on Sewing Bee would have had me scratching my head on what to do with two towels. Can't honestly say how I would describe the 'transformations' but again I would never have been brave (or stupid) enough to wear any of 'em on a beach!

    As for the shirts - well, of course, they were all working to the plan for a 'beach shirt', but I tell you if I was on a beach with Geoff wearing one of them I think I'd've walked off and left him to make sand castles on his own........

    Posted 4 years ago #
22. 

    Barbara Stone
    Member

    Sorry Brenda, can't remember the driving school at Maryland Point, but there again, I was only about 13 or so, when I was taken there by my mum, when she wanted some special wool, so wouldn't have been interested in driving lessons, and as I said I must have had a very sheltered upbringing, 'cos I can't even remember the Cranbrook Hall. Where on earth was it? (And don't say Cranbrook) Oh well, as you say, memories are made of this!
    Looking forward to Sewing Bee on Wednesday - favourite night of the week - Repair shop followed by Sewing Bee. Who could ask for more?

    Posted 4 years ago #
23. 

    brenda midgley
    Member

    Don't ask me where Cranbrook Hall was Barbara, I haven't got a clue - it was Monica who brought that one into the conversation...... I think she was just trying to show off 'cos she went to posher places than me...(are you reading this Monica??).....

    Had two Goldfinches come into the garden just after lunch...they went to the bird bath, had a little drink and then flew off again; but they gave me enough time to grab my little binoculars for a proper look. Went wild with delight..our garden visitors these days apart from a few common types tend to be magpies, jackdaws and crows, so today was a treat.

    Have finished stitching the rose this afternoon that featured in the April newsletter. Only did it on a small piece of 28, so will turn it into a pin cushion. Don't like stitching things just to put them into a drawer never to see the light of day again.

    Yes, Wednesday's my favourite night of the week too now the 'Bee' is buzzing again. Not Geoff's cup of tea so he comes back upstairs for a session on his computer - leaving me in peace and quiet (hooray!).

    Posted 4 years ago #
24. 

    Helen Hawkins-Ainsley
    Member

    Hello ladies
    Hope you're all well & had a good weekend
    I'm lucky Mick likes the Repair Shop & Sewing Bee as well. Also, they are on BBC so no ads for him to go channel hopping during - have to records most of what I want to watch to make sure I see it all :)
    I now have some patterns to go with the 2 packs of wool I have - 2 more new cardigans to make.
    I'm going to finish the next room in my Mouse House & then do the pocket for my bag - then Mum gets the "pleasure" of stitching it on for me.
    You lost me on your trip down memory lane, I was only 6 weeks old when we left London

    Posted 4 years ago #
25. 

    Barbara Stone
    Member

    So, bird in the garden Brenda - we've got blackbird fledglings, mummy blue tit is sitting on eggs, the goldfinches are nesting in the hedge at the bottom of the garden, and Saturday, we had a Siskin come into the garden, for the first time in ages. But the thing that made me laugh out loud, was a thing on Countryfile last night - the guy who filmed it, lives near Deal in Kent, and he saw a White Tailed Sea Eagle in a field, about 2 miles from his home. Now that would be a hell of a garden tick! We've seen them on Mull, and they have a wing span of about 8 foot! What the hell was it doing in Kent? Do you reckon it was on holiday?
    Rehearsal tonight for the Murder Mystery we are putting on in October (hopefully) - we are doing it via video link at the moment - just reading the script and working out exits and entrances. This could either be an unmitigated disaster, or a complete triumph. So, no sewing tonight. Have to do double tomorrow to make up for it! Hope everybody is keeping safe, and finishing their UFO's!

    Posted 4 years ago #
26. 

    Jean Strange
    Member

    Hi everyone
    Birds in the garden well we have blue tits in our nesting box sitting on eggs and starlings in the gutter/under the tiles they have a very vocal brood at the moment.
    As for stitching trying to get through the UFO’s managed to finish the shaker box project from Swindon several years ago and the decorated tin. Have a few more lined up for the next couple of weeks.
    Like you Helen have been knitting too finished a couple of things started before I was in hospital. Have just finished a 4ply summer cardigan. Had fun today going through mine and Mums button boxes brought back and stored after she died (could still remember some of the garments they came from) looking for a set of buttons for the cardigan pattern said 8 buttons but as the button holes are the holes in the lace pattern border think it doesn’t really matter. Found several sets of 7 pretty buttons just need to decide which ones to use.
    Looking forward to the Sewing Bee too Jeff likes the Repair Shop and has watched the Sewing Bee with me for the last couple of weeks.

    Posted 4 years ago #
27. 

    Helen Hawkins-Ainsley
    Member

    We get lots of different birds in our garden, but having a pond helps as they like to come for a drink or bath.
    We have blackbirds, sparrows, wood pigeons, starlings (including a noisy family that always nest under the soffit boards), a sweet little wren, robin who has finally found a partner, goldfinches & blue tits that pop in for a drink. Then there is the naughty crow / rook who pinched a frog - not good. Lastly we get red kites flying over quite frequently. Oh, & don't forget the 3 that live with us & give us 2 eggs a day.
    The ponds are full of tadpoles. We're hoping that the birds don't eat too many & we get a good crop of froglets this year.

    Tonight's viewing is the Yorkshire Vet - too gory for some I know, but it does have some wonderful views of this part of the world.

    Posted 4 years ago #
28. 

    Barbara Stone
    Member

    Helen, you lucky thing, getting red kites flying over you. There are only two pairs in Somerset - one of which live on the Quantocks, which are just behind us, but the only time I've seen one locally, was from the train a couple of years ago. I was meant to be issuing a ticket, when I looked up and saw this bird, realised what it was, and was spellbound. We don't see them at all, so they are a treat when we do. And tadpoles - well, we've got two ponds in the garden, both of which have frogs in, but do we get tadpoles? Do we heck! Don't know why, we get over run with froglets, but we don't have tadpoles. Baby blue tits have hatched and mum and dad are very busy now taking in food to the nest.
    I think anybody who has a button box has memories of the garments they came off. Brings back good memories.
    Love watching the Yorkshire vet. Their attitude to doing surgery in such unhygienic conditions gives me the heeby jeebies, but needs must I suppose, and as we've had some good holidays in Yorkshire, I like to try and recognise places that we've been to. More memories eh?

    Posted 4 years ago #
29. 

    Helen Hawkins-Ainsley
    Member

    Hi Barbara, we get lots of red kites round Leeds. They released breeding pairs from Harewood House about 10 years ago & they have done really well. If you drive past Harewood you usually see about 20 flying. Being near to the motorway and right on the edge of the city we still have quite a bit of woodland that they next in.
    If you get baby frogs you must have tadpoles - they are just playing hide & seek with you. Mick feeds them with fish food pellets. We also have 4 gold fish (one is white though) in the big pond.
    I know what you mean about the hygiene in the farm yards, but as you say needs must.

    How did the rehearsal go last night?

    Posted 4 years ago #
30. 

    brenda midgley
    Member

    Hello girls,
    All this talk of lovely birds makes me feel quite envious.... but yes, Barbara, I did see the white tailed sea eagle on countryfile the other night. I held my breath - it just looked so graceful gliding round the sky with just the odd flap of those amazing wings....just beautiful.

    Oh - and now I see we have something else in common - The Yorkshire Vet.....I just love the programmes (on again tonight) but as you say the farmyard scenes of caesarians etc. do make you wriggle in your seat a bit. I'm glad they sometimes give us in their dialogue that they have administered an anaesthetic! - the size of the area they have to cut into the body looks enormous and then when they get hold of a couple of baby's legs and have to give a hard yank on them looks positively torturous for the poor animal..... However, both of the vets you can see without doubt absolutely love animals.

    Don't know if you saw Peter Kay's Comedy Shuffle the other night (it's repeated again on BBC 1 about 11.00 tonight). It was virtually a 29 minute musical - hilarious and quite a few songs had well known faces joining in - one of them being Yorkshire Vet Peter Wright. If you didn't see it - do watch it or record it. It was so uplifting. The first song featured loads of 'comic' characters in the singing - goodness only knows how they got round the Copyright issue - but we had Thomas the tank engine, Postman Pat, Lady Penelope, several Muppets - I just can't remember them all - but brilliant.

    Interesting to see that you all seem to be knitting as well as stitching at the moment - with Jean doing something in 4 ply so you must've needed really small size needles for that (which equates of course to lots extra in the way of stitches on the needle too - so well done).

    Lovely day of weather in Crewe so I'm off now to bring in the line of washing that's been pegged out all day...trouble is I get outside and then don't want to come back in again, but the old man needs feeding so I suppose I must go and make a start......

    Posted 4 years ago #
31. 

    Monica Langstaff
    Member

    The White Tailed eagles are nesting on the Isle of Wight, were introduced there a year or three back. Apparently they like to have a scout around the mainland from time to time. The Cranbrook Hall was in Cranbrook Road, Ilford. Come out of the station and turn left down the hill and keep going until you reached it on the right. There was a dent sized dance floor and the café place was underneath. Some very popular groups there. Do you remember the little department store, Fairheads? You could get anything in there, very useful place. I had to wear white gloves for school and they always had them. Didn't last long as I wore them riding my bike to school.

    Posted 4 years ago #
32. 

    brenda midgley
    Member

    Oh darling Monica - I can just picture you on a push bike wearing dainty white gloves and the wind blowing your frock up to show off your knickers........

    No, I don't remember Fairheads, but I do remember a store called Harrison Gibson in either Ilford or Romford. Right up on the top floor they had a sort of social hall with a shiny wooden dance floor. It was a furniture shop and I think the top floor was used on social occasions for the staff members for parties such as Christmas and what have you. I know of it because when I was a child my mother used to take me to a lady's house once a week where I had tap, ballet and acrobat lessons. I think the lady did it as a means of earning a little bit of money - quite seriously - times were hard in the east end in the latter part of the 1940's. I was about 3 or 4 when I went to these lessons - and one year all we children starred in 'a show' at this Harrison Gibson store. Because I was a tot I wore a white shiny blouse and little black shiny knickers; white socks and black patent shoes. The older girls wore the same but short skirts instead the knickers. Their dance routines too were more complex than those we younger girls performed, but I knew their routines anyway.....I loved to dance......

    As for the White Tailed Eagles, yes I can imagine that nesting on the Isle of Wight and having a fly-over to the mainland would be well within their scope with their enormous wing-span. What a thrill to be able to see one 'live'.

    Back to Sewing Bee tonight....yippee....and am also following Richard and Judy on Channel 4 at 5.30 - "Keep Calm and Carry on Reading".....a light but enjoyable half an hour......

    Posted 4 years ago #
33. 

    Monica Langstaff
    Member

    Harrison Gibson burned down, I remember seeing the flames and smoke right from Newbury Park. Couldn't say when though, early 60s I think.

    Posted 4 years ago #
34. 

    Barbara Stone
    Member

    Hi Monica, and thanks for the information about the Cranbrook Hall. Fairheads only closed a couple of years ago - they had a mega sale at the end, and mum managed to get towels, sheets etc., enough to last her, me and my sister for a good few years yet. I know that my mother misses them, because you could get practically anything in the way of bedlinen there. Also, they sold Aida, some Linen, some threads (Anchor), and they were always very helpful if you went in and just wanted a couple of items.
    Harrison Gibson as well only closed a few years ago - probably about 10 if memory serves. But having shopped in there several times, I do remember being told about the dance floor. I think mum must have told me about it. I can't imagine you in little shiny blouse and black shiny knickers.
    Another good shop in Ilford was Bodgers, and that's closed as well now. Apparently they had to demolish it because Crossrail were going under it, and it wasn't suitable to try and underpin it. So they are now building flats on the site.
    If you ever see a White Tailed Sea Eagle, you'll know it. We were on Mull, where there were a pair nesting in a tree on the edge of the golf course, and apparently, the birds would swoop down and pick up the golf balls, given half a chance. Must have given the golfers a bit of a shock! However, the one on Countryfile hadn't come from the Isle of Wight, as it didn't have wing tags or leg rings, and all of the ones released so far, have got identification. Bob and I were watching one when we were on a bird watching trip, when it was hunting, and it kept on swooping at a deer, which was right on the edge of a cliff. The eagle kept on pushing at it, and the deer fell off, and was killed. The eagle of course thought this was great grub, and went down onto the carcass. Good food for it. So, you can imagine how big they are.
    Repair shop tonight, followed by Sewing Bee. Yippee!

    Posted 4 years ago #
35. 

    Jean Strange
    Member

    Still on the birds in the garden theme chased a black cat not seen around here before off our bird table/nesting box this morning he was about to try sticking his paw in to get at the blue tits!! We have lots of visitors too black birds, wood pigeons, magpies, sometimes thrushes, sometimes jays, robins and have had a wren. A number of red kites fying overhead too one was being mobbed by the local crow population the other week it sounded like a flock of seagulls!! Oh and we have a local arts centre which used to be a “stately home” which has two lakes and is often visited by a heron he apparently likes to sit on my roof and survey the surrounding area. I found this out when a neighbour said to me “have you seen the heron?” I said no and she came back with “well he spends a lot of time on your roof”. I did explain I didn’t often look at my roof!

    When I was teaching we had a wild nature area with a small pond and there were two herons frequently seen on the fence eyeing this. Someone offered us some fish for this. Site controller’s comment “that heron is up there with his knife and fork waiting “.

    Roll on the Repair Shop and The Sewing Bee tonight!

    Posted 4 years ago #
36. 

    Christine Berrett
    Administrator

    Episode 3. What they were asked to do on the little girl's dress was all very decorative, but it was NOT what I would call "smocking"

    Posted 4 years ago #
37. 

    Barbara Stone
    Member

    Quite agree Christine - what I call smocking was what we had to do on one of the dresses we had to make at school, and what they did on the Sewing Bee was nothing like it. However, you can do it all on the machine nowadays (if you've got one that can do everything but make the tea) so perhaps people don't do it the way I was taught. I can still remember the pain of pushing the needle through about six layers without a thimble. Our teacher believed that a little pain didn't hurt anybody, so we weren't allowed thimbles. (This is the same woman who told me I'd never be able to do anything 'arty', 'cos she couldn't teach me, and it was only years later that I realised she'd been trying to teach me left handed. No wonder I couldn't sew for ages).

    Posted 4 years ago #
38. 

    Jean Strange
    Member

    I agree too nothing like traditional smocking. A good few years ago a distant relative of Jeff’s was visiting from New Zealand she did smocking on clothes for her grandchildren and was looking for patterns of smocking dots. She had found some in needlework shops she had found on her travels. Definitely not put it on a sewing machine with a stitch set on the automatic settings!

    Carrying on with wildlife in gardens etc we have a wooded wild area at the back of our house and for a number of years have had foxes there at this time of year. This year we have a family with 4 cubs and they often come out to play on the grass area between the ferns and nettles and our fence. Way to loose half an hour just watching them from the back bedroom window!!

    Posted 4 years ago #
39. 

    brenda midgley
    Member

    Morning Girls.....

    Hung on before replying about smocking as I hadn't seen all the programme. Jiggered for some reason on Wednesday night and although I watched the programme up to them receiving the pattern and we then saw the pattern pieces and the procedure in which they were to put them together - I fell asleep after that bit. However, I had set it to record as well (just incase a phone call came through or something) so caught up on that section the next night.

    Having now seen what they got up to I can't offer an opinion really as I realise I've never smocked anything, never seen a book with it in, nor have I researched it through Youtube - in other words I am a smocking dunce! I think I would have cheated in so far as I'd've chosen a very small print fabric - like a Liberty print then stitched in lengths of that stretchy elastic string type stuff - and left it at that, 'cos it would have then gathered itself and wouldn't need extra smocking stitches on top as the print of the fabric would have been enough - but then I've always been on the lazy side and look for the easy way out.....

    Now curious though, so I think I will go and trawl Youtube to see what I can find out of interest.......

    Unlike you Barbara I don't recall doing smocking in our dressmaking classes at school. That's another interesting point..... with me not having children - I have no idea what's included in a school curriculum these days......do they even have dressmaking classes now? over to you Jean (I think I'm correct in remembering you were a school teacher?)....

    Posted 4 years ago #
40. 

    Jean Strange
    Member

    Hi Brenda and all
    Answer to dressmaking or sewing classes is no at least as far as I know. In primary schools there were several topics in the “Design Technology “ area of the curriculum which were definitely stitching oriented e.g. making a glove puppet and designing and making a purse. I ran a stitching club for the older children and I know that at one time there was a retired lady who came into the infant classes and did simple embroidery on binca with them. But no definite sewing lessons. I think that in secondary schools there is a subject involving the study of textiles but again I don’t think any specific sewing lessons like we had.

    On that topic your memory of the needlework teacher Barbara reminded me of a story from my past. Mum and Dad went to a parent evening to discuss options for GCE (as it was in those days). The needlework teacher said I wasn’t very good having not completed obligatory garments. Mum replied “I don’t think you know who you are talking about. She has finished those and made two others since.” Then got “Oh well she may be good at the practical side but she isn’t good at the academic side”. Dad “But just been told my daughter is good at academic subjects “. Teacher replied “Well anything I teach a girl will be useful “. My Mum, all 4 foot 10 of her!! (The teacher was rather a large lady) replied “ I don’t need you to teach her thank you I am a bespoke tailoress and can teach her those skills myself”. I would love to have seen the teachers face!!!!!!!

    Posted 4 years ago #

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