Friday, September 5, 2014

Sixty years between shaves

Had a shave at a barbers the other day.  Well not really a barber as it was a young woman did the shaving.
The last time I had a shave in a barbers shop was close to sixty years ago. As a young man I worked at Adelaide House just on the north side London bridge, and if for a variety of reasons I had not spent the night at home,  then I would need a shave before going to work.
Whilst electric razors had been invented, I didn't have one so I needed to go to a barbers for a shave, this being in the days before "designer stubble".
Fortunately there was a barbers shop in the basement of Adelaide House in those days, and it may even still be there, so I was able to pop in and have a shave before going into the office.

A shave of course was not just a shave, there was the routine of the hot towels, then the lathering up, the first shave, more lathering and then the second shave.  The routine finished up with another hot towel followed by a cold one and then astringent aftershave.

Going in to the office smelling of cologne, told everyone that I had had a barbers shave so they wanted to know where I had spent the night.

The shave the other day was pretty much the same routine as it had been all those years ago, apart from the young lady doing the barbering and the dentist type chair that they used. I felt that I was being prepared for a Sweeney Todd routine I was tilted so far back.  At Adelaide House there was no need to tilt the customer back all that far, as the barber was tall enough to do a shave just by lowering the chair a little and then a tilt.

And the hot towels didn't seem to be as hot as they used to be.  These days they are microwaved, whereas in the past a towel was put in the hand basin and boiling water was poured over from a kettle, then virtually straight on the face.

Still it was all as pleasant as it used to be.  One difference at the end though, the barber didn't ask "Will you need anything for the weekend sir ?" as they always used to.




Friday, August 22, 2014

Alphons Eder on Amazon

As I Told you before,  my Great grandfather Alphons Eder went to Brazil in 1859 now he has gone up the Amazon !!


My book about his life is now available as a paperback on Amazon
 www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1500285617

Alphons spent most of his life in the mid 19th century -in the East End of London as a street musician playing in a German Band.



Before that he had made the long journey, for those days, from Slovenia to England and then spent just short of three years on board HMS Ganges on its voyage to British Columbia and back as the flagship of the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Squadron of the Royal Navy. During the journey they went to Brazil and sailed around Cape Horn- high adventure in any century.

A life divided into three separate phases which could be regarded as three different lives.


Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Acker Bilk takes five






Have anly just noticed that Acker Bilk has decided to call it a day from performing.  Am very sad about that as I had hoped that we would have had the chance to see him on stage  one more time before he came to this decision.

Acker is 85 and entitled to give up the hectic life that is the lot of the performing musician, we have seen him several times both here and in Australia and it was always a memorable experience, particularly in those joint gigs with the late Kenny Ball.

Hope that Acker has a long a restful retirement.


Don't know who owns the cartoon above but hope that they don't mind us using it as that is Acker

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Bread Pudding On the High Seas

On board HMS Whimbrel, Dad was the messman for the Petty Officers Mess.  Probably regarded as a cushy number but it wasn’t, but he got the job because he was the oldest member of the crew.  The role of the messman on board a Royal Navy ship was normally to keep the mess clean and tidy, serve up the meals and to clear away afterward.  He collected the meals from the galley and carried to the Mess  and  served them up.
Whilst the POs were not on the same level as commissioned officers in the wardroom, none the less they expected to get a better class of food than the ratings. Presumably it was related to the fact that unlike ratings, mess bills were deducted from the Petty Officer's pay, so that they were well aware of the fact that they were paying for the meals.  Or it may just be that a world war would not end the usual class system in the Royal Navy.

Although I heard this story many times I did not fully understand how the episode of the bread pudding came about.  I think it had something to do with some grizzles from the Petty Officer about a particular dessert served up.  Not that the menu as such had anything to do with the messman, but being the sort of man that he was he probably decided off his own bat to do something about it and serve them bread pudding.

A bread pudding is not to be confused with bread and butter pudding, it is a different animal completely.  Presumably most people know what a bread and butter pudding is , made with slices of buttered bread in layers with dried fruit placed in a dish with an egg custard and then baked. ( How's that for a one line recipe?).  Anyway a bread pudding is completely different, being made with stale bread which is soaked in either water or milk and then squished into an amorphous mixture to which is added dried fruit, butter and sugar and mixed spices.  This is then baked very slowly until it is crisp on top.  If eaten hot it is like a steamed pudding, and if served with custard is perhaps like a poor mans Christmas pudding.  Left to get cold, however, it is different and is more like a fruit cake.

Anyway, somehow or other Dad got involved in making a bread pudding in the galley, presumably because the messman had a fair amount of spare time in between serving the meals to the various watches and clearing away before the next.  Not one to be sitting about, no doubt he spent a fair amount of the spare -time to nosing around to see what others were doing.

 Dad was fond of bread pudding and knew how to make them.  Bread pudding is a traditional Maltese dish called Budina tal hobz and as his mother was Maltese his liking probably stemmed from that.  Dad's version of the pudding is not strictly the Maltese way, perhaps he didn’t remember how his mother made them or he just developed his own recipe.

If you know what bread pudding is, then you may not understand that there are people who have never come across it, and so it was that when Dad introduced it into the Petty Officers Mess as a dessert one day, then he was surprised to find that not a single one of them had ever tasted it before.

Now a bit like the island of  Malta itself, you either love it or hate it and that was the response in the PO's Mess.
On another occasion the complaints were about the spotted dick coming from the galley.  If you have ever tasted catering style spotted dick you will no doubt appreciate the complaint.  “Like mother makes” it is not.  (Had better add here for those who don’t know,  “spotted dick” is a suet pudding with sultanas in)  Of course he was asked if he could produce a spotted dick in the galley for the Petty Officers Mess, which of course he could.  Unfortunately by this time he was becoming a little unpopular in the galley as it appeared that he was trying to upstage the cooks, which of course was not his intention.  In typical east end style he circumvented the antagonism by making two puddings, one for the POs and one for the cooks.

Thursday, July 31, 2014

No tie- no job

Can you imagine these days being sent home from work because you were not wearing a tie.?

On my first day at my first job I turned up one July morning without a tie and very nearly got sent home because of that. There are or weren't apprenticeships for office work in those days, so it was a question of learning on the job.  In large offices if was known as "sitting next to Nellie" in other words the new recruit was sat alongside someone more experienced and learned by watching or being lead along.
In terms of dress of course, you did not know until you arrived, unless you already knew someone who worked there.  There were obviously fairly universal rules and some specific to one place, fads and foibles of the owner or manager etc.
I went to work at a branch office of a large insurance company and had been interviewed at the Head Office in London, so I had not even been to where I was later assigned.
So early on that first Monday morning taking an early tram to New Cross Gate I stood outside the office and waited for someone to arrive.  The Chief Clerk was first, he looked at me a little strange after I had told him who I was, but he made no comment about my grey slacks and open necked shirt and my jacket over my arm.

As the other staff arrived, he introduced me and still no one made any comment about my attire until the Branch Manager arrived.  The Chief Clerk took me into the Manager's Office and introduced me and the first words the Manager said were "Where's your tie?".  I replied that I did not have one.  " You cant work here without a tie" he responded and told the Chief Clerk to take me away, as though I was fouling his office.
The door to the office had been standing open all this time, so of course everyone outside could hear
 all that went on, and most of them were grinning like apes.  To this day I don't know if they were laughing at me or the Manager.  One of the male staff, beckoned me over and pulled a tie out of a drawer and handed it to me.  He explained that all male staff were expected to wear suits complete with ties, but as I was a junior I was excused the suit but not the tie.  Just as well really as at that time I did not own a suit.
This then was my introduction, not just to the world of work, but to the intricacies of office life.

Tell us about your first day at the office.


Saturday, July 19, 2014

Hop flavoured cheese

I know that there are many varieties of cheese- Cheddar, Cheshire, Edam, Gorgonzola, Brie, Leicester just to name a few.  And like the wine buffs who go on (and on, and on) about the different vintages and so on  trying to put you down if you admit to drinking plonk,  there are cheese buffs as well.  I have met a lot of these, and of course many of them are quite knowledgeable and clever although when they try to tell you that they can tell what kind of clover the cow was eating the day before, well ..........

Anyway, when I meet these types, I have a little game and ask their opinion on "hop flavoured" cheese.  Many of course get a bit snotty cause they  look down on flavoured cheeses anyway, only fit for tesco types not those who order from Harrods, but most have to admit they have not come across "hop flavour".  There are hop flavoured cheeses these days of course, but that was not what I had in mind.

The hop flavoured cheese that I recall  always had a limited clientele and is not even available anymore, as it was handmade just before being eaten.

During the last war (can we still call it that considering the number of "conflicts" since ?) agricultural labourers used to get a larger cheese ration than city citizens, so when the east end families continued to go to the Kent hop-fields, they got extra cheese as well.  Not surprising then that lunch most days was cheese sandwiches.


Picking hops resulted in fingers covered in a sulphuric kind of black coating, impossible to wash off, and in any case lunch was taken in the  fields.  So cheese sandwiches eaten with blackened fingers had a taste like no other, and is quite impossible to describe.  The taste of hops was not unpleasant as imbibers of real ale will tell you, and it had an affinity to cheese.
I am not suggesting you go out and buy the modern speciality hop flavoured cheeses to see what I am on about as it is not the same thing at all.



Sunday, July 13, 2014

Seven year old stole a silver teapot

I nearly acquired a criminal record at the age of seven by being accused of stealing a silver teapot !
It was all a case of mistaken identity.  My accomplice and I mistook a family heirloom for a common old teapot which was never used and we could not find anything else to use to collect conkers.

As this was during World War Two it is surprising that the irate owner didn't accuse us of being enemy spies or at least saboteurs.

As London evacuees in Guildford, my mate an I already had a record as it were.  We had originally been billeted on two spinster sisters in Shalford, who despite being teachers could not cope with having two unruly seven year old boys actually living in their house.  So after one scrape after another, usually involving not arriving home from school in Guildford at least a couple miles away, until it was dark, we were moved on.

Our next billet was with a family who had only one child, a daughter.  Again it was a question of a lady, her husband in the army, and having no experience of the ways of little boys,  not really knowing how to deal with this species of wild animal.

All went reasonably well for a while, apart from the odd misunderstanding during the school holidays when we boys found it difficult it conform to the restrictive regime regarding our comings and goings.  We were not far from the Quarry park where were quite a few horse chestnut trees and it was the conker season.  We looked around for a receptacle to use to go and collect conkers and all we could find was an old tin looking teapot that was never used.
We took that and off to the park.  As was our won't we did not return to the house until dusk and found a policeman there.  Our landlady had called the police and claimed that we had stolen the valuable teapot and absconded.  As far as she was concerned we were no doubt already back in London with Fagin, Oliver, the Artful Dodger and the rest of that crew.

Despite being assured by the policeman that it was a misunderstanding and no harm had been done, she refused to allow us to remain in the house being convinced that our next act would be to murder her and her daughter as soon as the policeman was gone. So the poor fellow had no alternative but to march us off the the police station to await arrangements for another billet.


And that, as they say,  is another story .