Porsche Cars for the Norfolk Boys in Blue.

I was surprised, to say the least when I saw a fabulous looking Porsche car with Norfolk County Constabulary emblazoned on such a fine vehicle built for speed. Speeds well in excess of our national speed limits.

I thought to myself. “Maybe traffic cops are using them. Perhaps they need to chase lawbreakers speeding on the motorways?”

However, I had never seen our police using such a car. I’ve seen the police in Abu Dhabi. They drive police cars that are Ferrari. But then cars in that country do tend to be out of the norm.

I wandered over to the policeman standing behind the vehicle. He had a big smile on his face as I photographed the car and started to look around it. On the bonnet was the Norfolk County Constabulary emblem. No mistaking.

I looked at the smiling policeman. He was obviously the copper who got to drive the vehicle. He obviously knew I was going to ask questions.

“Do you use them for motorway offences, like speeding?” I asked.

He chuckled and replied. “No, we do not use them at all. This is just a promotion stunt. I wish we did.”

I laughed at my naivety. “Oh, I thought I had not seen you guys driving one of these. I thought maybe you were about to.”

Again he said. “We could only wish.”

Grinning at my assumption, I carried on looking around the Sandringham Craft Fair for some of the more retro British things of the countryside's attractions.

The Old Morgan Sports Car in the Fens

It was a beautiful sunny day as we made our way through the countryside, following the garbage lorry through the Fens. We were approaching the little village of Newton. As we were loading the brown bins, I looked over at a group of terraced cottages and saw a man reversing a red Morgan sports car upon the drive to the side of his house.

I grabbed a quick photo shot for one does not see the old retro Morgan cars too often. It should have had spoked wheels, but for some reason it was sporting newer MG type looking wheels. The vehicle was obviously going to be the man's project.

As he reversed and parked the car, he grinned at us and shook his head. "I'm a bit too old for one of these," he said jokingly.

We laughed and wished him well with his car and continued with a bin clearing as we moved on by.

The Pre-War Riley Car Paint Stripped Down to Metal

As we were finishing our bin loading round on Wednesday 20th April 2016, we came out of the village of Wimblington into the village of Doddingtopn in the Fenland of Cambridgeshire. It was a glorious day and we had been out in the rural parts of the land. We were content and feeling happy as the last bin went in the lorries' bin lifts. 

A Car from Riley Motor Company

We decided to pull into a small lay by further up the road as one enters the village of Doddington. There on the drive of a cottage was parked a pre-war open topped Riley car. It was stripped of paint work and I suppose the owner was midway through a restoration of the beautiful looking motor.

I had a walk around it and took a few shot on the mobile phone camera. See what you think of the old Riley car?

The Day of the Jackal - No other thriller can compare.

1963 in President de Gaulle's France, the OAS hire a contract killer to assassinate the head of state because of the Algeria crises. The anonymous Englishman is hired. No one knows who he is and all police forces keep finding is a cold dead end trail or fake identity and then dead bodies. This is a real page turning cat and mouse chase to stop an assassination attempt by a cold blooded killer. Every time the authorities try to close the net; the assassin seems to be able to avoid the trap as he draws closer to his prey - the French head of state. Both French and British security services are frantically trying to work out the skilled assassin's next move while time continues to run out.

Marillion - Slainte Mhath

Great contemporary rock band Marillion. This track is from when lead singer 'Fish' was the front man. Fish was educated at Dalkeith High School. Scotsman, Fish came to the public attention in 1981 with the British rock group Marillion. The band achieved chart success in the UK with various hits from 1985 to 1987.

On occasion, Fish has been compared to Peter Gabriel, lead singer of Genesis in the early seventies.

When I first heard them, I thought they sounded a little similar to Genesis, but the signature of their music and lyrics is very unique and distinct, once listened too.

According to Fish, his stage nickname originates from the amount of time he spent in the bathtub.

Danger Diabolik (Retro Italian Flick)

As I have said before, my mother was always taking my sister and me to the pictures when we were kids. I did not know anything about this movie when we walked into the cinema, but I remember being mesmerised by it. I was only around seven years of age, and I thought Diabolik was a good crook.

It was the first movie I remembered seeing where the bad guy was the goody. He had to be, because he had great sports cars and a fabulous girlfriend. I remember he robbed some grand jewels for her birthday present and they went to bed in thousands of dollar notes. Of course nowadays, it is a rather cheesy sixties retro Italian flick, but I still have a soft spot for this outrages and fun movie. I sucked it in completely and thought every country had a champion Diabolik in residence.

At first I thought this man was an American comic strip super hero. I had seen such a character in Marvel and his name was Sub-Mariner. I was confused by this because Diabolik had a hair style that looked similar to this American comic character and he dived into water at the beginning.

Diabolik is an Italian comic strip character that robs banks and lives the life of a charismatic gentleman adventurer. The movie is totally over the top in a wonderful sixties cheesy, sexy way. The end was good too. Encased in gold - what a diabolical and grand way for Diabolik to go, or does he? This movie takes me back to the retro sixties world with some of its more pleasant memories.

It starred John Phillip Law who was in a number of Italian B movies of the sixties. His most notable other movie was The Golden Voyage of Sinbad with Tom Baker and Caroline Munro.

The heroine of the movie is Diabolik's girlfriend played by Austrian actress Marisa Mell. Sadly, Marisa Mell and John Phillip Law are no longer with us. 

Beryl the Peril (Retro British comic character)

I remember my sister bringing this annual home one evening from our school jumble sale. It would have been in 1971 and I assume a kid had read it and gave it over as the jumble. How could he or she do such a thing? This was gold dust - kiddie treasure.

I loved the Beano and the Dandy - I read them religiously every week. Retro British comics were and still are fabulous - they take me back to my childhood and many happy occasions when I would get lost in the little worlds of our comic characters.

I knew of Beryl the Peril and the Topper, but I did not read them much because I preferred the Beano and Dandy at the time. However, upon reading the above annual, I became an avid Beryl the Peril fan. She was a female version of the Beano's Dennis the Menace and both characters were created by David Law.

My sister and I would often argue over who should read the book because we always seemed to want it at the same time. It never occurred to us to read it together.

The above Beryl the Peril annual 1971 was a collection of weekly comic strips put into one annual. This was popular during Christmas and all the regular weekly comics would have annuals. The strips would be taken from stories going back to the 1950s and 1960s. As with Beryl the Peril, some characters were popular enough to warrant a whole annual dedicated to them. 

Devious Beryl the Peril

They were great fun and Beryl was a devious and scheming tomboy character that was always getting up to mischief. Sometimes she would get her comeuppance (Usually being spanked by Dad) and sometimes she would win. Much of the stories from yesterday would be politically incorrect today. 

we later acquired this annual too.

These comics helped me with my reading development as a kid though I often remember my mother saying that she thought they spelt words wrong. Especially words like; "It's not fair," being spelt comic version with Beryl saying "Snot fair." This was in order to sound like a grotty little kid in the school playground. Of course, there were other examples like this, but we were kids and these mistakes were pointed out when we made them. These characters encouraged kids to read because we wanted to escape into these comical worlds.

Beryl was always at odds with her old fashion moralistic Father

They were smashing times with great memories. Sadly these comics are not as popular nowadays, though the Beano and Dandy are still going. The cartoonists have changed and the stories toned down too. Beryl the Peril moved from the Topper comic to the Dandy when Topper and Beezer folded. In the 1950s, 60s, and 70s we thought it would never happen.

The Holy Spitfire (Our Lady of the Skies)

Where I live, in Leigh-on-Sea, there is a small flight runway called Southend Airport. There are many planes stationed there including a Vulcan bomber. Every last Sunday and following bank holiday Monday of May month, we have a two day air display. It is a fun time and the roads along the Southend-on-Sea seafront are closed off for the visitors and various stalls concerning the air display.

Usually, a few days before hand, some of the old planes are flying over head on test flights. I always delight in this because I often see, over the years, a Hawker Hurricane, a German ME 109 and our glorious Spitfire.

The Holy Spitfire: Our Lady of the Skies

Every Brit loves the Spitfire - she is our ultimate retro dream machine. We revere this gorgeous flying babe because of the iconic legacy she has left us. Everyone looks up and smiles knowing the airshow is coming to Southend when they see the Spitfire.

My Dad told me that when he was a kid he would look up into the sky and watch the dogfights. His house, where he now lives, was bought from my Grandfather and was built in 1952 by the old gates to Hornchurch airfield. When I was a kid I played on the abandoned and overgrown area of what had once been Hornchurch airfield - a major Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane base during the Battle of Britain.

The grand aeroplane is so wonderfully retro Brit and I can't think why it has taken so long into the blog collection to finally mention this dream baby. We Brits do, after all, owe so much to the dream machine. 

Hawker Hurricane (Workhorse)

The Hawker Hurricane was regarded as the work horse that could take a bit of punishment in air battles, but she lacked speed and maneuverability. The Spitfire was more nimble with a sharper over all performance. However, the Hawker Hurricane's durability should also be remembered and it is generally believed that both these aircraft complimented each other in the great air duels with Hitler's Luftwaffe during the 1940 Battle of Britain.

The Battle of Britain was a very desperate time for the United Kingdom. She had seen her land forces from the UK and Commonwealth almost driven into the sea by the advancing German army. The demoralized nation had seen its major neighbouring ally, France, fall before the Nazi Blizkrieg.

Britain needed time to recoup and Germany needed to push home her advantage by destroying British air power before launching an invasion. The Royal Navy was still formidable, but there were doubts about how the air force might perform. It was generally regarded as being under strengh and under maned to take on the German Luftwaffe.

Spitfire defending the shores of the UK

During the summer of 1940, Germany launched her air campaign over Britain and came up against stubborn and formidable resistance from the British RAF. One of the major contributing factors to this air battle was the Spitfire aeroplane. This little machine was pivotal in intercepting the German air force along with the Hawker Hurricane and the radar stations, which had a highly skilled operative staff of dedicated women and men. They could direct our Spitfire and Hurricane squadrons to key intercept positions.

Intercepting the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain

After months of bitter fighting, the Luftwaffe had to back away from the contest and Germany abandoned the idea of invasion. This coupled with mistakes of a later invasion in the Soviet Union caused the eventual demise of Hitler's Nazi Germany. The USA entered the war and Britain had two new allies. Because of the Spitfire's brave fight during the Battle of Britain, the new alliance had a spring board platform (the United Kingdom) to mount a liberating invasion in the years to come.

RJ Mitchell left us his legacy before passing away in 1937 aged 42.

Most people in the UK look upon the Spitfire in a glorious and romantic way today. The flying machine is viewed with a wonderful celebrity and style - a beautiful lady that one must treat with devotion and respect. She was designed by a man named RJ Mitchell and he worked on the plane from 1928 until his death from cancer in 1937. He never saw the great service his elegant mechanical lady would perform for his country, but he had a firm belief in the quality of his dream machine. After his death, Mitchell's friend and colleague Joseph Smith became the Chief designer. The Spitfire plane started off with a Rolls Royce Merlin engine and then progressed to a Rolls Royce Griffon engine during her life of service. In 1935 the armament was changed from two 303 in Vickers machine guns in each wing to four. This increased the machine ladies' temper very significantly for the dreadful future that was to come.

  

The Teardrop Explodes - When I Dream

I used to love this song and it is from about 1980 or 1981. It was my favorite track from an album called Kilimanjaro by The Teardrop Explodes. There were many other great tracks on this album and I can honestly say it was a rare LP where every song was quality. There was not a single suspect track.

(Radiogram Adventures) The Kinks - Sittin On My Sofa

I used to enjoy this track by the Kinks. It was one I would to make a beeline for and usually when indoors on my own. This is because I could play it many times without annoying everyone else. There was nothing better than being indoors alone with the radiogram and its records for my soul attention.

I used to drift into all sorts of worlds and imagine I was on stage doing these songs. I thought the world was turning through music bands on Top of the Pops. Things seemed much more simplistic then.

    

(Radiogram Adventures) Sandie Shaw - Long Live Love

This is a clip from the nineteen sixties of Sandie Shaw singing Long Live Love. In this song, there is an instrumental piece that breaks in before the next verse. I used to think it sounded wicked (good) as a kid and when I hear it today, I get a slight buzz as I think back to the time when my sister and I would be rummaging through the 45' singles by the large retro style stereo/radiogram that seemed so modern then.

It would probably be about 1969 - 1970. My mother would be pottering about in the kitchen and might call through a request via the serving hatch. There were loads of records in the store section of the long stereo gramme and it was always fun to look through them. I think many of us have memories like this, when Mum and Dad let us look through the records, and begin our radiogram adventures. My parents had so many records from all different types of music. They had rag time albums, Pop, Motown, Rock and Roll (I mean like the fifties stuff from America) Much of the pop was then modern sixties like Beatles, Manfred Man, oh Crikey! There were loads - even movie theme music and opera.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

soul train - That's The Way I Like It

 

Good old seventies sound of K.C. and the Sunshine band. This is a good retro American sound very much of the early to mid seventies time. The people in this clip look so happy and alive. At the time it was the real in thing, but nowadays, the younger generations are in to different types of sound. Still things turn full circle and no doubt these sounds will come back.

 

RustyBuckley wants to join the X-Men

Lightning Lunch Break Man
AKA Rusty Buckley

Rusty Buckley went all maverick in work one day and decided to let people know how it is. He wanted to be all intimidating and put on his super hero outfit, but was reading from the wrong script and got his presentation slightly wrong.

He decided that enough was enough and no one was going to fob him off with a rookie. He stormed into the office and refused to work with a newcomer.

"I want someone I know with me," ranted the put out Rusty Buckley.

"Very well," came the reply and he was partnered with the ultimate cleaning machine.

Rusty realised that no one would make a monkey's arse out of him. He was more then capable of doing it himself.

He has since been transformed into 'Lightning Lunch Break Man.' With his special 'Lightning Lunch Break Man,' powers he can do ten blocks in four minuets and has won a contract with Marvel Comics.

The X-Men have heard about him and wondered if he could attend an interview next Friday at 16.30 hours with a view to joining their prestigious gang.

Scotland v England 1966 and England v Scotland 1967

There is nothing that can compare to beating any nation in the world than watching England beat Scotland - our arch enemies for that period of time - the length of a football match when all the old gremlins come out of the cupboard and the thought of losing becomes a terrifying aspect to bare. 

England losing the home internationals would give the Scots the bragging rights for a whole year. One whole year of Scottish supremacy over England. It's like eating humble pie with razor blades. 

The English love to beat the Germans, Argentinians, the great Brazilians and Italy - all these great footballing nations fade into obscurity when faced with having victory over the Scots. Perhaps more the thought of losing against them in the home internationals. Them having the bragging rights for a whole year. It makes me shiver and gives me the hump up to my eyeballs.

I can just remember 1967 and the astonishing disbelief of our world cup winning side being tucked in by Scotland at our home ground. It was when I first learned of the terrible passion of losing against Scotland - the dreadful low that followed and how Scots loved to gloat at our expense. I know this sounds futile to people outside of England or Scotland, but this is a most passionate thing - a game of football when the histories of our nations bubble to the surface.

British unity can go for a long walk off of a very short pier when this fixture comes about. England must have the bragging rights until the next game. The home internationals were stopped some years ago now, but I wished they would bring them back. I think English and Scots loved and needed the buzz.

The best thing in the world would be to beat Scotland in a world cup final because the bragging rights would be forever in England's favour. The worst thing in the world would be to loose against Scotland in a world cup final. The pill would be the most bitter one in the world ever and the Scots would have that forever.

The thought of never being able to remedy such a defeat is horrendous. The 1967 defeat at Wembley still haunts us English to this day.

Imagine a world cup final defeat against Scotland ... :(

But then a world cup final victory for England ... :)

School for Scoundrels - British Comey Classic from 1959.

The above clip is where Henry Palfrey is made to look silly in front of his girlfriend by the ruthless cad Deluaney during a tennis match.

School for Scoundrel is a very excellent British comedy movie taken from the "one-upmanship" series of books by Stephen Potter. The main character, Henry Palfrey played by Ian Carmichael, is a failure in sport and love, and victim of unscrupulous conmen. He decides to enrol it the "School of Lifemanship." This school is run by Dr. Potter who is played by Alistair Sim. He is an equally devious character, but his talents are turned to helping failures like Henry Palfrey to venture back into the trepidations of a world of conmen and pay them back at their own games.

Dr Potter teaches young Palfrey how to win in life and get the better of his arch rival Raymond Delauney played by the wonderful Terry Thomas - the perfect nasty, English cad. Palfrey is taught to use more advanced underhand means from his School of Lifemanship that are not exactly dishonest, but a little economical in nobility - how to win without actually cheating - something Dr Potter refers to as ploys.

Janette Scott is the fair lady that is the object of Henry Palfrey's more noble intentions, but the English cad, Raymond Delauney has stolen her affections from under the nose of our reluctant hero. This is what makes him go to the School for Scoundrels in the first place.

In the clip below, Palfrey tries to buy a car from a couple of shark salesmen who stripe him up a treat. After attending the School for Scoundrels he must come back and rectify his mistake. 

This is British comedy at its best and retains that wonderful old retro British flavor of a bygone time.

The Invaders opening titles

Another cult sixties tv classic sci/fi series was the American retro show - The Invaders. This is the famous opening scene. When the aliens, in  human form were shot; they would glow and disappear, making the job of proving 'they are among us' very difficult.

EDDIE COCHRAN, COME ON EVERYBODY

Eddie Cochran remains one of the all time favorites of early Rock and Roll. This is one of his most famous and everyone enjoys this song.

Man in a suitcase (Retro tv series)

This is another theme tune I remember well. It stared Richard Bradford as an ex CIA agent and was very popular in the late 60s and early 70s. In the UK at this time, there was only three network channels. BBC 1, BBC 2, and ITV. I think these wonderful shows might have had a captured audience in the UK so they had a real good chance of getting up and running before a large group of viewers.

I think in today's more diverse market, some of these shows might not capture the imagination so much because there is such a wide choice available. This is more the pity really, but then we all do like choice. The trouble with too much choice is; I find myself sifting through the channels looking for something and when you watch just ten minuets of a show and then five or more of adverts it becomes taxing. I find it hard to concentrate and start channel hoping.

 

Rutlemania "I must be in Love" From "A Hard Day's Rut"

From Rutland Weekend Television - this spoof send up of the Beatles was called The Ruttles. Eric Idle is one of the Ruttles' band members and the alternative Fab Four take the viewer on a comical send up journey through Retro 60s Britain.