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Channel: The olden days – Crying All The Way To The Chip Shop
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Where’s the beef?

“On this occasion,” said Jack, “that’s exactly where you’re wrong. You’re all here as my guests, and you can order anything you like. The tab for this is being picked up by the British Leyland Motor...

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You can’t put your arms around an mp3

When I moved to the States I stored all my records in my Dad’s basement and it was 10 long years before I finally had them shipped over. When those battered cardboard boxes landed on my doorstep it was...

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Summer in the city

I’m not any kind of transportation anorak who gets all swoony over buses and trains but I felt my heart sigh a little watching some of the lovely old documentaries now up at the The London Transport...

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Every picture tells a story

After my mother died my sister gave me a pile of old family photos to scan, among them this one of my mother (left) and her three younger sisters outside their Shepherd’s Bush council flat — the same...

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Twice Nightly

This great poster is from a huge online collection of old Leeds theatre playbills that’s well worth having a nose through. Featuring lots more saucy ladies, cockney comics, scintilating singers, and...

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They’re Absolute Beginners

br> Fab look at the Soho coffee bar scene in the 1950s, full of Bohemian characters and beat-grooving teens. You’ll want to pull up some cushions and have a cuppa Java to watch this one, Daddio.

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The Cost of Frying

I don’t think it’s the cheapest anymore, last time I had a portion of chips it cost me a pound — a pound! for a bag of chips! — and having fish with it will set you back a fiver in London, so it’s...

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The Big Soot

br> Amazing colour film of London shot way back in 1927, though apart from the red of the buses the only colours in evidence seem to be grey and brown. London still looked a lot like that until...

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No Ball Games

br> There were “No Ball Games” signs on my estate too which we ignored just like these kids, and if I had a penny for every time some old lady told me to “get yer hair cut!” I’d have enough to buy...

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Un Film De Saint Etienne

br> Those loveable popsters Saint Etienne have become quite the movie producers in recent years, having made three films about London in collaboration with director Paul Kelly. They’re hard to come...

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Tea Among The Ruins

Why Hitler lost: You can bomb our houses, destroy our streets, but you’ll never take away our tea. Download: Who Do You Think You’re Kidding, Mr Hitler? – Bud Flanagan (mp3)

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Commercial Break

One look at an old photo of London will tell you the past was a dirtier place: Soot-covered buildings, smog, everyone smoking. But I never knew it was so bad that sweets came in specially reinforced,...

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Candid Camera

This photo of my mother looks like a still from a Hitchcock movie. Her short blond hair has something of a Kim Novak and Janet Leigh vibe, and the off-camera stare gives it a curious, anxious edge as...

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Dirty Old Town

I look at photos of London from my youth and it looks like another world compared to the shiny capitalist megapolis the city is now. The scars of WWII were still everywhere in the form of old...

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Old Money

I’m old enough to remember when Britain still used pounds, shillings, and pence for currency before the nation switched to the decimal system in February 1971. You would think a system based on units...

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The Sunday Matinee

The highlight of a boring, rainy Sunday in my youth was often the film on BBC1 in the afternoon. This was usually an old black and white movie, perfectly timed to come on after we’d had our Sunday...

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The Memory Hole

My sister came to visit last summer and brought with her this photo booth picture she found among our mum’s things. Amazingly I had never seen it before so I was bowled over at having a forgotten...

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Singles Going Cheaply

I wish I could say I was hip enough to have bought Jonathan Richman’s “Roadrunner” when it came out in 1977 but the copy I have is on the cheapo reissue label Old Gold which I bought in the 1980s. I...

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Every Picture Tells A Story

Originally published September 2010 After our mother died, my sister gave me a pile of old family photos to scan, among them this one of her (left) and her three younger sisters outside their...

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Stiff Upper Lips

Originally published February 2009 Alec: We know we really love each other. That’s true. That’s all that really matters. Laura: It isn’t all that really matters. Other things matter too. Self-respect...

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