Non-motoring > 40 years ago - Your alibi	Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Zero	Replies: 78

New Sat 11 Feb 12 10:08   40 years ago - Your alibi - Zero

Shamelessly stolen from Les's post in the Nonce thread. What was you alibi 40 years ago today. Friday 11th February 1972 I was at work being an apprentice for BEA at Hatton Cross. , outside was my Ducati Desmo Junior Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 10:09   40 years ago - Your alibi - R.P.

Myself, I was sat behind a desk in Skool. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 10:10   40 years ago - Your alibi - Zero

What skool where? Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 10:10   40 years ago - Your alibi - Westpig

I was at Tamerton Vale primary school in Plymouth. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 10:30   40 years ago - Your alibi - swiss tony

I was at Primary School, looking forward (??) to moving up to the Secondary, and also becoming an Uncle for the first time. Later in '72 my Father brought his first (only) new car - a Vauxhall Viva! Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 10:33   40 years ago - Your alibi - Skip

""I was at Primary School, looking forward (??) to moving up to the Secondary, and also becoming an Uncle for the first time"" Same here, last year at Minterne primary school in Sittingbourne ! Last edited by: Skip on Sat 11 Feb 12 at 10:33 Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 10:34   40 years ago - Your alibi - Iffy

First year at grammar school for me. Making the effort to pass my 11+ was one of my wiser decisions. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 10:38   40 years ago - Your alibi - Clk Sec

I was a buyer for a large UK company. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 10:35   40 years ago - Your alibi - Bromptonaut

I should have been behind a desk at Aireborough Grammar School Yeadon. First form, now yr 7 (aged 1.2) The joker in the pack was the Miner's strike. Three day week, rota power cuts and fact that school was heated with coal may have meant I was sent home with a list of exercises to complete. One or two facebook friends might be able to confirm. Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sat 11 Feb 12 at 10:40 Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 11:54   40 years ago - Your alibi - Armel Coussine

>> Tamerton Vale primary school in Plymouth. Westo! Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 10:43   40 years ago - Your alibi - ....

I was probably up to my neck in trouble doing stuff I shouldn't have been. I was 3. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 10:46   40 years ago - Your alibi - Iffy

...I was probably up to my neck in trouble doing stuff I shouldn't have been. I was 3. ... No you weren't, you were being rogered senseless by a relative, remember? Time to get it all out and make a complaint to the police. Reply to this message | Report message       1

New Sat 11 Feb 12 10:49   40 years ago - Your alibi - Dutchie

San Quentin Kidding.>;) Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 10:53   40 years ago - Your alibi - AnotherJohnH

Training course, nearly halfway through the 12 weeks. Oddly enough I got a copy of the end of course photo yesterday - what a motley selection of spotty youth! No personal transport in those days - the company coach was outside. Last edited by: AnotherJohnH on Sat 11 Feb 12 at 10:55 Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 10:53   40 years ago - Your alibi - ....

Highly unlikely Iffy, we lived hours away from the nearest and dearest and gave the Church a wide berth. The locals looked upon "outsiders" with suspicion. Last edited by: gmac on Sat 11 Feb 12 at 10:57 Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 10:59   40 years ago - Your alibi - Iffy

...Highly unlikely Iffy... Pleased to hear it, although my post sums up how historic child abuse cases are often presented. Unsupervised visits of the child to granddad/uncle at home or weekends away 'in the caravan' have come back to bite some people. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 11:11   40 years ago - Your alibi - Dog

I was working at Peter Williams filing systems (Strafoplan) in Woolwich, London and drove a Triumph Herald convertible (with twin carbs!) Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 11:23   40 years ago - Your alibi - Robin O'Reliant

I would have been fast asleep in bed, having just finished a 12 hour night shift as a quality controller in a plastics factory, and looking forward to a night of boozing and chasing skirt later on. It was a miserable job for an eighteen year old, taken on a short term basis while saving up to pay cash for a Honda CB175. That was in the days when it was hard for a young single guy to get credit and they wouldn't accept the old man as a gaurantor as he'd just retired. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 11:29   40 years ago - Your alibi - henry k

I was very busy computer programming as part of a really dynamic team. A great time and I am still in touch with some of those folk. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 11:53   40 years ago - Your alibi - MD

Passed my test on a borrowed CD175. Lousy bike. You of course had twin carbs! Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 11:55   40 years ago - Your alibi - Robin O'Reliant

>> Passed my test on a borrowed CD175. Lousy bike. You of course had twin carbs! >> And Yokohama tyres. If they'd made pistons and bores out of the rubber they used for them, engines would have needed no lubrication and would have lasted forever. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 11:28   40 years ago - Your alibi - Falkirk Bairn

Teaching young airforce cadets how to count etc in Saudi Arabia - funnily enough the contract signed in 1966 (Lightnings) is still running (Eurofighters). £5,500 a year and that was a lot of money - tax free and free board and lodgings - new UK teacher £1400 / year taxable. 2.5 yrs miserable years set me up for new house and MGB GT in August 72. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 11:31   40 years ago - Your alibi - Iffy

...2.5 yrs miserable years set me up... Pal of mine did something similar with Jaguar around the same time. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 11:34   40 years ago - Your alibi - Clk Sec

>>Pal of mine did something similar with Jaguar around the same time. I believe quite a few of us on this forum have worked abroad at some time or another. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 11:51   40 years ago - Your alibi - MD

Skiving off school probably. Learning to play darts and drink. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 12:08   40 years ago - Your alibi - henry k

>>I believe quite a few of us on this forum have worked abroad at some time or another. >> Indeed. I did lots of Saudi trips and my baby daughter came with us on one of the longer visits. I remember travelling with the large groups of BAE lads getting plastered on the flights. I have worked briefly in many countries but mostlly in the capitals or major cities/towns. One of the most memerable - I was fortunate to visit Leptis Magna and Sabratha in Libya with my team. We were the only people in the whole of the sites- magical. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 12:41   40 years ago - Your alibi - Meldrew

I was somewhere in Germany, fast and low, flying one HM's fast pointy things around, frightening the conquered population and making their farm animals miscarry. Reply to this message | Report message       1

New Sat 11 Feb 12 12:53   40 years ago - Your alibi - PeterS

I don't know, but then I was only one so I expect it involved a Silver Cross pram tinyurl.com/7ln4x4y In later years this formed the basis of a pretty quick (or so it seemed...) go-kart :-) 25 years later though, February 1997, I had just started work at BA (Comet House) at Hatton Cross; outside was a Citroen Saxo VTR (free insurance, in true Citroen style!!) Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 13:09   40 years ago - Your alibi - Clk Sec

>>Silver Cross pram tinyurl.com/7ln4x4y Crumbs, were they still being produced in 1972? Had it been used previously as the mode of conveyance for an older sibling? Last edited by: Clk Sec on Sat 11 Feb 12 at 13:14 Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 13:18   40 years ago - Your alibi - PeterS

Definitely not for an older sibling since I am the oldest, though it might not have looked exactly like that I remember it being a dark blue colour. Looking at their website though they were still available in the '70s tinyurl.com/7zyuxs8 In fact for £1,250 you can still buy one! Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 13:25   40 years ago - Your alibi - Clk Sec

>>In fact for £1,250 you can still buy one! I wish I had kept mine. It would have been a better investment than my first day covers. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 16:33   40 years ago - Your alibi - Ted

>> >>In fact for £1,250 you can still buy one! >> >> I wish I had kept mine. It would have been a better investment than my >> first day covers. >> We still have one, dark blue as well. Not for our lot but bought a few years back for the granDbabies. Mint condition and hardly used by us. I don't see any point in keeping it now and it's got No sentimental value. I'll have another go at persuading her to flog it ! In '72, I was probably patrolling the mean streets of Manchester in a Mk2 Jag/TR4A/Cooper S/Humber Super Snipe. Or I could have been on a day off at home here with the missus and our one year old ankle-biter. Another year 'til we had another. I was 26 and Erin 24. We had a Super Minx convertible Ted Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 17:23   40 years ago - Your alibi - Clk Sec

. We had a Super Minx convertible >> >> Ted Nice car that. My then g/fs father owned one in the mid 60s, and used to drive it like a bat out of hell. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 18:06   40 years ago - Your alibi - CGNorwich

"and used to drive it like a bat out of hell." Well a fairly leisurely sort of bat "could accelerate from 0-60 mph (97 km/h) in 21.6 seconds.' en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillman_Super_Minx Reply to this message | Report message

New Sun 12 Feb 12 08:07   40 years ago - Your alibi - Clk Sec

>> "and used to drive it like a bat out of hell." >> Well a fairly leisurely sort of bat I was referring to his speed rather than his acceleration, CG. But you are right, bat out of hell is hardly appropriate in this instance. I'm surprised L'escargot didn't beat you to it, though. :) Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 13:30   40 years ago - Your alibi - RattleandSmoke

I wasn't even born in 1972! Maybe this site should be called Car4middleaged.com :D. In 1972 though my dad would have been at college and close to starting his new job which he did for 25 years, and my mother would have been in her final year of secondary school. Reply to this message | Report message       1

New Sat 11 Feb 12 18:41   40 years ago - Your alibi - Roger.

>> I wasn't even born in 1972! Maybe this site should be called Car4middleaged.com :D. >> >> In 1972 though my dad would have been at college and close to starting his >> new job which he did for 25 years, and my mother would have been in >> her final year of secondary school. OK - who is the oldest inhabitant of C4P? I'll start off - born December 1935. Makes me - er -um - old! Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 18:47   40 years ago - Your alibi - Dog

I'll wager you're the oldest inmate mate. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 14:01   40 years ago - Your alibi - Bromptonaut

>> I don't know, but then I was only one so I expect it involved a >> Silver Cross pram tinyurl.com/7ln4x4y I The Wilson Silver Cross factory (the old silk factory Guiseley) was a mile or so down the road from the school that is the basis of my alibi! Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 14:05   40 years ago - Your alibi - Bigtee

I was in my pram i was 7 months old. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 14:06   40 years ago - Your alibi - Clk Sec

Big pram, was it? :) Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 14:07   40 years ago - Your alibi - Bigtee

A WHOPPER. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 14:23   40 years ago - Your alibi - L'escargot

I was at my Dad's funeral. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 15:30   40 years ago - Your alibi - zookeeper

i was counting my new pence to see if i could afford 4 or 5 jammie dodgers from the tuck shop at morning break Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 16:28   40 years ago - Your alibi - VxFan

I was not quite 4 years old. Probably either being a PITA to my 3 elder sisters, or equally being a PITA to my parents. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 16:35   40 years ago - Your alibi - Armel Coussine

Living in one of several flats in Notting Hill and translating a long and detailed book on the Greek Civil War by a French Trotskyist. Never felt the same since then about the British, the Americans or come to that the Soviet Union, all of whom (or all of which) came out as badly as the Nazis or pretty well... and the poor Greeks are still in the associated carp up to their armpits, or so the comics keep telling us. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 18:09   40 years ago - Your alibi - smokie

O level year for me... Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 18:10   40 years ago - Your alibi - Robin O'Reliant

>> O level year for me... >> Are you talking educational, or sexual awakening...? Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 18:41   40 years ago - Your alibi - Roger.

I never did my A levels, then, or since! Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 19:35   40 years ago - Your alibi - Zero

Are you talking educational, or sexual awakening...? Last edited by: Zero on Sat 11 Feb 12 at 19:36 Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 20:25   40 years ago - Your alibi - Aretas

At my desk wondering how to cope with a duplicated order (£100k at today's prices) which was sailing down the Suez Canal towards Australia. Probably caused by my thinking about my forthcoming marriage in July. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 20:26   40 years ago - Your alibi - Mark

Just moved up to John Stocker Junior High in St Thomas, Exeter although unknown to me at that time I had also just won a scholarship to Queen Elizabeths Grammar in Crediton and would soon be leaving for that. I recall at JSH the headmaster was a Mr P H Whetter or "bedwetter" to a certain group of more truckulent pupils. Where have the last 40 years gone so quickly? As always Mark Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 20:40   40 years ago - Your alibi - Dutchie

There is plenty of unrest in Greece at the moment the government can only go so far with these cuts there. The history we where told as kids at school was fantasy.Good Dutch history writer researcher Dick Dreux told the real truth. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 20:58   40 years ago - Your alibi - Meldrew

I remember enjoying the writing of a Dutch author back in the 50s - Hendrik Willem van Loon. Known to you Dutchie? tinyurl.com/83qj46q Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 21:17   40 years ago - Your alibi - Dutchie

Thanks Meldrew he was born in Rotterdam I should know but I don't. I will get his books and read. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 21:25   40 years ago - Your alibi - Arctophile

11 Feb 1972... I was sliding down an Italian Alp with two planks of wood strapped to my feet. On holiday from the office where I was designing junctions on the A174, Teesside Parkway, south of Middlesbrough. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 21:45   40 years ago - Your alibi - RichardW

2 years, 8 months, 11 days before I was born... Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 21:59   40 years ago - Your alibi - four wheels good...

On a war canoe somewhere in the Med. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 22:02   40 years ago - Your alibi - Old Navy

On nuclear deterrent patrol in a Polaris submarine. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 22:08   40 years ago - Your alibi - Crankcase

Probably at school I guess, but utterly clueless otherwise. No memory of it other than the name of the place. Erased from my mind, as is almost everything before five minutes ago on a rolling basis. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 23:34   40 years ago - Your alibi - Dutchie

So you are the one's what keep popping up and scare the Merchants Old Navy.>:) The sub we came across was a diesel contrapcion not to big. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sun 12 Feb 12 08:53   40 years ago - Your alibi - L'escargot

>> Living in one of several flats in Notting Hill and translating a long and detailed >> book ............ And "Motoring with the Murgatroyds" in 1978. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sun 12 Feb 12 11:27   40 years ago - Your alibi - Armel Coussine

>> "Motoring with the Murgatroyds" in 1978. Good heavens escargot... my only published fiction, and the only use I made of this handle before C4P... I have, somewhere, a grotty paper copy of it. Doubt if it's on line though. A fanciful piece of science fiction, fairly wide of the mark in describing the early 21st century... Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 13 Feb 12 08:45   40 years ago - Your alibi - L'escargot

>> >> "Motoring with the Murgatroyds" in 1978. >> >> Good heavens escargot... my only published fiction, and the only use I made of this >> handle before C4P... tinyurl.com/7alphko Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 22:17   40 years ago - Your alibi - slowdown avenue

would have been working for avis rent a car. best job i ever had. owned a hc viva x reg a new one . does that fit in with my memory? Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 22:22   40 years ago - Your alibi - Manatee

K reg in 1972? Reply to this message | Report message       1

New Sun 12 Feb 12 14:28   40 years ago - Your alibi - slowdown avenue

oh yer it was an L reg. so i was i driving a hillman minx [ dont remember that ones reg} Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 23:06   40 years ago - Your alibi - Dog

= = = > www.drugs.com/exelon.html Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 23:40   40 years ago - Your alibi - Dutchie

Is there any cure for this horrible illness will any drugs work.? Reply to this message | Report message

New Sun 12 Feb 12 09:06   40 years ago - Your alibi - Dog

>>Is there any cure for this horrible illness will any drugs work.?<< They do work, if you can remember to take them ;} Reply to this message | Report message

New Sat 11 Feb 12 23:42   40 years ago - Your alibi - Dave_

>> 40 years ago - Your alibi Well, considering i'm celebrating *that* birthday at the start of November, and I arrived a couple of weeks early, I reckon that 40 years ago I was busy being conceived! More likely to have been on Valentine's night, thinking about it :/ Dad's around the same age as Ted, at the time he drove a '69 Vitesse convertible. Untypically for the time, Mum drove her own car too - a Mk3 Zephyr. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sun 12 Feb 12 01:08   40 years ago - Your alibi - Ted

So I might be your dad, Dave ? Prior to the Minx, I had a Herald 12/50 convertible. Powder blue with white hood and tonneaf. 1963 reg, YBA 60. A bit girly but it was one owner, the actress Anne Reid, who was in Corrie in the 60s as Ken Barlow's wife . Nice car but I'd had a Super Minx drophead before that and I fancied another one. Was on about £2K a year, probably. SWM was a secondary teacher on about £1.5K. We had a big mortgage in '72, We bought this house two years before for £3750. £25 a month...could have bought it on a credit card now without thinking twice !. Never thought we'd still be in it 42 years later Ted Reply to this message | Report message

New Sun 12 Feb 12 08:38   40 years ago - Your alibi - DeeW

Living in Bromley, working in Obituaries at The Times, Printing House Square, that day as one of the early female trainees (until then had only been male messenger boys). Bomb scare* in the afternoon. A good day as I got a £50 tax rebate- 5 weeks pay! Power cuts until 7pm then again at 10pm. Am sorting the house and, co-incidentally, found the only diary I ever actually kept up for a year. *Being The Times, we had a lot of these when we all had to evacuate the building. Subsequently it was discovered that a lot of these were down to one of the messenger boys, who was then helping himself to goodies left on desks. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sun 12 Feb 12 10:31   40 years ago - Your alibi - Cliff Pope

I was working in my first job as an articled clerk, having graduated the previous year. I had just left home, and lived in a bedsit in Putney. I had a 1947 Triumph Roadster 1800. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sun 12 Feb 12 16:47   40 years ago - Your alibi - SteelSpark

Most of your alibis seem pretty flimsy. I wonder what you were really up to. Mine is pretty water-tight, given that I was still firmly a twinkle in the milkman's eye. I hadn't realised that so many of you were so...experienced... Reply to this message | Report message

New Sun 12 Feb 12 16:55   40 years ago - Your alibi - Armel Coussine

>> so...experienced... He means doddering and drooling, toothless, wheezing, dropsical, diseased... Reply to this message | Report message

New Sun 12 Feb 12 17:19   40 years ago - Your alibi - Robin O'Reliant

>> >> He means doddering and drooling, toothless, wheezing, dropsical, diseased... >> Yeah, but we've paid for our houses and we have pensions. And long after we're gone his lot will be going bankrupt bacause of our financial hedonism. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sun 12 Feb 12 17:38   40 years ago - Your alibi - Zero

We are the "SKI" Generation "Spending the Kids Inheritance. Reply to this message | Report message

New Sun 12 Feb 12 18:12   40 years ago - Your alibi - Robin O'Reliant

It gives one a warm glow. Reply to this message | Report message