Visited Nana for her hundredth birthday celebrations: there's congratulations from the Queen, as well as a separate communication from the government minister of those-who-organise-these-things.
|
Some reflections on 1988 This is a summary of what we were doing in 1988, written as a reflection from thirty years later, and based on diaries and photographs from the time. |
|
|
Elaine:
Returned to Work with a full-time job at Rotherham Council, working in the Main Drainage section. That's sewers, once more. It was the first interview and first job application since Iain was born. We acquired a car for the travelling, having used buses and trains for five years. Driving is the most tiring part of the process, with some complicated Iain-minding arrangements to fit in.
Visited Nana for her hundredth birthday celebrations: there's congratulations from the Queen, as well as a separate communication from the government minister of those-who-organise-these-things. |
|
|
|
Peter:
Having bought the 'new' green car for Elaine's new job, a car drove out of a side-road in front of me (it was the setting sun, she said) and that was the end of both cars. No injuries, fortunately. Replaced with a red car.
At work, we continued being the Manpower Services Commission until May when we were re-named the Training Commission. This lasted until September, when we were unexpectedly abolished and became an outpost of the Employment Department, called the Training Agency. Phoning-in one afternoon, the telephone operators had been told to say "Employment Department" instead of their normal greeting, which was a surprise to us all. The Dead Hand of Whitehall taking us over, we all thought. We shall see. |
|
|
|
Geographically, we started the year at an outpost called Steel City House. Our offices are in a roof extension, behind a high parapet: Oscar wrote: "I never saw a man who looked / With such a wistful eye / Upon that little tent of blue / Which prisoners call the sky." Moving back to the main office in Moorfoot, our once-small section has expanded to a large roomful, with lots of expensive consultants filling much of the space. |
|
|
|
Iain:
starting his last year at Lydgate First School, and now there is a set of afternoon care-arrangements for him to remember: seemed to have worked so far. Also unresolved as yet is whether a birhday-bicycle will generate enthusiasm for pedalling up Sheffield hills.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Canalling: A total of about 321 miles and 402 locks from two one-week trips on seventy-foot hireboats, one from Braunston around the Avon Ring via Kingswood Junction, Birmingham, Rivers Severn and Avon, then Stratford and back to Kingswood again on nbGreat Britain; and the other from Middlewich around the Four-Counties Ring and Stourport ring as well on nbSycamore. Both on average had twelve-hour days, with much planning and recruitment of friends and relations to fill the boats, share the costs and have the collective energy for those longish days. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Boatless visits: to Oxford, to Knottingley, to York, to Lincoln, to Castlefield for the Inland Waterways Association National Rally. Often brief stops on long car journeys. So also Ripon, Beamish, Barmby, ... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ringing: Collected another six handbells from Whitechapel Bellfoundry to make a set of 19. Monday Lunchtime practices until Elaine started Work again. Continued towerbell practices and Sunday ringing at Ranmoor, with its annual Ringers' Feast; as usual attended Southampton University Guild of Change Ringers' Annual Dinner, the annual training weekend at Whirlow Grange and there was a Sheffield University ringers' weekend in Birkenhead. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Other doings: Hilary's wedding - and a picture with Elaine and Christine who all met at primary school; hotel fourpost bed was for that weekend trip. Went to World Snooker at the Crucible, to Manchester industrial museum ... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|