Cecil Amor is the Founder Chairman of Bridport History Society. His background is in design, techonology and engineering, being a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers and a European Design Committee Member.
During my engineering apprenticeship at a large factory in Chippenham, Wiltshire, I was asked to work with a Production Engineer for three months. This was partly to ease his work load by taking over mundane jobs, such as recording when Read more »
It was probably my birthday present, with a view to riding the two miles to the Grammar School if I obtained a scholarship. The Hercules was second hand and I could not reach the pedals, so they were enhanced by Read more »
“Here we go gathering nuts in May” Thinking of the month, this childhood song came to mind. However, the words seem rather odd, so I appealed to the great oracle Google who advised that it was probably originally “gathering knots Read more »
“One of the Ruins that Cromwell knocked about a bit” – “Abaht a bit, Abaht a bit”. This was a music hall song heard on the radio about 50 years ago, sung in a mock cockney voice. From memory it Read more »
‘Whoops, She went up in the big Balloon.’ This was a song on an old record, probably 1920s, now lost without trace, which we used to play on an old wind up gramophone in our aeromodelling clubhouse, the disused Air Read more »
This phrase “The Poor Man’s Friend” was used by an MP in The Chimes a novel by Charles Dickens, discussed recently. It was also the name of an ointment which was widely sold in this country and around the world, Read more »
Recently I read a short story by Charles Dickens, The Chimes, published in 1844, the year following A Christmas Carol. Dickens describes The Chimes as “A Goblin story of some bells that rang an Old Year out and a New Read more »
Having grown up in a landlocked county the nearest waterway was the canal, the Kennet and Avon, sometimes called “The Cut”. In my younger days it was stagnant and my early efforts at fishing with a hazel rod and bent Read more »
I know Little & Large are a couple of comedians and I do not write funny scripts. I am thinking of Thomas Hardy in Tess of the d’Urbervilles writing about dairies, Little and Great. The Little Dairies were in the Read more »
An engaged couple we were well acquainted with had noted the slogan of the then nationalised gas industry “All by Gas”. The young lady lived in a home with an old gas geyser above the bath and she and her Read more »