These days having a hair cut is a fairly straight forward experience. On arrival, I’ll sit in the barbershop waiting area until it’s my turn to don a gown to protect against discarded hair. Once in the chair I’ll relay the style of cut I desire, receive the aforementioned cut, pay and leave the premises….
Tag: gateshead
Schooldays Beside The Old Oak Field
“Who wants a game of Japs and Commandos?…. Who wants a game of Japs and Commandos?” A schoolyard enquiry frequently heard at Oakfield Junior School during my fledgling education years of 1968-1974. A chant ordinarily started at breaktime by a small number of boys intent on attracting recruits for their game. A query made by…
Q
During the half century I’ve resided on this dysfunctional planet I’ve been confronted by numerous intriguing life questions. Among them an irritational compulsion to unearth what the Q stood for in the name of my childhood optician JQ Summers. The affable Scotsman who practised his ophthalmic trade in a shop opposite the Cannon pub on…
Breckers Aren’t Useless
Within the past few days I’ve shared a trilogy of narratives (Lunchtime Lounging At The Griddle, …. And The Teachers Get The Money! & Duck!!) regarding whimsical, partly fictional, recollections of the Gateshead senior high school I attended between 1977-79. This education establishment, which became victim to the wrecking ball a couple of decades ago, going by…
…. And The Teachers Get The Money!
During an earlier vignette I penned about attending Heathfield Senior High School, I failed to relay any memories of the teachers who’d the unenviable pleasure of trying to motivate me during term time. This a deeply challenging segment of my life when my only hobbies were sporadically emitting pubescent grunts of discontentment, interspersed with frequent…
On Allerdene Field
It’s a rare occasion these days that I drive past the field bisecting the Leech and Allerdene estates in the southern Gateshead area of Low Fell. However, when I am back in the area I was raised, driving beside this triangular shaped field manifests a strange amalgam of warmth and sadness within yours truly. Warmth…
It’s Happy Hour Again!
I was in the north east of England on Monday and Tuesday. While up there I took the opportunity to catch up with an old mate from Low Fell, Gateshead. A pal who, regardless of how many months since we last met, ensures our verbal jousting continues as though it’d been the previous Friday. A…
In The Company of Mike & Spike
In the company of a pal of mine, yesterday evening I went to see a gig at the Brudenell club, Leeds. This an odyssey to see a band called The Quireboys – A synergy of musicians with roots in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Scotland and a Llandudno B&B (allegedly). I’ll be honest and admit it’s a band I’m…
The Chippy On Dawlish Gardens
Today’s ‘To Do List’ includes taking mater for her weekly food shop. A well choreographed routine spent at the White Rose Shopping Centre (WR), Leeds, starting with a Costa coffee, purchase of comestibles from M&S, calling in Clintons for a greetings card, before the main weekly shop for consumables at Sainsburys. As I alluded to…