Saturday 18 June 2022

A dozen dozen months later

Just editing a post below due to dead links and realise it is in fact a dozen x a dozen months since I last posted here, 144 months, almost exactly 12 years to the day. 

"I guess one angel in another’s hell:", line 12 from the Bard's Sonnet 144

Of David, "Benedictus Dominus Deus meus, qui docet manus meas ad prælium, et digitos meos ad bellum.". The first line of Psalm 144, this translated from the Hebrew to Latin. 'With the development of the ideal of the knighthood in the 12th century, the verse came to be seen as a fitting prayer for the Christian warrior' Wiki tells us. 

Line 12: "Then our sons in their youth will be like well-nurtured plants, and our daughters will be like pillars carved to adorn a palace.

Anyhow...I digress. I left school early, at 15...not really early, the right age given my summer birth date. The thought of more exams and possible university was too much too bear. St. Nicks, being a grammar school (originally a school teaching Latin, but the main difference 'back in the day' was that a grammar school would select pupils based on academic achievement) was meant to prepare us for college or - preferably - university, but a very high percentage of my year (admittedly after they stayed for A-levels in most cases) joined the Met. Police or the armed forces: HERE in my case - being a fit lad... as the recruiting officer said! 

To be honest I didn't fit in: being too 'straight', being a good scout throughout my childhood I was a bit of a wanker at being a Para, I kept telling the NCOs what they were doing wrong. Probably lucky that a medical discharge, albeit with an exemplary service record, led to an earlier than expected start to what I sort of wanted to do anyway i.e. "work outdoors". 

I have always presumed that growing up looking out onto green fields and a dairy farm (despite living in North-West London) was the subliminal influence to this 'career' path (career in inverted commas because I have never had a life plan at all). I started at BCA in September 1980.

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Tuesday 15 June 2010

Ongoing Ows...


My first school was Harlyn and I am always surprised to see that it has hardly changed since I was there! Mr. Baker was the excellent headmaster and Mr. Grieg sticks in my mind as a great teacher: both were early influences. Plus I apologise very belatedly to Miss Garland: all those times my pencil fell on the floor...well, it didn't really fall and my aim was to look up your skirt.

Secondary school was nearby: St. Nicholas Grammar School (now Haydon: A High Performing Specialist School in Languages and Applied Learning) just up the road: both schools were easy walking distance from home, come rain or shine...and cowshit on occasions.

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Sunday 2 May 2010

Ows origins...


My first post on a new blog, there won't be too much posting yet as this is a work for the future. The HA5 of the blog name - apart from also being 'has' - is the UK postcode where I grew up; in Northwood Hills, near Pinner to be precise but in the Borough of Hillingdon (Pinner is in the Borough of Harrow); on the very, very edge of Greater London.

The origins of Ows: I was born in Wembley (HA9...pure coincidence that Wembley Stadium is HA9 0WS) in what was the hundred of Gore in the historic county of Middlesex [edit: another coincidence when you realise 'Gore' is part of the name of ancestors of mine] Aged one my family moved out to the far leafier Pinner.

The image is the cover of the 1924 edition of 'Metro-land' promoting the rapid suburban development north and west of London; this edition had the extra purpose of promoting The British Empire Exhibition of 1924/25 at Wembley. [Edit] Click on image for Oliver Green's (Head Curator of London's Transport Museum) introduction. [Dead link removed] New link and citation: Clendinning, Anne. “On The British Empire Exhibition, 1924-25.” BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History. Ed. Dino Franco Felluga. Extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net. Web. [accessed 18th June 2022. 1447hrs, BST].
 
Update 28th Oct 2010: HERE's a OS map of where I lived. Thinking back I realise my parents made a perfect choice.

Update 19th April 2012!!! [Personal image removed, May 2022]




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