There were two reasons I was unhappy with this picture. Firstly it showed the devastation in the centre of Norwich after German bombing, but also the serviceman was smiling for the camera, as if this was a snapshot for the family. He was making light of the misery of thousands of people.
Of course most people tend to smile when they are having their photographs taken, it is a natural re-action. But sometimes you have to remember where you are and what the situation is. I'm sure back in wartime this serviceman had absolutely no idea that one day the photograph of him would be available to the world. He has in effect made this devastation into a family snap.
Which is all the more reason why we should be so careful about what we record, photograph and are involved with today as England's latest cricketer Ollie Robinson has found out with inappropriate sexual and racist comments he made many years ago on social media coming back to haunt him. There is a trail of evidence for virtually everything we say and everything we do today.
Having said all that about photographs, I do love the one published here which is of Norwich Castle and Cattlemarket in 1907 which has been skilfully colourised. This was taken seven years before the world was rocked by the First World War and I'm sure some of the young people in the photograph would have served their country and perhaps been killed.
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I often wake up in the early hours of the morning with random thoughts flying around my head. Yesterday it was "whatever happened to the freebies given away with breakfast cereals?"
Who remembers the day when we were enticed to buy cereal by the brightly coloured packets and the giveaways inside?
All kinds of things were given away - usually plastic and nasty. What do you remember being given away? My favourites were what I called cricket rollers but which today would be known as Howzat because they are still being made. I have referred to these in previous blogs, but for new readers they consisted of two plastic (now you can get them as more durable metal) cylindrical devices with six sides. One was marked with the numbers one, two, three, four, six and the word Howzat or Appeal and the other had the words not out, no ball, stumped, LBW, Bowled and Caught on it.
It was a simple game whereby the person batting would roll the discs and add up the numbers until the word Appeal of Howzat appeared and then the other player would roll his device to see whether the batsmen was out or not out. Each team had 10 or eleven batsmen. Then I refer you to the rules of cricket as I published them yesterday!!!!
It was a simple game but I made it really complex with my own rules and played full matches on my own, keeping statistics and records etc.
I devised a number of simple games using dice etc including full football seasons, speedway meetings and much more. That way as a youngsters I was never bored. And that's all before the dreaded word homework came on the scene.
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Yesterday I went to Wymondham and stopped at the Mad Hatters Tea Rooms in the main street for a coffee and scone (or should that be scon?). The lady on the table next to us was reading the local Wymondham Mercury newspaper and i glanced at the headline on the front page story. "Vandals Hit Football Club." I realised it was one of my own stories and there it was - my name on the front page. Took me back many many years when I was a sub editor and then a sports editor on a number of weekly papers which included the Wymondham Mercury.
Inside this edition were a number of other stories I have written in the past few weeks. Still get a buzz from this.