I used to play squash - Dunlop Maxply gut strung. Unfortunately my game wasn't as advanced as my racquet 
Squash, cricket and rugby club - great wee social club house overtaken by the rugby lot as per 
Hope all are NC 500 
@velvet donkey posted:I used to play squash - Dunlop Maxply gut strung. Unfortunately my game wasn't as advanced as my racquet
Squash, cricket and rugby club - great wee social club house overtaken by the rugby lot as per
Hope all are NC 500
Unusually for a state school, my school had a fives court. Fives is a bit like squash. I don't know if the school still has one as there's been a lot of new buildings there.
All's OK here. I hope you're OK too 
@velvet donkey posted:I used to play squash - Dunlop Maxply gut strung. Unfortunately my game wasn't as advanced as my racquet
Squash, cricket and rugby club - great wee social club house overtaken by the rugby lot as per
Hope all are NC 500
@El Loro posted:Unusually for a state school, my school had a fives court. Fives is a bit like squash. I don't know if the school still has one as there's been a lot of new buildings there.
All's OK here. I hope you're OK too
Squash was one of the sports I represented our school at...along with Netball, Rounders & Swimming 
Was a bit of a sporty chappette back in the day.....
Loathed Hockey & Cross country running 
@slimfern posted:Squash was one of the sports I represented our school at...along with Netball, Rounders & Swimming
Was a bit of a sporty chappette back in the day.....
Loathed Hockey & Cross country running
The one sport I was good at was cross country running and, like you, represented my school during the year before we started working for the O levels. Didn't go into the 6th form but I think I could then have been representing the school again at a more senior level. That's because during the 5th year each week I was generally the first boy back having run up the nearby hill and down again passing the others still going up
@El Loro posted:The one sport I was good at was cross country running and, like you, represented my school during the year before we started working for the O levels. Didn't go into the 6th form but I think I could then have been representing the school again at a more senior level. That's because during the 5th year each week I was generally the first boy back having run up the nearby hill and down again passing the others still going up
Well done El..
A couple of friends & I used to hide in the woods by the school entrance, then rejoin the runners somewhere in the middle...so we neither came first nor last
night EL Slim moonsiee velvet
Good morning everyone
Cloudy here. Dry at present, potentially raining by noon and by later afternoon probably heavy for the rest of the day. No sign of being particularly windy and there are no weather warnings for this part of the country.
I hope everyone has a good day
@slimfern posted:Family history and the evolvement of names is interesting to read about.
Talking of which, there's a recent BBC article about a Gloucestershire family's old portraits being sold:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-...cestershire-67122076
I'm not aware that I have any link with the Estcourt family, There's a ring road called Estcourt Road in Gloucester and I think it must have been named after that family.
@El Loro posted:Talking of which, there's a recent BBC article about a Gloucestershire family's old portraits being sold:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-...cestershire-67122076
I'm not aware that I have any link with the Estcourt family, There's a ring road called Estcourt Road in Gloucester and I think it must have been named after that family.
Have you ever thought to tracing your family tree El?
@slimfern posted:Have you ever thought to tracing your family tree El?
On my mother's side, some family tree has been traced by others back to the 17th century. Going further back would be harder to do. My mother did say that the family could be traced back to the time of the Norman conquest and said the name of someone who had come from Normandy before 1066, acted as a spy for William, and after the conquest William told him that if he converted from a Jew to a Christian he would give him some land so he became a Christian. There is zero truth to that as the man's name is not mentioned in the Domesday Book. The name would have been included if he had been a landowner. Other ancestors of hers supposedly included a highwayman, a butcher in London who supplied meats to the Kings, and a bishop of Gloucester but there's no evidence supporting any of those. So just family myths
On my father's side I have been able to trace back to an ancestor who came from County Meath in Ireland during the potato famine. It's not easy to trace any further back in Ireland. There was a catastrophic fire on 30 June 1922 at the public records office in Ireland resulting in the loss of records held there. So it would be a case of going back to parish records in churches. There is a website which has been collating information about these but it's a very long process. There's also the problem that the surname used by the ancestor when arriving in England is probably different to how it was spelt in Ireland. There are quite a number of variants of the surname
@El Loro posted:On my mother's side, some family tree has been traced by others back to the 17th century. Going further back would be harder to do. My mother did say that the family could be traced back to the time of the Norman conquest and said the name of someone who had come from Normandy before 1066, acted as a spy for William, and after the conquest William told him that if he converted from a Jew to a Christian he would give him some land so he became a Christian. There is zero truth to that as the man's name is not mentioned in the Domesday Book. The name would have been included if he had been a landowner. Other ancestors of hers supposedly included a highwayman, a butcher in London who supplied meats to the Kings, and a bishop of Gloucester but there's no evidence supporting any of those. So just family myths
On my father's side I have been able to trace back to an ancestor who came from County Meath in Ireland during the potato famine. It's not easy to trace any further back in Ireland. There was a catastrophic fire on 30 June 1922 at the public records office in Ireland resulting in the loss of records held there. So it would be a case of going back to parish records in churches. There is a website which has been collating information about these but it's a very long process. There's also the problem that the surname used by the ancestor when arriving in England is probably different to how it was spelt in Ireland. There are quite a number of variants of the surname
They're fun to hear though aren't they...those family myths
This was one of my family on my Father's mother's side...
Crime Wave in Bristol
I wondered why A. Shapcott suddenly upped and left Bristol for Exeter. Now I know (newspaper indexes Western Times.).
As a small boy, he was a one boy crime wave. Starting at 9, and being particularly well known to the police in his early teens, he was in all the trouble there was. The crimes were mostly minor (including stealing a pair of boots when in 1861, he was 'a barefoot urchin , who has been convicted on several occasions ' a year before' a young lad of wretched appearance, with no shirt on and his other clothes mere rags'. 'a night and day prowler, a tiny object though said to be 16 years of age (he was barely 15 at the time), was caught sleeping rough at the age of 13 on Guinea St Bridge, - I wonder if his father , the pib butcher, threw him out?
By 1866 he was on the move to Bristol, where he married in December.
But in 1896, guess who was the respectable witness for the prosecution when a drill instructor went on a thieving spree in Exeter market? A. Shapcott, general dealer of Rack St. He saw the man and thought his actions looked suspicious ...
takes one to know one.
Traced by my MIL....she's a genealogist as you know.
My mother had a relative (not close) who thought she was a genealogist. The relative would go round the country going into churches to have a look at their registers of births etc. If that relative spotted anyone in the registers with the family surname, she would write that down. From time to time she would sent my mother long lists of the names with the name and address of the church, not that my mother had ever expressed any interest. One day she turned up unannounced to see my mother with her latest list of names. She was sent away by my father and they never heard from her again. I think they felt it was a bit sinister. The family name was a fairly ordinary name and there would be thousands of people with that name.
Anyone who watches football will know what yellow and red cards mean.
But now there's also a white card (only in Portugal at present).
Youtube clip about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivDSEM7Ebps
@El Loro posted:My mother had a relative (not close) who thought she was a genealogist. The relative would go round the country going into churches to have a look at their registers of births etc. If that relative spotted anyone in the registers with the family surname, she would write that down. From time to time she would sent my mother long lists of the names with the name and address of the church, not that my mother had ever expressed any interest. One day she turned up unannounced to see my mother with her latest list of names. She was sent away by my father and they never heard from her again. I think they felt it was a bit sinister. The family name was a fairly ordinary name and there would be thousands of people with that name.
I get the impression your father didn't suffer fools gladly El
Don't think I'd much like someone rooting around in my business without being asked either...
@El Loro posted:Anyone who watches football will know what yellow and red cards mean.
But now there's also a white card (only in Portugal at present).
Youtube clip about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivDSEM7Ebps
Think it's a bit of nonsense tbh
@El Loro posted:Talking of which, there's a recent BBC article about a Gloucestershire family's old portraits being sold:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-...cestershire-67122076
I'm not aware that I have any link with the Estcourt family, There's a ring road called Estcourt Road in Gloucester and I think it must have been named after that family.
lovely paintings EL have you researched your family tree EL ?
night EL slim moonsie velvet
@Rocking Ros Rose posted:lovely paintings EL
Ros, I posted something about that
https://www.gagajoyjoy.com/top...6#716001717873999466
@Moonie posted:Two doors down had a skip delivery. The thing was, there was three skips on top of one another. The driver spent a good while hammering the bottom skip to try to release it from the other two. He was using a sledge hammer. Eventually it dropped ðĪĢðĪĢðĪĢðĪĢðĪĢðĪĢ
Must have been really noisy. Moonie 
Some months ago a neighbour had ordered some slabs etc on a pallet When they were delivered, the driver was attempting to get them out of the large vehicle with one of those fork lift things they use. He was clearly having s lot of problems extricating the pallet, took him about 30 minutes.
@El Loro posted:Ros, I posted something about that
https://www.gagajoyjoy.com/top...6#716001717873999466
awww missed that -wow really interesting EL
night EL slim moonsiee velvet
@Rocking Ros Rose posted:awww missed that
Thanks Ros
@slimfern posted:Be careful El
The sun is out here atm
Thanks Slim
Rain stopped here about half an hour after I posted. Just come back from a routine dental checkup (no problems). Wet roads as you can imagine. The only notable flooding I came across was on the way home. Turned off a main road into s side road which goes round a corner. My side of the corner was completely flooded, about an inch of water. There's a gully there and that must have been blocked. So I was driving very slowly in 1st gear through it.
I also spotted a Scottish Gas van which must have got seriously lost
@El Loro posted:Thanks Slim
Rain stopped here about half an hour after I posted. Just come back from a routine dental checkup (no problems). Wet roads as you can imagine. The only notable flooding I came across was on the way home. Turned off a main road into s side road which goes round a corner. My side of the corner was completely flooded, about an inch of water. There's a gully there and that must have been blocked. So I was driving very slowly in 1st gear through it.
I also spotted a Scottish Gas van which must have got seriously lost
An escapee from storm Babet possibly 
...I wouldn't blame them 
@El Loro posted:Thanks Slim
Rain stopped here about half an hour after I posted. Just come back from a routine dental checkup (no problems). Wet roads as you can imagine. The only notable flooding I came across was on the way home. Turned off a main road into s side road which goes round a corner. My side of the corner was completely flooded, about an inch of water. There's a gully there and that must have been blocked. So I was driving very slowly in 1st gear through it.
I also spotted a Scottish Gas van which must have got seriously lost
Sounds like it El
@slimfern posted:It could have been an ex Scottish gas van.....one sold off in the auctions
Ex P.O. Land Rover here from auction years ago - decals were off but if you squinted..... Can think of worse co. cars for the countryside - it was stonking
Hope all are safe and well