• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

A Personal Christmas memory

L

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Walsall - The Madland Plateau
It's the Season to be merry of course and for some unknown reason, the other day a memory from the 1950s rose up, and I had to smile.

For Christmas in 1949 my Dad bought me a Chromatic Harmonica. I wanted one of those of course, but what I really desired was a Record five and a half. You see, I was to be 'going up' in the New Year, (1950), and looking forward to Senior school, and being taught woodwork.

Now Dad, was just an asphalt spreader; spending his time on his knees with a wooden float in hand, and couldn't really afford a metal woodworking plane. I was happy with the harmonica of course, and I learned to play, but I knew I might have to wait for the Record.

So at , lunchtime that day I plucked up courage and asked for my 1950's Christmas present to be a five and a half.

Dad put down his knife and fork said something about us kids never being satisfied, and that I was presuming quite a lot. What could I say? Well, I reminded him that at least I was giving him time to save up for the plane! :eusa-pray:

I got the five and a half for my Birthday, six weeks later. "For your cheek" Dad said. :eusa-dance:

He was a great bloke my Dad!

Merry Christmas folks.

John
 
My first plane also was Record 5 1/2, in about 1968. I paid for it with cigarette coupons - you could buy the coupons from a second hand dealer in town, he bought them for 2/- and a hundred and sold them for 2/6 - and it worked out half price that way.
 
My first chisels were a set of Marples "rhubarb & custards". My father told me he'd pay me for making a box for them, me not knowing they were mine. They were a birthday present. I should have guessed - he was a builder, but totally inept with hand tools.
 
kirkpoore1":21bra79r said:
John, do you still have the 5-1/2? :)

Kirk
Click to expand...

No Kirk. It vanished from my tool bag, when I was working in Winson Green, 1960s. I was working as a carpenter/joiner repairing sash windows, banisters, hand rails, and the like, in manky, flea and bug infested, 19th century back-to-back houses. Frequently got home with 'passengers' on my person. Spent a fortune in flea powder!

I found a second-hand replacement, but 'twasn't the same. It was a bit of a hybrid, with parts from several different models! I have found a couple of nice ones on eBay since of course. :mrgreen:

Somewhere, I have another one which I bought for restoring, but I can't get the right lever-cap screw.
If you are anywhere near Brum, I'll look it out and you are welcome to it; after the festivities of course! (Ah I see you are a bit far away!)

Merry Christmas

John :D
 
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