HUG

🤣 🤣 🤣 it's like that old song," I'll fall to pieces". Must be getting old, can't remember who sang that now!

Ann Shelton?

That's a blast from the past Dave,going back to the days of Vic Damone. And all that crew from the 1940s and 1950s. I remember rushing home to listen to Dick Barton, then being frightened shitless by Valentine Dyal alias The Man in Black. Telling all them spooky stories. Then getting my lugs clipped because I was scared to go to bed. No sympathy in those days!

The good old days of wireless listening Bob. I remember the days of dashing home from the match, about a mile, to listen to the footy scores on "Sports Report" 5pm Sat afternoons. All that long gone!

Remember that old show I think it was on radio Luxembourg, Journey into Space. I was captivated by that,the old imagination running riot!

Wireles much better than the shite on the gogglebox tha gets these days Bob!

Remember as a kid at tea time scoffing me jam sandwich. Me mother listening to Mrs Dales Diary. You couldn't open your gob for fear of getting a bat round the lugs, and the threat of"just wait till Dick Barton comes on" !

@bob9739 They have quite a few of those old wireless programmes on Radio 4 Extra from time to time, usually with a trigger warning about the language and attitudes of the time. I get triggered by the trigger warnings, to be honest, and frequently get triggered by the woke content of Radio 4 which I have to switch off when it gets a bit too PC for me. Didn't Dick Barton have a side kick called Snowy? I suppose that name on it's own could trigger somebody somewhere.

You sure that wasn't Tintin's dog Snowy you're thinking of Charlie?

@pat Could be. I get my superheroes mixed up all the time. I know Guy Gibson had a dog, and it certainly wasn't called Snowy.......

Your spot on Charlie, Dick Barton side kick was Snowy mate. I was an avid fan but occasionally got rubber dicked when the accumulators for the wireless went flat. I used to take the knackered ones to the hardware shop on a Saturday morning, and picked up two replacement. But I think the owner used to get his lives and flats mixed up because you occasionally got a duff one.

Gas mantel's were another thing we used to get through, because there was no electricity in the house. Me mother would get mad at some bugger and chuck whatever was handy at them, and the poor old mantel used to end up being the casualty.

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@findlay We won't say what it was called because we will get told off by the snowflake Brigade!

Mi dear owd Mum used ta listen ta Mrs Dales Diary n can tha remember the Archers on Sunday morn? That Walter Gabrial ad a voice like somebody scrapin their steel toe capped boots on the kurb  stones!

@bob9739 I remember the gas mantles, and very fragile they were too. I've just bought a pack of ten Tilley lantern mantles, and they're very similar in that they can collapse into a small heap of powder if they touch anything. As long as they're not disturbed, they last for years. I think they've changed the chemicals they used to impregnate the cotton mesh with, because the old ones seem to burn with a more intense, and whiter light than the new ones, which are less bright with a yellow tinge. I had the lamps working the other week when there was a power cut after the high winds, and they worked just fine. They give off quite a bit of heat too. Unlike batteries, paraffin doesn't go flat when left in the shed. I've got a Tilley searchlight as well, which is pretty good. Apparently the RAF used them to illuminate runways in desolate airfields.

Dick Barton's other chum was called Jock.