I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety

I wrote in the introduction to  I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II about Norman's family background. "His father, grandfather and great grandfather all worked at the local colliery and his paternal grandfather had been an under-manager at the pit." I think this photograph was taken in the 1890's. "Father" is the little boy standing on the front row. He was Sidney Henry Buckle (1881 - 1969). He spent his entire working life underground first as a pit pony boy and later in the maintenance of ropes and cables. Whenever I see images of pit ponies I'm always surprised at how big some of them are; certainly some are Shetland pony sized but others were much taller. Check out this link for stacks of images and you'll see what I mean.  Images of pit ponies  When I was about six or seven years old Sidney Henry, who was my grandad, used to take us for walks in the countryside arou

I was delighted to find two reviews for  I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II on the Amazon UK site today. Thank you so much "clive nolan" and "Gaarghoile" for going to the trouble of posting your reviews - really appreciated. http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B009QXEUG2 Since I wrote this post a couple more reviews have been posted on the Amazon site. They're not very enthusiastic about the book but thanks anyway for taking the time to tell readers what you think. Don't forget that you can read a free sample of the book in the Kindle Store before you download it which will give a pretty good idea of what you're getting. http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009QXEUG2 If you don't read with a Kindle you can download a free app which will work on most devices on this page on the Amazon site:  Free app for Kindle  .

My dad arrived at Ponam in the Admiralty Islands in June 1945 as part of the British Pacific Fleet. When I was researching his service record I discovered that he was a member of  MONAB 4 (Mobile Naval Operating Air Bases). His diary records arriving at Ponam: Saturday 2nd June 1945 Yesterday we weighed anchor in the morning and a few hours sailing brought us to Ponam, a small island just off the main one, two miles long by six hundred yards wide. Highest point above sea level 6 ft.  About 12.00 we came ashore in the cutter and surveyed our new home. To look at it is a typical desert island complete with lagoon, coral and wind swept palm trees. Vegetation found growing naturally appears to be coconut palms, wild orange trees, bread fruit with a few tropical flowers and grasses. The seasons appear to be two – wet and dry. (Now we are at the end of the wet). Rainstorms are fairly common. The main island of Manus lies about a mile across the straits and is fairly large. I jud

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In the introduction to I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II I explained that when I started researching my dad's story I paid for a copy of his records from the Royal Navy Archives but these gave incomplete details of his service. Then my sister discovered in her loft a folder containing the original documents that were his Fleet Air Arm records: they detailed in chronological order where he'd been and what his job was. There were other documents that added further to his story. Amongst these other documents were copies of his school magazine and in the Summer Term 1940 (the year he left school) it included this contribution from him: I DO LIKE TO BE BESIDE THE SEASIDE "Few of us will be going away for holidays this year for we carry out the "Go to It" slogan. We shall smell the Chemical Works rather than that "honest, seafaring smell compounded of tar, rope and fish, known to the

Seventy years ago, World War II uprooted my father from a coal mining village in South Yorkshire and transported him thousands of miles to Sierra Leone in West Africa and later to a tropical island in the Pacific. I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II is a short, annotated diary (approximately 22,000 words) which records his extraordinary experiences and the on-going banalities of everyday life on a naval air-base far away from home. This blog includes the collection of original photographs that go with my short e-book I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II.  They are in the October 2012 folder of the Blog Archive. If you would like to read I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II you can get a flavour of the book from the free sample on the Amazon site. Just follow one

I published I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II as a download for Kindle in October 2012. At the start of the book I explain how I came to research my dad's war time diary and publish it with my annotations as a Kindle download. "After I retired I spent many a happy hour researching both my own and my husband's family histories. Eventually though, I came to a dead end after I had explored every aspect of the lives of even the most distant relatives. I had already sorted through a box of old photos that had been in the loft for years and had labelled as many of them as I could. Now I turned my attention to an old, homemade, hard backed notebook with the initials N.B. stencilled on the deteriorating hessian cover. I knew that this was a collection of photographs and postcards that my dad had stuck in the book accompanied by captions in his tiny, precise handwriting. Folded into the book were lots of

Happy New Year! Thanks to everyone who has  downloaded and read my book during 2012. All the best for 2013. Cathy

Best wishes for a very Happy Christmas. I'll be back in 2013  with more additions to the story  and details of a new family history project.

A couple of days ago I visited the National Railway Museum in York. When I was looking at my photos later I realised that some were photos of trains from the old London, Midland and Scottish Railway. I remembered that my dad had made a reference to that railway company in his diary which I'd quoted in I Think I Prefer the Tinned Variety: The Diary of a Petty Officer in the Fleet Air Arm during World War II. He wrote: "On Tuesday 8th May (1945) the newspapers were head-lined "It’s all over in Europe" and gave histories of the last five years. Flags were flying in Sydney but no crowds surged through the streets. We made sure our rooms were booked at the British Centre and went for a drink to celebrate Victory. A couple of drunken sailors were the only signs of the momentous day it was. At seven o’clock we were steaming out of Central Station just as the city began to warm up and celebrate. Australian trains are horrible. They are uncomfortable, slow, draughty and