pigeons

[mr wotsin]

I am working on a contract at Ferryhill in Co. Durham demolishing streets of terraced houses. In some houses the vandals have stripped roof tiles and entered the building to strip the copper pipe and water tanks out the lofts, the doors and windows having already been boarded up. Where this has happened the pigeons have got in and used it as a home. Now before we knock the houses down we have to clear the pigeon dirt before the furniture and general household items can be removed by the workmen. "Health and safety" at not small cost of �5000.00 for three[3] houses. The cost of knocking down the houses is about �2000.00 per unit. Crazy money.

[Kojak]

Pigeons ie. flying rats - and some people still insist on feeding them!

[snoopy2]

Ah but Kojak - a nice plump country pigeon that has been feeding on lovley fresh grass top et al simmered slowly with onion, bay leaf and some herbie dumplings - now that is what i call a pigeon.

[Kojak]

I agree, Snoopy. Feral town pigeons are a different matter altogether though. Preston sometimes use a guy with a trained hawk or falcon to scare them but that's made useless by people still throwing litter and even bird food down on the ground.

[mr wotsin]

The point I am making is "the waste of money" for bureaucratic rules

[Kojak]

Health and Safety is a phrase that is guaranteed to get everyone's back up. I do wish we could return to the "commonsense" days. Those of us who are of a certain age managed to grow up safely without all these rules and regulations. We survived playing conkers, climbing trees, swinging on ropes over the local river and if we slipped on ice in the winter it was an accident, no-one's fault.

[Olga]

Can't see the point in removing the "furniture and effects" if the buildings are being demolished, why can't they just be bulldozed and cleared, If this is a Durham County Council enterprise, why are they spending my council tax in this way?

[Kojak]

Olga, they were probably terrified that there might be asbestos in a tea cosy!

[mr wotsin]

Is this Olga from Tantobie, who we only live a couple of mile from at Burnopfield?
Any way everything has to go to seperate tips. Artex has to be stripped because of it's asbestos content, vinyl floor tiles also contains asbestos. It's a nightmare

[Kojak]

Mr Wotsin - it IS that same Olga - I told you that when I saw you on Monday night!

[mr wotsin]

Old timers disease. Please see revised profile as it was my old e-mail address
WW

[MacDuff]

As a metter of enlightenment about Snoopy2's pigeons. I know she is referring to the nice juicy wood pigeons (known asa 'Doos) that were subjected to an annual shoot on the estates in the North-east of Scotland and sold by all the game dealers and butchers in Aberdeen. They were so modest in cost, that at the "Princess Cafe" close to the indoor market in Aberdeen, one could have the full Scots tradtional high tea with a whole 'Doo, for 1/6d as recently as 1960.

But such critters ought not to be confused with the wretched street pigeons which thrive on the detritus which litters the cities built by homo sapiens. Their number and plump condition reflects upon our bad habits. But eat them.......? Ugh!

Perhaps one should explain to younger contributors to this page, that 1/6d was 18 pence when there were 240 pence in the pound - which at that time had value in itself!

[snoopy2]

MacDuff - i remember the Princess Cafe - ah blue remembered hills. I have never even paid 1/6d for mine - friend shoots them about now to stop them eating the crop tops and later in the year to stop them eating the neep tops. Indoor market still going but 'fings aint wot they used to be' Market still good for the butcher and fish shop on the lower ground floor where the exit is to go to the station which has been .......oh i wont go there it is too awful!

[mr wotsin]

one shilling and sixpence is 7.5 new pence not 18. Tut tut.

[Eleanor]

I can remember being taught the new decimal when I was about 8 at primary school omg now I feel old. What I do remember is the good old penny tray which was great on the way back to school after lunch. Gobstoppers, flying saucers, bubble gum, cherry lips etc great

[Kojak]

Old? Eleanor you don't know the meaning of the word! I was in my 20's when "D" day happened and was also working in the evenings behind a bar (that explains a lot). Trying to explain to retired farmers etc. that we could only take old money in multiples of sixpence was no joke I can tell you!

[MacDuff]

Yes, Mr Wotsin, your calculation is correct BUT, I said "when there were 240 pence to the pound." I have to ask Snoopy2 whether the Child being rescued by the fire brigade machine is still in the entrance hall of the indoor market? 'Cos when I was a bairn (pre second world war) it cost a penny to make the machine work! Generations of Aberdonians knew that machine. Just a little way up Union Street, an old (wasn't everybody) guy played his fiddle, he was know as Cheepie Oh! I first attended school in Aberdeen and was there "The day war broke out." But tell me Mr. Wotsin, do you recall when a penny (of either vintage) had value. My generation remembers using farthings (960 to the pound). An OXO cube was 1 penny, but TOROX cubes were only three farthings.

[Oor Willie]

Norman I'm almost as old as you, but not quite, I was 19 and in my first,and I'm sorry to say last, year at University when the dreaded D day happened, and it was a real pain trying to convert the price of fags and booze into LSD to figure out if we were being ripped off or not, and for those of tender years LSD was not always shorthand for a recreational class 3 drug,although I must admit to experimenting in my student days I saw the light and have stuck to alcohol for the last 40 years

[snoopy2]

Sorry MacDuff - the fireman machine is no more - i too remember putting a penny in to get about 30 seconds of magic. Wouldn't satisfy the the yoof of today. Sad to say the 'mannie in the green' has been relocated to the Castelgate which has been partially yuppified. No street entertainment of the bygone vintage but plenty Big Issue sellers and a God squad outside M and S. Truth be told the city ain't what it used to be - one of the reasons i fulfilled a dream and moved to wee Stonehaven where time stands a bit stiller! here there is an organist - push pull type and he plays in the square of the town. Close your eyes and it sounds like Paris but feels like the arctic!!

[mr wotsin]

Well macduff I was born during the war, started school in 1946. Cost of getting to school was 1d same to come home at dinner time 1d. School dinners were 1/6d per week. You could get 6d saving stamps and put them in a book. Collecting rose hips got you 2d per pound weight, that was maybe later. My memory is good by any standards as in being pushed under the table in my pram when there was an air raid on Newcastle. I can even remember being weighed at the post-natal clinic, held in the local chapel in pair of potato scales lined with soft tissue paper. Yes I knew what a penny could buy. Long way from the pigeon topic but that's what the page is for stirring the little gray cells.