Happy birthday Bob!

[Tippon]

Happy birthday Bob @bullstuff2

Here’s to many more ?

[The Duke]

Congratulations Bob, one more ticked off ?

Hope you get spoilt, and have a good’n. ?(think you said you enjoy a glass of red).

[Ed P]

Keep motoring on Bob – have a good one, and don’t forget to pull together all your reminiscences. Social Historians in 150 years time will love them. It will add balance to all the misleading stuff in Politician’s autobiographies.

[Dave Rice]

Knowing his family he will be spoiled something rotten ?

Have a good day Bob.

[RSB]

Happy birthday Bob. [birthdays class=””]

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

[johnbarry]

Happy Birthday Bob, have a good un.

 

Cheers
John

[JayCeeDee]

Late on parade for this one – and it’s only 9am!!!!

Happy Birthday, Bob. Enjoy today to the fullest – they’ll still love you just as much tomorrow, but won’t need to spoil you like today.?

[Richard]

Bob, another notch on the tree of life, enjoy this one even if the day looks a bit dreary compared to the previous few days. Tomorrow should give a number of people a good blow for their money, so take care on Sunday and Monday.

[dwynnehugh]

Happy birthday Bob.

The more you meet people the more you understand why Noah took animals instead of humans

[PlaneMan]

Have a good day Bob. Many more to come. ?

[Ed P]

Gizmodo’s AI program has constructed an Astrological Star forecast for your birthdate.

“Pisces: Grand, Autumn and Winter—this is the perfect time for setting out for lengthy curled Hour and the result is a hybrid plot of adolescent angst, affection swing, youthful jazz our whatever you want. It is clouded with peccadilloes, spots, craggy surroundings and supernatural dread. Worldly guitar solos, quality anticlimactic choreography, pragmatic irreverence, energizing poetic turnups and goddamn topsy-turvy going intertwined together—come to your joyful love journey and ride your uptight, stoned tiny horses.”

As you will see it contains all the meaning and insight of the very best of Astrological Forecasts! ?

[Bob Williams]

Thanks to all my mates here. I see you as “Cyberspace mates”, although I have never met any of you, I really enjoy your internet company. I have learned so much from all of you, not just about computing but about life in general. Long may this Forum prosper, big kudos to Lee for the organisation and hope you and gran are OK now.

Ed that was a perfect example of an Ed post! Some of it is actually applicable, lol…

Cheers guys, Bob.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Les.]

Eh up, Owker. ‘ow at?

Do I need to translate from potteries speak? Hello bruv (our kid). How are you?

Happy birthday.

I hope you are listening to “China towns” on R4, Sat and Suns. A mashed mixture of Arnold Bennett’s “Clayhanger” and “The old wive’s tale”

Les.

[Mark Turner]

A bit late in the day happy birthday Bob I hope you have had a good one.

[isdarit]

Don’t know if this is a day late or 364 days early.  Enjoy matey

[Bob Williams]

Thanks guys!

Les, ” ‘ow at?” took me straight back to my favourite uncle, Joe Peach. That was always his greeting when I showed up at Inglewood Drive, Porthill, Wolstanton:

As a kid who spent over 2 years living in Wolstanton at my Aunt’s house and went over there every school holiday, I knew all the streets around that map and many others outside it. My dad was born and raised on Watlands View. Pit Green Lane was the site of the Royal British Legion social club, where Uncle Joe and his brother Uncle Bob were Treasurer and Secretary. I must have consumed gallons of pop and many bags of crisps there! Clare Avenue is where I used to be sent to buy Oatcakes and bring 4 dozen back for my parents and brothers. Uncle Joe and Aunt Ellen lived on the high point overlooking what is now Queensway, (then called “The D-Road”) most of which was a Marl Hole* and which is now the site of Overclockers. ( http://www.overclockers.co.uk) The Potters Wheel pub was where my cousin Bill and I used to drink before heading off to the Crystal Ballroom in Newcastle. Bill now lives on Templar Terrace: I have relatives everywhere in that area.

Uncle Joe used to say “eyup wut, ow at?”. I could speak fluent Stokey when I was a kid, can still do it now. Bilingual: Notts and Stokey!

*Marl Hole – what is left after removing a couple of centuries of China Clay for the Pot Kilns.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[The VFM Addict]

Was up most of last night and been groggy all day.  Nearly missed this one.   Hope you’ve had a good one, Bob, and that what’s left of it is even better.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

During the Covid-19 Epidemic I will be wearing a mask and goggles while posting so that if I become infected I won't spread it to you.

[Les.]

No, No Bob. A marl hole is where the local (mostly red) clay was dug. All the China clay comes from Cornwall, with the other pottery clays (Ball clays) from Devon and Dorset. The potteries has mostly “Etruria marl”, plus of course fireclays which are usually associated with coal mining, very common in the Potteries as well of course, as is (or WAS) fireclay product production as well as bricks and tiles.

I seem to recall you are also familiar with the Newstead area. 60 years ago I read an early copy of “Tilewright’s Acre” which I think involved Newstead (a Tileworks there) but was mostly about “Primitive Methodism” which was a big thing in the area 150 to 200 years ago. Quite a few Primitive Methodist chapels were  extant when I was younger, possibly still are there. It is one of the threads running through the “China towns” series, and will see me re-reading most of my A.Bennett novels, and I am going to try to get a copy of Tilewrights Acre to read again.

Les.

[blacklion1725]

Bit late Bob – been away all weekend – but happy birthday mate!

[Bob Williams]

Thanks BL and VFM.

Les, I stand corrected. I should have known this, because on my first day at Bradwell school, I fell into a marl hole, playing where I shouldn’t be, and was covered in the orange/yellow stuff. My aunt had to clean me up and was not best pleased! Mention of Etruria recalls my other cousin , dearly-missed Alan Peach and myself, skimming biscuit* across the canal and into windows on the other side of the Works. We had to run to escape the “Pot Bobby!”

No I didn’t know Newstead Staffs: knew of it of course, but that’s Blurton/Hem Heath way I think, just off the Trentham Road? The Newstead I know is in Notts, a few miles from the village where I grew up, Blidworth. Newstead and Blidworth collieries were owned and built by Lord Newstead before Nationalisation. According to my dad, those were the first pits to have pithead baths and the colliery estate houses were supplied with power and hot water from the pit. My dad said that the Lord was a real philanthropist and looked after his miners and their families. After nationalisation, all the hot water pipes were dug up ‘because other newly-NCB pits did not have them’. Wonder if there is a Lord Newstead connection at Staffs Newstead?

*Most will not know that ‘biscuit’ is the term for pots – plates and saucers, etc. that were fired in the kiln, but did not make it to be glazed and/or decorated. They make excellent water skimmers. I apply the skimming lessons from cousin Alan when I go to the beach: find a flat stone, count how many skips I can get across the incoming waves. Still doing it now. Well, we never grow up, do we? And it’s free! I got a “Sevener” yesterday at Chapel St. Leonards.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Author]

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