Some things I never did throw away, I still have and use today.

1.  A Swan “Calligraph” fountain pen.

I bought this pen in 1948 for 17s 11d (89p) when I was 11 years old, and just starting at the “Big Boys School” (Secondary Modern, or High School in the American colonies?)

This particular model has a very flexible fine nib and is designed to write in the ‘Copperplate’ style, unlike other models that have italic nibs of various widths. I still use the pen after 63 years! The only maintenance was to change the ink bladder about 10 years ago. It still writes perfectly.

2.  This is an interesting book about the history of modern fonts. . . . well, it was in 1950.

I was on a visit to London with my father when I was 13 and we called into Foyles bookshop in the Charing Cross Road. Just by chance there was a book signing going on, so being a nosey kid I pushed my way to the front and there was this absolutely genuine first-class weirdo (to my mind anyway!) signing copies of his book. It was the book I was interested in so I bought one, but didn’t bother to join the queue for the ‘weirdo’ to sign it. I later found out that it was Quentin Crisp!

3.  This is what it says on the box.

Bought in 1951 so that I could colour the black and white pictures of the Festival Of Britain I had taken on a school trip. In those days colour film was too expensive to buy for a small schoolboy, so I had to settle for a monochrome film for my dad’s Kodak Tourist camera which he loaned me on pain of death if I lost or damaged it!

The box contains several coloured pencils, cotton buds and a bottle of liquid to coat the photo with prior to colouring with the special pencils. It really does work, and the colours are permanent, so if I made a mistake then it was too bad!

4.  This is also what it says on the box.

To my shame I looted this tin of drawing pins from the teachers desk at school one break-time because she gave me detention for flicking ink-pellets at her back when she was writing on the blackbo . . .oops, can’t say that nowadays, I mean the chalk-board. That’s the trouble with teachers; they have no sense of humour. I though it was quite funny, until my “bestest friend in all the world” grassed me up with “Please Miss, Keith Smith is flicking ink onto your back!” Little sneak!

I still feel guilty about those drawing pins, do you think I should return them? I did find a use for one pin later that day though. I put it on the little sneaks chair, business end uppermost, when he was just about to sit down.

5.  My Scout Knife . . . .or “offensive weapon” as the Rozzers (Police, in the colonies) now call them.

When I graduated from the Wolf Cubs up to the Boy Scouts in 1948 my mother bought me my scouting knife which I wore proudly on my new Baden Powell belt with my smart new uniform. As you can see, I still have it but I dare not take it out of the house or carry it with me because of the strict knife laws in Britanistan now, so it is used in the garden and for sharpening pencils. In the Scouts we were always taught that your knife was a survival tool, NOT a weapon, and as such it could be your best friend if you were caught out in the open and lost.

Nowadays if you are found with something like that vicious looking knife above when the rozzers stop and search you it could result in a hefty fine, or a custodial sentence. “When knives are outlawed, only outlaws will carry knives”.

6.  Insulated staples

My first experiment into the field of electronics and wireless was in 1952 when I built my first crystal set wireless using a piece of “hertzite” (?) and a cats whisker. At first I couldn’t get it to work and the cat was rapidly running out of decent whiskers when my father explained that a “cat’s whisker” was actually a piece of very fine copper wire. After that it was ‘all systems are go’. Never did see that cat again . . .

The problem was that a crystal set needs a good aerial and earth to work properly, so I invested my pocket money in a long length of aerial wire and the insulated staples and proceeded to tack it around the picture rail from one room to another. When my parents returned from their shopping trip and saw my efforts at interior decorating the merde really hit the fan! Afterwards, when the mess was sorted out, my father did put me a long wire from the bedroom window to the tree at the bottom of the garden.

I don’t know why I kept the packet of staples. Still I suppose they will come in handy when I put up another aerial.

7.  Miniature model making kit

A doting auntie bought me this Micromodel kit for my 11th birthday. At that time it looked a bit to complicated for me to tackle so I put it aside intending to assemble it when i had a better grasp of the technology involved.

Now at 75 I still can’t figure out how to assemble it so I’ll put it aside until I’ve grown up enough to work out the instructions.

Afterthought:  Notice that three of the items proudly display “British Made” and “Made in Great Britain”. It is also on the box of staples and engraved on the knife blade. Aah, those were the days when something made in GREAT Britain was made to last!