Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

Tahlullah

I really like the idea of the breadcrumbs and the attack of the gulls... It would be like returning to your car and imagining you must have missed the hailstones. No evidence because they have melted, but the dents are there anyway.

Depends if you would feel guilty about the damage caused to their cars.

Pyxis

I do sympathise, I really do.

When I had my business, I spent a lot of money converting an area to a space for three cars to park straight off the road, and paid a fortune to have a very wide length of kerb dropped. These spaces were for clients. There was a sign saying private property of (name of business etc), and all the rest, so no one could have been under any illusion as to what the position was.

It was a nightmare. People were constantly parking in it. (There were a few small local shops close by). It drove me mad. I was always putting notes on these trespassing cars. I even started going out and confronting people and asking them to remove their cars from MY property. The reactions I got were priceless.

I wish I had a pound for every time someone said I'm only going to be a minute. Like you found, those minutes were sometimes an hour or so! Certainly long enough to prevent some clients from being able to park off the road, where there were yellow lines.

What really P155ed me off was that several yards further up the road there were no yellow lines, but these lazy barstewards didn't want to have to walk 50yards.

I even had people argue with me that it wasn't my land! Or that so what if it was? Why couldn't they park there for a few minutes? That, if I didn't want anyone to park there, why didn't I put a fence up? (Thereby preventing my clients from being able to park! Yeah!)

Argue, argue, argue.

Once, I found a car parked there that was unlocked. After a couple of hours, with no sign of the owner, I was so incensed, I got in it, released the hand brake, and let it roll onto the road and left it on a yellow line. With a note saying that they had been trespassing, etc. Etc.

I know, I know, I shouldn't have. But after months and months, nay, years, I'd had enough, and was quite prepared to have my moment in court over it.

Needless to say, nothing happened.

However, it was one aspect of stopping work that I was really pleased about, and being able to move away from that area with those awful people.




I never, ever, ever, park anywhere that isn't 100% public land, even if it means paying a huge car park fee. I won't park in supermarket car parks unless I'm shopping there, as I see that as being no different from what those ghastly people were doing to me.

Businesses do not pay for the construction and maintenance of their own car parks as a free public service.

PasturesNew

Pyxis wrote: »

.... several yards further up the road there were no yellow lines, but these lazy barstewards didn't want to have to walk 50yards.

Evenings there's space out on the road, lots of it. Many residents with a 2nd car use that.

Daytimes, there's nothing for about 1/4 of a mile, if you duck through a hedge.... or you can run the gauntlet of parking and not shopping at Lidl.

After that you have to really go out of your way to try to find somewhere that's OK to park - and then walk 5-10 minutes, but it's an odd spot most would not ever find.

But none of that is my problem. And I refuse for others to try to make it my problem!

chris_m

Pyxis wrote: »

I wish I had a pound for every time someone said I'm only going to be a minute. Like you found, those minutes were sometimes an hour or so! Certainly long enough to prevent some clients from being able to park off the road, where there were yellow lines.

Best one I heard of was a disabled driver who was "beaten" to a disabled space by a non-disabled driver. When they remonstrated with them the reply was exactly that, "I'll only be a minute".

When the offender returned they found that they were completely blocked in by the disabled driver's car - and a note on the windscreen saying "I'll only be an hour or two"

:T:T:T:T

vivatifosi

I am a very considerate parker.

Ahem... The reason for this may just be that the one time I parked somewhere I shouldn't because I was literally nipping in and out, my alternator failed and I had to wait two hours to be towed out of the space. Doh!

PasturesNew

I think I've identified another "writer in a random book" - one of the daughters of this chap:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_V._Southwell
The eldest one I think. 1919-2006. Spinster.
Another of his daughters died aged 40 (1924-1964)

Pyxis

Wow, Pastures! What a coincidence! And how exciting



Do you remember a serial on TV some years ago called "Shooting the Past" directed by Stephen Poliakoff? (I may have mentioned it before).
A photo librarian is sifting through hundreds of photos collated by someone and putting together the story of the lives contained in those photos.

It was slow, steady, gentle...... and absolutely rivetting.

Your little book is like that!


Reminds me of some old postcards I once bought, (I think I've mentioned this, too), written from a lady in one place I have a connection with, to a girl living in my own town, 70 miles from the lady, pre-first world war.

I bought the postcards about 150 miles away from either place! It was rather serendipitous.

I went looking for and found the cottage the lady lived in. I always meant to find out more about the girl, especially as she was the daughter of the vicar of the parish church of my town, so it shouldn't be too difficult!
I'll have to make that a project at some stage!

PasturesNew

Pyxis wrote: »

Wow, Pastures! What a coincidence! And how exciting


Do you remember a serial on TV some years ago called "Shooting the Past" directed by Stephen Poliakoff? (I may have mentioned it before).
A photo librarian is sifting through hundreds of photos collated by someone and putting together the story of the lives contained in those photos.

It was slow, steady, gentle...... and absolutely rivetting.

Your little book is like that!


Reminds me of some old postcards I once bought, (I think I've mentioned this, too), written from a lady in one place I have a connection with, to a girl living in my own town, 70 miles from the lady, pre-first world war.

I bought the postcards about 150 miles away from either place! It was rather serendipitous.

I went looking for and found the cottage the lady lived in. I always meant to find out more about the girl, especially as she was the daughter of the vicar of the parish church of my town, so it shouldn't be too difficult!
I'll have to make that a project at some stage!

Yes, it is exciting. I've never heard of that TV programme, sounds interesting.

My progress is slow as I only use free resources... so, where I could find just 3 people with a particular name born in England in 1916-1926, it was doable .... harder is those born abroad (more likely with posh 'uns) and those who were educated here and then went abroad to live/marry...

I've worked with "the most distinct names" in the book. The written names might not be their real names, but the names they used. One, for example, gives a signed name of what looks like Weggie. On another piece it's clearly written as W. I wondered if her name was Margaret - whose two sisters had also written in the book, so then I compared the birthdate of the girl called Margaret with the dates the other two sisters had written - and it all adds up to "most likely is Margaret, as the age fits"....

Some you can find, some you can work out, some will never be known.

Take Mary Hodges, first writer in the book, dated spring 1929. On the basis she was 13 when she wrote, her birthdate would be 1916. +/-1 year and then hit the births .... 1915-1917, there were 13.

13's a bit too many ... and her name might not have been Mary at all, she could've been XX Mary ... and just used her middle name.

But, to try to take that further, I think I have a candidate - looking down the birth registrations areas a few can be dismissed as "not really likely" through to "Ah, there's one in the county where I think the school is". I'd guess initially at the one born in September 1915, who was 13 in the spring of 1929 and birth registered about ~20-30 miles from the school I think they went to.

So the next stage is to then research that family and see if I can get a hint that they were rich enough to pay school fees

Common names, in the main, are too "hard" to really fathom out unless something drops in your lap... I've spent 5 minutes on each common name to see how many initial results I get...and if it's "too hard" I've dropped them for now.

Most women "disappear" though - while their husbands did stuff and got knighted etc, most of the women were "just housewives" and made no specific contribution to mankind that gets them a big obit and page on wikipedia

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

Most women "disappear" though - while their husbands did stuff and got knighted etc, most of the women were "just housewives" and made no specific contribution to mankind that gets them a big obit and page on wikipedia

and made no specific contribution to mankind that got the recognition it deserved/got registered somewhere/was taken seriously by the males in charge/didn't get dismissed by husbands et al. as "only a hobby", and thereby didn't get them a big obit and page on Wikipedia


Corrected for you!

GDB2222

The local airport here at Sheringham. This is a picture of the departure lounge.