things i learned today

So Lori, did dad take Darlington lady and you home after the Bluebells or did you later go seek Dad ?
None of my business but how did you end up over there ?

I am from the NE thus the passion for Offal, pease pudding, and Black Pudding cheap and cheerful
Beef dripping on toast

Jack McH

 

98530, member: 15"]Any connection to the air force? During WW2 there was a military air base at Middleton saint George, just outside Darlington. At some point Teesside airport came into being, originally as a military air base but later a civilian air port. Not sure of the timing. Probably post WW2 though as the main runway is deliberately long enough to launch a fully laiden Hercules, which is unusual for such a small airport. That's in dinsdale, also just outside of Darlington. The other military connection in the area is of course Catterick Garrison, also just outside Darlington. I believe it's all British army but might have accommodated our brethren from overseas during wartime.[/QUOTE]
Yes. My father was a Lieutenant in the RCAF. He was in a bomber squadron. Lancasters.

I cannot upload some pics from this tablet but will do so tomorrow. There is a shot of him in a post about our parents, somewhere...

do they have bluebells near that aeroport ?

 

My dad was a canuck in the RCAF, and I suspect my eldest sister was a full term war baby...


so, here is the bad news, I am a Canuck partially made from English parts


I am one of your kind ......

 

Because bluebells are everywhere round here, they really are abundant, I'm thinking the bluebell thing must be less literal than the common woodland flower.

There is an old hotel near Stockton, about 5 miles from Darlington, on the back road on the way to Catterick Garrison, called the Bluebell.

 

It is true that many parents seem over protective now.

My daughter works at a primary school and has just completed a qualification to become a Forest School leader. Forest Schools aim to give children hands on 'learning experiences' in woodland settings. This is the something we took for granted when we were kids, but is now sadly missing from many children's lives.

She has put in a huge amount of work to set the whole thing up for the school; negotiating with local landowners for the use of a nearby wood and sorting out access to it, all the usual myriad of paperwork and forms and so on and so on.

Before the first session, some of the comments she received from various parents ran along the lines of "Oh, he doesn't like getting cold or wet", "she's not really an outdoor girl", and from one pupil "I don't like getting dirty, I'm quite a clean child really".

Come the time for the first session, guess what? Every single one of the children had a whale of a time. They explored, they ran around, they were curious and asked all sorts of questions, and universally expressed their dismay when the session came to an end and it was time to return to the classroom. And this was in the depths of winter!

Best of all was the boy who said he didn't like getting dirty. According to my daughter he was into everything, and he went back to the school looking decidedly grubby but very happy.

Children love being outdoors, in fact I would go so far as to say it is almost their natural environment. It is a great pity that some parents do not recognize and encourage this, they are depriving their children of so many enjoyable experiences.

 

I did not know this about my country and Brit tanks. Interesting!

FOREIGN AFFAIRS


Although most Canadians aren’t aware of it, the British Army maintains an absolutely massive military base on Canadian soil. CFB Suffield – a chunk of Alberta about half the size of P.E.I. located near Medicine Hat – is where the Brits go to practice driving tanks for the very understandable reason that there’s not enough space to do it in the U.K. But that may be ending soon amid reports that the U.K. Ministry of Defence is going to be moving their armour training from Canada to a base in the Middle East. The Brits are not going to vacate CFB Suffield entirely, but the base is going to see some “changes,” officials reported. The move may simply be a reflection of where the British Army fights their wars these days: Alberta was first selected because it resembled the European plains where the Brits expected to fight the Red Army in a Third World War.