Part 41 – Blast from the past
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January 2026
We travelled to York by train on 1st January, returning on 3rd. I took the photo while we were waiting for the Cross Country train back to Cheltenham. It was great to see all the family again, and rail travel is definitely easier than the long trek by road. Until I can drive again, Donna would have to do the entire trip both ways, it’s a long way and a bit daunting (though Debbie seems to be happy enough to drive down with Sara and/or Aidan to visit us in Cirencester).
The second photo shows some of us at Beth and Paz’s home in Fulford. From left to right are Jess and Aidan, Mero, and Paz. Beth is reflected in the window. It was a lovely, relaxed time and so good to see everyone.
JHM: I wrote about the significant difference between who I am and what I do; and a bit of a hero about Mark Carney. World events: Bulgaria adopted the euro, becoming the 21st member state of the eurozone; and Israel became the first country to recognize Somaliland; while the United States officially left the World Health Organization.
< Dec 2025 – Feb 2026 >
October 2025
Donna and I visited Westonbirt Arboretum and enjoyed some of the autumn colours; on the way round I spotted this low-hanging branch of cedar and just had to take a photo. Lots of colours here as well as interesting shapes.
Walking through the town one day I took this photo. It shows Churnside, 37 Victoria Road; originally my grandparents house, and later my parent’s house. Most of my teenage years were spent in this home and it was a short walk to school as this was also in Victoria Road.
JHM: I wrote about the Starship programme; and about a time in hospital. World events: Dame Sarah Mullally was named the first female Archbishop of Canterbury; and Microsoft ended support for Windows 10.
< Sep 2025 – Nov 2025 >
April 2025
My old work colleague, Dave Clarke came to visit me in town for coffee, a light lunch, and a chat on 3rd. I always enjoy meeting Dave and we usually find a lot to talk about.
I noticed some areas of cuckoo flower growing in the grass along Riverside Walk on my way into town and took a photo. Such a pretty little thing and only visible for a short time while it’s in flower; by the time the seeds are ready to fall the plants are usually deeply hidden by grasses, nettles and other actively growing vegetation.
Aidan did a bungee jump while in South America, and the video appeared in WhatsApp, rather him than me!
< Mar 2025 – May 2025 >
April 2024
I took this photo of the Lauriston Hotel in Weston-super-Mare where I stayed for a week with my parents and grandparents when I was about two-years-old.
I ordered a refurbished Google Pixel 7 phone to replace my old Pixel 3, and I continued scanning photos and documents. Paul and Vanessa visited with the dogs, I took them to see the old amphitheatre but it was too muddy. We bought a second-hand ‘Rollator‘ from Minchinhampton for Isobel so she can sit down at a moment’s notice if she comes over dizzy.
On 16th we visited the Newt in Somerset where the reconstructed Roman Villa was amazing to visit. It’s complete, based on the ground plan of the remains of an original nearby and built using methods that would have been familiar to Roman builders. It’s complete with mosaic floors, an upstairs section, and wall paintings, furniture etc in the Roman style as well. The Master’s office looks as if he’s just been called away and might return at any moment. Amazing!
World events: Sweden officially joined NATO; and an Artificial Intelligence Act was passed by the European Union.
< Mar 2024 – May 2024 >
April 2021
We visited the Forest of Dean, just across the River Severn from Gloucester and a lovely journey whichever way you approach it. Speech House has a sculpture trail set up and we walked some of it, then drove to Monmouth to explore the lovely old town, and on to Chepstow stopping again at Tintern Abbey before crossing the old Severn Bridge and making our way home from there. It was a lovely day out; and how lovely to be able to do things like this again after all the COVID-19 restrictions are starting to ease.
SpaceX seemed to be doing well now. Starship SN10 landed rather heavily, caught fire, then later blew up. SN11 was nearly ready to make another attempt within a few weeks, hopefully without the explosion! And I was busy updating the MainEvents files.
We met Paul and Vanessa in Bradford-on-Avon on 16th and walked part of the Kennett and Avon Canal together, then Donna and I took a look at the historic Barton Grange Farm near the town. The old tithe barn is very similar to the Barton Grange Barn in Cirencester!
World events: Pope Francis met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, Iraq. The first-ever meeting between a pope and a grand ayatollah; and the number of COVID-19 vaccinations administered worldwide exceeded 500 million.
< Mar 2021 – May 2021 >
April 2016
We met the family in Leicester for a day at the National Space Centre. The photo shows young astronauts in training, Aidan and Sara making sure they stay well hydrated.
We explored Bury St Albans, a beautiful town some distance east of Cambridge and an area we hadn’t seen before. We rented a little space for a week on the east coast and spent the time exploring and visiting old friends. We stopped at St Albans on our way home to St Neots. The photo shows Bury St Albans Cathedral and part of on the central city parks.
At this time I was still typing up my old hand-written notebooks as Diary files, storing them as editable odt files as well as pdfs. In April I was working through the notebooks for 1996.
World events: There were clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan; and Beyoncé released her sixth studio album, Lemonade.
< Mar 2016 – May 2016 >
April 2011
Approach roads for the new foot and cycle bridge across the River Great Ouse between Eaton Socon and Eynesbury were making rapid progress. But apart from putting in some piling and rebar, form work and some pouring of concrete for the abutments on both banks there was no sign of progress on the bridge itself yet.
I finished removing the old shed base in the garden during April. I smashed the concrete into manageable sized pieces with the sledgehammer and carted the pieces away to the recycling centre over the space of a week or so. The photo shows the job nearing completion.
On the 20th Debbie, Steve and Beth drove down to Sundown Adventureland (near Lincoln) with the grandchildren and we drove up to meet them there. There was a flume running around the site with boats that were actually quite large.
And of course there were good things to eat and drink though we had mostly brought everything we needed with us. There was a lot to see and do. So we were busy all afternoon long. It seemed like a shame when we made our way back to the car park and headed off home again.
JHM: I wrote about systems of measurement; and a Lego model of a particle detector at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). World events: Guantanamo Bay information was leaked; and Prince William and Catherine Middledton were marrried.
< Mar 2011 – May 2011 >
April 2006
Dad died on 2nd April at Gloucestershire General Hospital. He’d suffered from a dissected aorta a few days earlier, and it was not possible to repair the damage. He was not in pain and died peacefully with almost the entire family around the bed.
On 3rd My three sisters and I met with Dad’s solicitor, Richard Mullings, for an initial discussion about what needed to be done and to begin the process of working through the will. I spent the night at Churnside and on 4th I decided to make a detailed photographic record of Churnside just as Mum and Dad had left it.
The second photo shows the Back Sitting Room (as we always knew it), the pictures on the wall show my parents, Mike and Lilias and the sofa belonged to Mum’s Aunt Annie from Belfast where she and her husband Samuel had lived most of their lives.
I took photos of the outside of the house on 5th April, here’s a view from the west looking across Victoria Road at an angle. The house is close to Tower Street where my grandfather’s family had lived when he was a child, and also to The Avenue where my great-great-grandfather had lived.
World events: The European Space Agency’s Venus Express space probe entered Venus orbit; and Iran announced a deal with Russia, involving a joint uranium enrichment company in Russia.
< Mar 2006 – May 2006 >
April 2001
On the 1st of April we drove to Cirencester to visit my Mum and Dad and went with them to Eastleach to look at the daffodils for which the village is rightfully famous.
Then we travelled to High Wycombe on Donna’s birthday to spend the weekend with her parents. In the photo she’s watching TV with her Mum and Dad while I snuck a photo while I had a chance.
Later in the month we flew to Tenerife with our friends Geoff and Dawn who had a time share in Los Christianos. Here they are getting ready to leave the timeshare on an expedition somewhere.
We drove up to Mount Teide on this holiday where there were still patches of snow lying near the summit. It was the reverse of the Grand Canyon where we made snowballs at the top and at the bottom the conditions demanded shorts and T-shirts.
JHM: In April 2001 I had a simple web page, an early precursor of the current site. World events: Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević surrendered to police special forces to be tried; and The Parliament of Ukraine voted to dismiss Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko.
< Mar 2001 – May 2001 >
April 1996
On April 1st, the County of Avon was abolished. This seemed a real pity to me, it was a sensibly sized area based around the cities of Bristol and Bath, a very nice entity and quite logical, so I regretted its demise. Dad had minor surgery during April, the work was done with a local anaesthetic and he needed morphine to sleep properly on the first evening; but by the and of the month he was better than before the op.
Donna had a rather difficult and unhappy month, but got through it OK eventually. Meanwhile it was an interesting time in Computing at Long Ashton. Some of the science staff were getting irritated by slowness in moving forward with better Computing facilities. Micha Semenov, a Russian, was pushing hard and just doing things for himself without waiting for the Computing Department. He bought a Windows 95 machine for his office, and then an NT box as well, meanwhile telling Peter Shewry that the Computing section was too slow moving forward.
He was right to be concerned. I could foresee problems ahead as my boss, Pete, wanted to save money and go slowly. He was right that resources were restricted, but he didn’t seem to want to make the case for more funding.
World events: The European Union officially recognised the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; and over 100 Lebanese civilians were killed after Israel shelled the United Nations compound in Qana.
< Mar 1996 – May 1996 >
April 1991
We visited the Natural History Museum in London on 5th; Judy was very impressed with this table made of a range of different coloured stones fitted carefully together and finely polished.
The second image gives a much clearer view of the table top itself. We enjoyed our museum trip, it’s a lovely old building full of so many things of great interest.
On the 28th we were back in Cirencester, visiting Granny and Grandpa (my parents) and visiting the fritillaries in North Meadow at Cricklade. There are so many of these spread out across the enormous meadow – absolutely stunning!
You can buy these plants for the garden, but North Meadow is a large natural population, they’ve been thriving here for generations.
World events: Government-imposed price increases doubled or tripled the cost of consumer goods in the Soviet Union; and Space Shuttle Atlantis carried a gamma ray observatory to Earth orbit.
< Mar 1991 – May 1991 >
April 1986
A hot air balloon flew near our house in Stowey Road, it was quite low, so very exciting to see. On one occasion (it might very well have been this one) a balloon landed in Hangstones Playing Field nearby and we walked down to see it on the ground.
In March I had cut down a row of conifers growing at the front of our house; the remains were all wheelbarrowed down to the bottom of the garden and I made a bonfire to burn the waste. That was a job for early April, and here’s a photo Judy took of the work in progress. I had to choose a day when the wind wouldn’t blow the smoke across other people’s gardens. Now, in 2026, I’d take the material to the local recycling centre for producing wood chips or compost, or try to find a way to turn it into wood char for digging into our garden soil, but in the 1980s burning the waste was quite normal.
Judy and I were both 37, Debbie was 11-years-old and Beth was seven, but eight the following month.
World events: A bomb exploded on a TWA flight from Rome to Athens, killing 4 people; and Pope John Paul II officially visited the Great Synagogue of Rome.
< Mar 1986 – May 1986 >
April 1981
I was working at Long Ashton Research Station in the Pollination Unit and one of the experiments arranged by the Unit head, Ray Williams, was the result of poor gooseberry yields on a farm north-west of Birmingham. Ray agreed to conduct some experiments to work out whether poor pollination or some other cause was responsible. We replicated trials on a Long Ashton plot north of the A370 and also on the fruit grower’s farm. A summer student helped with the work and we published a paper on the results of this study in 1982.
Judy and I were 32, Debbie was 6, and Beth was two, but would be 3 in May.
World events: Bucks Fizz’s song “Making Your Mind Up” won the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin; and Space Shuttle Columbia, with NASA astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen, launched on the STS-1 mission, returning to Earth on April 14, the first time a crewed reusable spacecraft had returned from orbit.
< Mar 1981 – May 1981 >
April 1976
Mike and Lilias visited an airshow in April and watched an RAF Hercules transport plane dropping parachutes. He took some 8 mm cine of this process and the photo shows one of the frames from the film.
With his RAF background and experience, and as a keen aeromodeller, he was always enthusiastic about flying and didn’t like to miss an opportunity to see and photographically record any event of this sort. It’s very much part of who he was.
In April 1976 Judy and I were 27, and Debbie was one-year-old.
World events: The Apple Computer Company was formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in California; and the Jovian–Plutonian gravitational effect was first reported by British astronomer Patrick Moore as an April Fools joke.
< Mar 1976 – May 1976 >
April 1971
Talks were underway for introducing a new grade structure for scientific staff. I was engaged in the Willows Section at Long Ashton Research Station in October 1970 as an Assistant Scientific Officer with a salary in the region of £800/year. There were separate Experimental Officer grades, paid rather less and with no way to cross between the two classes of grade. So it seemed I might do reasonably well when the changes were announced in September/October 1871, just five or six months away. One lived in hope!
Judy and I were 22 years old and living in our unfurnished flat, 20 Belmont Road in St Andrews, Bristol. We were starting to collect furniture (mostly second hand) to prepare the time when we might be able buy a home of our own. However, we lacked a fridge and couldn’t afford to buy one brand new. But Judy knew a colleague at the University who was buying a new fridge and wanted to sell her old one second hand. We offered, I think, £20 and she was happy with that. It was quite old and battered, though we weren’t worried about that, but while cleaning it we found some maggots living in the four feet that were steel pressings welded on and open on the inside. There were fatty deposits in the feet and the maggots were munching away. What to do?
I didn’t fancy digging out the fat and the maggots, but I had some fibreglass resin left over from repairing a rusty hole in the boot of our car. So I pushed some balls of newspaper in first and then plastered over the openings with a strong mix of resin. It became quite hot as it was setting and I had to brush cold water over it to keep it safe, but it did the job and we were able to give the inside of the fridge a good clean out, plug it in, and start using it. In the previous summer in our bed-sit we had to get the milk in as soon as possible after delivery, wrap a damp towel around it, and stand it outside our window on the stone window ledge to keep it cool. Now we had a fridge which made life much simpler. It also taught me a useful lesson about fibreglass – don’t add too much accelerant to the resin!
World events: Libya, Syria and Egypt signed an agreement to form a confederation; and some 200,000 people in Washington, D.C., and 125,000 in San Francisco marched in protest against the Vietnam War.
< Mar 1971 – May 1971 >
April 1966
This was my Easter card to Judy, it looks very dull and boring and would never sell today, but hessian was definitely ‘in’ during the mid 60s to mid 70s so at the time it would have seemed cool and classy. How times and fashions change!
I was still at Cirencester Grammar School at this time, studying Biology, Chemistry and Physics at A level, General Studies O*, and Art O-level which I managed to squeeze in by dropping PE. With the exams coming up in just a couple of months, the emphasis now was on revision. Judy was a year behind me though we had been taking biology lessons together (which was part of how we got to know one another in the first place).
Judy and I were both 17 years old at the time but my birthday is in July and hers was in September so we were in different school years.
World events: The United Kingdom asked the United Nations Security Council for authority to use force to stop oil tankers that violated the embargo against Rhodesia; and Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were tried at Chester Crown Court for the murders of 3 children.
< Mar 1966 – May 1966 >
April 1961
The railway branchline from Kemble to Cirencester was to close a few years after this photo was taken in 1961. The new extension to the station building on the extreme left is still there in 2026, as is the listed main part of the building, built by Brunel as the western terminus from Paddington.
I was twelve-years-old, studying at Cirencester Grammar School for O levels in a range of subjects including Latin which I would eventually drop. My favourite subjects at this time were Maths, English Language, Chemistry, Physics, Geography, Music and History; I was unable to fit Art in, though that was another subject I would have enjoyed. Subjects I did not like were Latin, French, and English Literature.
World events: South African golfer Gary Player became the first non-American to win the Masters Tournament; and the trial of Adolf Eichmann began in Jerusalem.
< Mar 1961 – May 1961 >
April 1956
I was eight-years-old, studying at Querns School in the third year; the 11-Plus exam would come in just three years time (an unimaginably long time in the future, we thought). One of our teachers, Miss Payne would help us prepare for that in our last year at Querns, but for the time being it was life as usual, gently extending our knowledge of Arithmetic, English, History, Geography, Art and a tiny initial bit of French.
At weekends and during holidays, Cindy (my sister) and I spent a lot of time with the children next door, Linda and Graham Watts. We played in their garden and in ours. Life was relaxed, controlled mostly by the changing seasons, and in April the first signs of summer were beginning.
World events: Videotape was first demonstrated at a 1956 convention in Chicago; and the actress Grace Kelly legally married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, with a religious ceremony the following day.
< Mar 1956 – May 1956 >
April 1951
In 1951 I was 2¾-years-old, and Mum was expecting a baby brother or sister to arrive in the autumn. I didn’t really understand what this meant, of course, but I clearly remember not wanting to put my hand on Mummy’s tummy while she was in the bath, and the curious kicking movements when I did.
World events: After its clandestine removal from Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, 1950, the Stone of Scone resurfaced at Arbroath Abbey in Scotland; and the Treaty of Paris (1951) was adopted, establishing the European Coal and Steel Community.
< Mar 1951 – May 1951 >
This covers about 75 years from April 1951 to January 2026
To be continued.
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Journeys of Heart and Mind 
