My time in England (contains car talk... barely)

[matthew1]

My family lived in Nottingham Sept 1973 to July 1976. My sister was born there. I remember some of the town right outside it specifically that we lived in -- Radcliffe on Trent. I remember skipping stones on the River Trent with my grandfather, and the paths in the forest the river ran through.

I remember the smell of the news shop, and the "sweets" I'd get when we went there.

My mom raves about how great it was, how friendly everyone was, leaving the pram outside the shops, etc. Tea, fish n chips. All that English stuff. We had some really good friends, and my mom still keeps in touch with our next door neighbor.

I went back in 1997 and walked through the house we lived in. We walked up to the door and explained who we were and the nice lady said come on in.

It was so old it had a name, "Red Hatch", and you could address a letter to it, no numerical address needed. True story. Everybody knew everybody.

My dad used to drink at Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_Olde_Trip_to_Jerusalem

We owned one car, because we were "rich" Americans*, and it was considered a luxury at the time there to have just one. I'll try to find out the make/model. My dad is very old and frail now, and may not remember. My mom never paid attention to car stuff.



*well, two of the four of us were, my dad's Canadian and my sister was nominally English (I think) because she was born there and for a time didn't get US citizenship. But it was just easier to label us Americans and be done with it. I say "rich" because I'm basing it off the perception of the locals. My dad was paid in US dollars, and a good salary at that working for John Deere Industrial (yellow machines... green is Farm division). The exchange rate in the 1970s Quid<->Dollar favored him, and the standard of living in England at the time wasn't all that high. Nothing at all like it is now. So the effect was that we were "rich". For the record, my parents are not now and never were "flashy". We did nothing to promote the "rich American" theme.

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[abscate]

1976 was the sweet spot for the AMERICAN dollar in the UK

After WWII, the Breton Woods agreement fixed the pound dollar rate at $2.80 which was an FU to the rest of the world for winning WWII , economically.

When we came off the gold standard , we had to pitch this and the pound crashed to 1.50.

I went back to the UK in 1974 with gold in my pocket at 1.75, if I remember right

[volvolugnut]

In 1982, my company sent me to Scotland for a 6 week exchange program. I had a house to live in, a Ford Cortina to drive where ever I wanted and little direction at work. It was June, the weather was generally great, and I had a great time.
My wife and I went back on 2009 for about 10 days.
volvolugnut

[BlackBart]

Matt - on that map the National Water Sports Centre looks like it has a rowing / crew track.

[matthew1]

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Circa 1977, crossing the Channel via hovercraft. That's me in the sweet jacket and my little sister. The hovercraft did allow several cars, drive down the center via the loading ramp in front.

[abscate]

I believe the hovercraft is full of eels…..

[abscate]

Me in Devon 2024

Britain has this wierd idea of getting into CityCenters by waiting on a corner for 10 minutes, paying $1, then getting dropped right at the shop destination. I don’t understand how these shops survive, there isn’t anywhere to park your car

[erikv11]

Those pics of the area are nice but they all have this ... smudge? ... toward the lower left corner; something's awry can't put my finger on it.

[matthew1]

Those pics of the area are nice but they all have this ... smudge? ... toward the lower left corner; something's awry can't put my finger on it.

Those are great, Steve. Any city with a statue of freaking Neptune is a good city in my book. Avec trident, and his parts are covered with typical Roman modesty.

[matthew1]

This reminds me: I asked my dad a few weeks ago about the Simca. The second car (first being a brown Toyota Celica) we owned in Belgium was a Simca -- almost certainly a 1301 -- which my dad had shipped from England, where it was my family's only car. I had always thought he bought that in Belgium after the Celica, but no, it predated the Toyota.

I don't remember much except that the windshield wiper squirting system was manual, hydraulic. You pushed in a rubber half-sphere on the dash and it pressurized the washer fluid lines and sprayed the windshield. So far so good. Except that if you pressed it really quickly, the streams would shoot over the whole car . That was lots of fun for me.

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