Cine film at the time was not expensive, but still far from cheap, and also suffered from the small problem that every frame exposed had to be stored in the camera until the spent cartridge was removed and sent for developing, so as a result, home movies were short.

In order to keep the experiment from being too costly; to add interest, and to ensure the film didn’t run out half way around; the camera was slowed to (I think) 1/8 of it’s normal rate. The result was what we* all came to know as “Fast Run Round Sketty”, which in the days before video recorders was entertainment gold dust.

* I think I was probably my grandfather’s greatest movie fan, but the “we” included my cousins Jim and Ros, who often dropped by – I had the advantage of living within a literal stone’s throw of my grandparents so I was always able to ask for “films” when it was too wet to play outside.

The Film

The Route

The route takes in Wimerfield Crescent, Wimmerfield Avenue, the lower part of Goetre Fach Road, Gower Road to Sketty, Dillwyn Road, the upper part of Sketty Park Road, then back along Gower Road to Killay, before a quick U-Turn and returning to Wimmerfield Crescent via Wimmerfield Drive and Wimmerfield Avenue.

Points of Interest, and A Few Random Memories

There are a few things which on re-watching have sparked off memories that were long buried under more recent experiences, and I’m sure others who lived in the area at the time will also be reminded of other forgotten memories. The things I noticed were:

11 seconds: The lack of mini roundabout next to Siloam Baptist Church, which I remember being put in. Before then, turning around to head back into Killay was an altogether more haphazard event.

14 seconds: The phonebox. There was only one phonebox, and just as Tom Jones has purchased the phonebox that used to stand in his village, this was the one that used to stand in mine. To this day, subconsciously, when I think of an old red phone box, it’s this one.

14 seconds: Above the phonebox is a private road, with iron railings. When houses in the private road were put up for sale it was common for these railings to be used so as to affix the ubiquitous “Henry, Jones and Hobbs” sign. About 10 years after this film I was standing on the wooden frame of one such sign so as to see over the railings, when it gave way, and came insanely close to impaling me on the spikey railing. I had a two inch scar just above my solar plexus for several months.

15 seconds: No Pelican crossing. I remember that going in too, because before then, there were no local pelican crossings so although we’d seen them, most of us had never used one. We spent many happy hours crossing, and re-crossing the road, and thanking the stopped drivers profusely; or just having competitions to see who could stop the most traffic with a single button press.

15 seconds: the old sign to the Black Boy public house, which features the face of a black boy prince. I think it’s now a more faux-politically-correct coal-smeared child.

16 seconds: The sign’s not legible, but I distinctly recognize the Lloyds Bank Killay branch. I recall it was possible to park on the curb in front of the building.

17 seconds: Killay precinct before echelon parking became compulsory, and before the central reservation was extended all the way to the Co-Op. It took people a while to get the hang of the parking, and I remember mum’s car (with me in the back of it) being hit by a woman who reversed into us because she hadn’t worked out which way she should be looking. Happily there were witnesses who could explain to her that she had reversed into the side of our car so we could not “move our car” as she was requesting until she pulled forward and released us.

19 seconds: The edge of the old Killay House NCH buildings, now sadly razed, where Martin Shaw lived. Martin’s dad (Gerry Shaw) always carried about a million keys for going his job there. We spent a lot of time in the Killay house grounds, especially (a) down by the pond on the edge of the woods, because of the huge rope swing and (b) on the private interal roadways, because it had really smooth concrete so it was great for bikes and skateboards. See the article on Killay House for more detail.

20 seconds: The Armine Garage, when it was a National garage. I think this was when the tills were still situated between the pumps in a small wood & glass kiosk. Around this time, they started to offer Smurfs. I believe my first bag of Lego came from a small advert left in that kiosk, and a life of interest in how stuff works followed.

22 seconds: No road markings, how did people cope? Was there not mayhem? Given that I was at Olchfa School for five years I must have walked down this road thousands of times.

23 seconds: The end of Dunvant Road joining Gower road. This was a handy way to avoid the traffic exiting Wimmerfield on a busy morning, in the days before the traffic lights.

24 seconds: The road into the “student village” which was being constructed. On the right, trees and heavy foliage where the Olchfa House pub has now opened up the old garden. That pavement on the right was the last bit of uphill slog that we had to run when the school declared that it was too wet to play rugby, so we’d have to go on a cross country run, “through the woods”. Today there’s roundabout here.

24 seconds: The old bus stop, where after spending 10p in Killay, we’d alight from the bus and arrive in school in time for a game of fives round the back of the south block.

30 seconds: Red “London” busses! Wow. In the days before the green coloured Citi-Mini buses.

33 seconds: the sign for the Acorns Guest house, which was shaped like an Acorn. When I was very little, this seemed like it was a long way from home. The guest house cemented this for me (even if it was only a couple of doors along from where my friend from nursery school (James Morris) lived.

34 seconds: You just don’t see this today. The car’s having trouble getting up the hill, so stop, open the bonnet, fix it, and in the mean time let people drive around you.

35 seconds: A sign of the times; Esso selling petrol for 67p per imperial gallon (that’s 14p per litre)

45 seconds: The Sketty Park Road chicane has long since been removed and the road widened, but in 1975 to a small boy, watching a sped up film, this was the closest you could get to real James Hunt F1 racing.

47 seconds: Signposts and street-lamps are nowhere near as ornamental these days; it’s a shame.

60 seconds: Overtaking on Gower Road, far less common today.

64 seconds: Ah, the old shops; the Chippie, Clarks, Susan Sander (?), Derwen, The Flower Shop, and (in the days before the brick built flower beds) the three-sided advertising hoardings.

72 seconds: Iron Curb Ramps. Something I’ve not seen in a long time. We used to borrow these and ride our bikes over them; they made a hell of a racket. The piece of curb on the left just after the ramps is what Ali Kellerher once landed his kidneys on after riding from the top of Heol Glasnant on a skateboard. He got speed wobbles near the bottom, lost control and ended up in hospital. On the right is the Mob/Hide and Seek tree, where the person who was it used to count, whilst the local kids trashed the local hedge borders in an attempt to create the best hiding place possible.

73 seconds: Home for some lemonade (which in those days was delivered by “the lemonade man” in a big beige truck, I think the company was Alpine).

My grandfather had a darkroom and used to develop pictures himself; he’d be amazed to know what’s possible today with digital photography and the Internet.

One of the more surprising things about the oldest of the pictures is how small most of the prints are (typically only 3cm x 4.5cm) and happily, how well they scale up when scanned at very high resolution.

I’ve spent some time now carefully doing just that, and I’m about 50% of the way through the archive: so far I’ve scanned everything pre-1944. So there’s photos in and around Liverpool, Wallasey Gas Works, North Wales, the Ajay, camping trips, summer holidays etc.

Family members, please put in your requests for copies of the entire archive; possible delivery media include:

• A directly over the web if you have broadband
• On DVD
• On several CD’s

More senior family members may also be able to help prior to distribution by identifying some of the featured people who were nameless in the albums.

To whet your appetite, here’s some of what I have digitised already:

Although he’s only walking around in the background of some of the shots, he did just send me this official behind-the-scenes still frame.

Matt Davies, a consultant for BEA, and also a Jedi Extra from Star Wars Episode III; pictured on set in Tunisia dressed as Rot-Nayt Rot-Tayr.

Now I have envy.

Now; my dad’s not really one for computing (using the monitor as a handy spot for post-it notes was his favourite trick), so there’s no chance he’ll ever put these pics on the web, and therefore, no chance that lots of his old friends from ford or the golf club will see them – however – there’s a chance that they will find my site (what with us having the same surname), or even a chance that dad will one day learn to say “boakes.com” or “boakes.org”, in which case if anyone gets as far as the search bar and tries “john boakes”, they should find this page.

If anyone does stumble across the page in such a fashion, let me know using the comment form below; it will help in my eternal struggle to get Dad on the net.

[slide][path]/pics/2004/dadshouse/[/path][file]garden.jpg[/file][comm]Do I have to mow all this?[/comm][/slide]
[slide][path]/pics/2004/dadshouse/[/path][file]bricks.jpg[/file][comm]If only we could afford the bricks![/comm][/slide]
[slide][path]/pics/2004/dadshouse/[/path][file]premises.jpg[/file][comm]Couple of locals being escorted off the premises by the new owner. (Look a bit like Ryan and Rhiannon).[/comm][/slide]
[slide][path]/pics/2004/dadshouse/[/path][file]hottub.jpg[/file][comm]Its a touch deep for a last resting place.[/comm][/slide]
[slide][path]/pics/2004/dadshouse/[/path][file]pooltakingshape.jpg[/file][comm]Pool / Spa – taking shape.[/comm][/slide]
[slide][path]/pics/2004/dadshouse/[/path][file]kitchen.jpg[/file][comm]Kitchen / Wine bar![/comm][/slide]
[slide][path]/pics/2004/dadshouse/[/path][file]loungediner.jpg[/file][comm]Lounge / Diner – getting there![/comm][/slide]

it’s also good to catch up with folk who i didn’t know massively well, but who shared many common experienced. often such people are few and far between, but the engagement party brought all kinds out of the woodwork who’d not met up in quite a while. for example there was Scott who I’ve not seen for over 10 years – i can work this out by two methods – firstly this is around the time i finished my first degree, so my returns to Swansea distinctly diminished. secondly, Scott now has a 10yo daughter whose existence was totally unknown to me, a very nice surprise indeed, and Scott has obviously had a very busy decade. others have been busy too; Gareth’s been in Cambodia, Mave has been having twins, and ian’s living on a houseboat in London, which also explains his surprise guest appearance at the London marathon.

Oddly, many of those in the year below us from school have started greying in earnest and lost a lot of hair, whilst those of us who were 12 months older seemed to have retained the darkness – probably down to not having had kids yet.

Also Dave didn’t make it due to a cold. Gutted. He keeps on missing events recently so we’ve not met up in about 6 years.

Mrs. K. was kind enough to put us up for two nights and even made us a Sunday roast; bloody marvelous; not had roast in ages (because our oven is broken) so that was most welcome.

Note to Midge: don’t forget to check the orientation of your cigarettes as you remove them from the packet.

Oświęcim / Auschwitz I

Prior to the outbreak of WW2, the Polish town of Oświęcim was home to an army barracks. This barracks became Auschwitz 1, and was used as a concentration camp for Polish citizens for approximately two years before it’s “second phase” when the population shifted to predominantly Jewish prisoners. Prisoners at Auschwitz 1 were used as forced labour in the building of Auschwitz 2, the much larger Birkenau camp.

We went on a Saturday, and were the only visitors.

It was very quiet, however, many of the surrounding buildings are in constant commercial use, so it’s not deserted.

The guard (whose name is Piotr) sidled out to greet us and waited until he could tell what language we spoke before starting to chat, and inviting us to walk around inside.

The feeling of wonderment when wandering around the factory, compared to the lack of any comprehensible sensation in Auschwitz, still surprises me months later.

The areas that we had access to can be seen on this map.

View Larger Map

click on the slides to see larger versions of the pictures (i know you know that, but some people still don’t get it) .

if you have any printed or digital photos which are not here already – please get in touch.

1998

Munich – Consultancy Skills Workshop

These were grabbed from a video that was made whilst we were in the Munich office. There were some photo’s taken at a couple of the kick-offs so if anyone has copies, send them to me and i’ll add them to the archive.

Kickoff (Nov 98)

The kickoff for the 1999 financial year was interesting to say the least. We flew long haul from london to SF, arriving at about 1pm. We then proceeded to the bar where we began to meet lots of people from other European PS groups – this ws thill the weekend so the US guys hadn’t arrived, but since most people in Europe owed al least one other person from Europe a beer or two, we started well, and finally crashed out at 4am, about 34 hours after the day had started and only 3 hours before we had to get up for a keynote… This continued for the week, i think. We made a lot of good friends and ended up around the grand piano on more than one occasion.

Xmas Party 1998

Only one pic has surfaced so far, which may be wise considering this was the year that (IIRC) Carol and Mark swapped costumes half way through the night…

1999

Kickoff (July 99)

The kickoff for the 2000 financial year picked up where the previous kick off had left off, this time it was bigger and better, somehow Held at the Hyatt Regency in July 1999, just a couple of miles south of SF airport, we were asked to spend a week, in a hotel, listening to presentations by day, and meeting people by night. Many of these people we’d met at the last conference, and many more had either helped us out while on customer sites, or owed us beer… it was another amazing kickoff.

Naturally we like to make a good impression on the yanks, the clothing helped, a great conversation starter for anyone out there who’d otherwise never start a conversation. Thanks to Matt “Bunghole” Davies and to Carsten “Warmduscher” Gunther for digging these off old laptops.

2000

These came in from The Wing Commander. They mark pretty much the end of the old Netscape UK since (IIRC) both Dave and I were there to hand in our gun and badge and sign over our mobile numbers. For the preceeding 12 months any new employees were taken on under Sun, so Netscape UK slowly wound down.

Miscellaneous (Rogues Gallery)

So now for the pictures which didn’t quite fit anywhere else. The (very) odds and sods. Featuring: the Jeckyll and Hyde personalities of Dusan Rnic, who could appear as a mild-mannered technical powerhouse one minute, and degenerate into slavering technical killing machine the next. The Japanese excursion of Walker San, and his performing clothes. The only remaining photo of Simon griffiths who described his perfect consulting weaponry as a large catapult mounted to the top of the building so that as consultants arrived they could be engaged with new customers with maximum efficiency. Simon later expanded this concept to add a bungee cord to each consultant so their return could be equally swift. Then there was Daniela Willcocks who was our main contact back at base. Dani sorted out all the things that kept us ticking, like xmas parties.

In the original release Mr Walker noted:

A while ago, I realised that Star Wars was an idiom for existence itself. Well, actually I watched the films to death and then some more. This probably led to this collection of strange oddities.

Credit where it’s due though, the idea for this whole thing was not mine (shameless plagarist that I am), but that of a friend of mine, Nick (aka the Frampton Menace), whom Rich and I shared a house with for 18 months. He drew the original “Master Boakes” and then “Darth Maulker” and then I figured that what we really needed was a collection of Netscape people in star wars. So here it is…