Navada

Found these photos by accident on Facebook!

The Navada was an intitution, roller skating and great bands. When I was at school lots of kids from my form went to the 'Nav' on Tuesday nights. I never really fancied it at the time. When I left school the Navada along with BIT was the place to be. I remember my first visit to the Nav with Neil (G3ZPL) and two girls. I could skate (quite well really) and Lynn was brilliant, but Neil had never had skates on before so I spent some time showing him how to skate. I remember watching Lynn skating around the arena with the music playing and she was fantastic!

Would you believe that the bar was upstairs!

You had to climb up the stairs with your skates on and carry the drinks down again, it was pretty scary.

One of the best nights at the Navada was watching 'MUD' not skating this time, because they often had good groups playing at the Nav. They were excellent!

Such a pity the place burned down...we were all devastated when it happened, it was an icon of the 60's and 70's.

50Mhz Contest

Had a great time last week with the 50Mhz contest. My Yaesu FT-817 puts out about 5 watts and fed into my vertical antenna I wondered what I would manage top work on 6m.
Loads of stations on that night, so managed to work:

M0ICK/P
G7ROM
M1PIA/P
G6GVI
G0BSU
M1NTO

Not bad considering I have not been on the air for ages! I have started to pull out my old stuff in the loft and have set up my FT101E and VHF / UHF Receiver. Maybe I am getting the bug back. I must admit that I find it hard to get back into the old days of Amateur Radio. I would dearly like to go back to the old days (before the days of mobile phones!!)

Chadwick St

I went past Chadwick Street today to find that the Campus there is being demolished!

Back in 1989 I did my PGCE at Chadwick Street which was part of Bolton Institute of Higher Education (BIHE) then. My PGCE was actually from Manchester University, but Chadwick Street was the Teacher Education Centre.

I had just completed my Open University Degree and decided to give up my job as an electronics technician to become a teacher! My year at the college was memorable, a great atmosphere and I made loads of friends there. I had never been to University and this was the next best thing to me.

Had a whole year as a student living on my grant...loved it!!

Spent my placements at Salford College in Worsley and Bolton College. Gosh...can't believe I taught IT to twenty four girl hairdressers at Salford College and Science to sixteen A level nurses!!

Must admit that working in a college is nothing like working in a school!

Turing apology

"Gordon Brown has said he is sorry for the "appalling" way World War II code-breaker Alan Turing was treated."

"A petition on the No 10 website had called for a posthumous government apology to the computer pioneer. "

Alan was a genious, he is the master of computer technology today. Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers built the first ever number crunching computers based at Bletchley and Manchester University. The trouble was that nobody knew about the computers, later, "Collossus" the first programmable computer, was a secret and after the war, instructions were given to dismantle the machines and hide them away! Fifty years later when the secrets were revealed the machines were 'found' and rebuilt. This was all too late for Alan...a sad story!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8249792.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

What was it that Winston Churchill said...something about owing so much to so few...well Alan Turing, you rank high in the league table!

I signed the petition and now he has got the apology deserved!

Iron Maiden

I was astounded when I stumbled on this picture!

Back in the early 70's I went to a gig at a Methodist Church on Chorley Old Road with Neil and my girlfriend at the time Carol. Now I have seen a few pop groups live before now at the Palais and places, but never a group like this!!

Iron Maiden were LOUD and I remember two brass horns on either side of the stage! My first real experience of Rock, it was brill!!

Then there was this other guy called SAG who danced in the middle of the floor covered in foil and flashing lights. What I didn't know at the time is that my wife Kath (and a few others) dressed him up in foil and they all danced. Now SAG is quite a guy, wore a huge chain with his name on it or sometimes with flashing lights and did his famous 'back dance'.

I will never forget the amazing Moss Bank Park festival with other other local groups like 'Black Cat Bone' and a girl called Jacky from Radcliffe who came with Kath and myself and another girl who got lost!!

http://www.theboltonironmaiden.com/

A great site!!

Woodstock

Another 40 years anniversary! Woodstock...August 15th - 18th 1969, quite a year was '69!

Brian Adams wrote a great song 'Summer of '69' says it all!

I must admit that the Woodstock Festival at the time was a bit strange to me, I didn't know much about the artists and it took another few years before I fully appreciated rock and blues stuff. Even then I thought Janis Joplin was 'noisy', now I can see the light! Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and a few others could have had a huge influence on music today had they not died early. I can see where Led Zeppelin's stuff came from, particularly where Robert Plant's voice came from....Janis Joplin!

A truely analogue festival - Valve Amps!!

Summer of '69

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zWnE-NB2jQ

Matthews Southern Comfort

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyTUF5gP2KE

Janis Joplin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAY-Ei7SFWw

Open University 40th Anniversary

Stirling University - My first Summer School!

In 1980 I made probably one of the boldest decisions of my life. I started studying with the Open University with a view to getting a Degree! I had looked at other options for getting better qualifications, but when I read about the OU and the prospect of a Degree at the end I thought it was the best option. At this time I was a qualified electronic technician, but still had no GCEs. You didn't need them to study with the OU! Fantastic!
The first year I did the Maths Foundation Course M101, this was a make of break course, if I could pass I would carry on, but if not I would just give up! I had a lot of applied maths experience from my courses in electronics, but the pure maths stuff worried me! I was lucky, I met a guy from the corner before I started. He was sat at the bar in the social club around the corner with another guy discussing some questions. I overheard and asked him if it was OU stuff. It was and they were doing M101! He lent me the units and and some preparatory stuff and this gave me enough confident to make a start.
Discipline was the thing, I had to adapt to working two hours a night in my study room, away from the TV and Radio stuff!
I did it...I completed the course, passed and then never looked back!
Followed it with the Science Foundation Course S101 and then second and third level courses. OK, sometimes I struggled, but I passed every course!
It took me eight years to complete and finally become a Graduate!
Congratulations OU! It changed my life!

"23 April 1969 saw the birth of The Open University but its intellectual roots go back much further. In 1926 the educationalist and historian J C Stobart wrote a memo on a ‘wireless university’, while working for the BBC. By the early sixties many different proposals were being debated such as a 'teleuniversity', which would combine broadcast lectures with correspondence texts and visits to conventional universities - a genuinely 'multi-media' concept. "

Gosh...packages through the post every week, books, resources. Six in the morning watching the course TV program, cassette tapes to listen to!
That was in the analogue days of learning, I wonder what it would be like to do the courses again in the digital age?
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