Rain a plenty

As with most other areas we have had a dreadful week end. Saturday was wet but Sunday was dreadful. It finally stopped raining about 4.30pm. My Pal had been here most of the afternoon and as he was leaving I noticed a van with some pumping gear on it. I closed my gates as my Pal left, the man got out of his van and lifted the manhole cover up to inspect it. I asked him if there was trouble. He then told me that there had been a blockage but it was now clear. I remarked that I wasn't surprised as we had about 1.5inches of rain over the week end.
 This morning I was out pottering about in my front when Anglian Water Van pulled up. I asked him if he was going to read my meter again. He told me he was looking for a certain house. I then informed him that it was just a few houses down the road. I then told him about the van checking the manhole cover last night. He was pleased with the information and then told me that the house that he was going to, still had a blockage. He then got his lap top out and started to input data. I left him to it and went back inside.
 On a different subject. With the heavy rain bought back to my mind many years ago. I am not a dog lover but on saying that, I looked after my Jack Russell and must have done something right because he was 21 when he died.
 When I came to run the business I noticed that there were rats in the yard. One of the youngsters who used to call told me that if I had rats a Jack Russell was the best dog I could have. He told me his uncle had a pup for sale. He wanted £7 but he told me he was sure he could get it for £6. He duly bought it down in his leather jacket on his motorbike. It was that small that I kept the dog in a shoe box for a couple of weeks. Of course I had a vet come and worm him and had him injected for the usual ailments. In general he was no trouble health wise but he was the most temperamental dog anybody could imagine.
I will only give this example. The local Manager of the milk company that delivered milk to me, used to do the mans round one day a week in the winter. We got to know him well and he used to come and have 10 minutes or so chat with us. we would give him a cup of tea. At that time we put cube sugar in the saucer although he didn't take sugar. What he used to do was give the sugar lumps to my dog. Incidentally I forgot to mention that his wife used to board dogs for people going on holiday not wanting to take the dog with the.
 Anyway, this particular morning it was teeming down and he came in with his full wet gear on. Had his cup of tea and gave the dog his sugar lumps. He always came behind the counter because he bought the milk in by the crate. It was normal practice. Well this day he said to us that it was time to move on, put his hand on the door when the dog took off and grabbed him by the arm. We were all shocked, he made nothing of it, just said it was his fault but said he would never come that side of the counter again. On inspection the dog had not broken his skin, thanks to the oilskin that he was wearing. More soon.

Names

This happened this morning. I went to the local Supermarket and when I arrived at the check out, there was a nice young lady on the till. I noticed that she had a nice but unusual name. As one knows, they have their names shown on a tag. I remarked how nice her name was, she told me that she didn't choose it but she had a young Daughter 6 months old and she was called Poppy May(Mae). I was astounded and asked her to repeat what she had just told me. She did and I then told her that my Sister's Daughter had just had her 2nd child once again a girl and she had named her Poppy Mae. I then told her that her first child was called Lily Daisy.
 What I didn't tell her was that my Sister was none too happy at the choice of the names given to her baby. She told me that she would have sooner have called her like the first child. Namely 2 flowers. I told her that it was up to them what she was called but I understood where she was coming from.
 While I was waiting for the check out the Manin front started to talk. It was just a little brighter and he told me that if it stayed fine he would cut the grass because if it is not cut regular then it becomes difficult to cut. So he told me he hoped it stayed fine. I then told him that I had Solar Panels fitted so it helped me if the sun shone and it was fine. He seemed surprised at this  and informed me that electricity was still produced even on dull days. I agreed with him but then explained that although electricity is produced on dull days. The amount produced is a fraction of what is produced on a sunny day. It depended on just how dull it was. I told him that yesterday was a very poor day. Although today was better I did produce well over 3 times the amount of electricity and that was with several heavy showers. What the Companies that install Solar Panels do not tell you is that on dreadful days, almost no electricity will be generated. It has happened to me once in the winter period, I managed to produce NO electricity at all. More soon.

Music

This morning, I wasn't taking particular notice of the radio when I heard the discussion about the music on ceefax. I was a little angry because I had not been taking any notice. It was this guy who said he was one of  the groups who composed music and played music generally for BBC2.    This was in the 60s and early 70s. He also mentioned the 8 year old girl who was photographed with a noughts and crosses game. I certainly remembered that. I also remembered some music that was played in I guess the mid 60s.  It  was also pointed out that there was a dedicated following and they met, I think once a year.
 What used to happen was that BBC2 was  broadcast only infrequently during the day so what used to happen was that the rolling news would often be shown and background music would be played. One particular lot of music was that of David Rose Orchestra. I didn't know what the original L.P. was called. All I knew was that every piece of music has the name blue in it. .
 With this in mind, I decided to go on You Tube and type David Rose. To my surprise I found that someone had uploaded most if not all of the L.P The title of the L.P was Like Blue. What I had no idea of was that the pianist was none other than Andre Previn. We all remember him with Morecambe and Wise as the excellent for Eric and Ernie so we knew he was an excellent piano player.
 I went on site and found many of those old tunes that I had listened to them well over 50 years ago. It bought back so may memories. Not to mention the demise of ceefax. Well not quite, some still can receive it . I do honestly believe that the new system is a retrogade step as it is not as efficient and certainly not as quick as ceefax.
 Lkie this new layout of the blogs. This is what they all call progress. I know what I call it. More soon

Dodging the storms

Oh my God, they have once again altered everything. I don't wish to have all of this hassle at my time of life. It is O.K. for the youngsters but for me it is a headache. Why don't the give us the option of staying as we are? Now I have had my gripe. To my latest blog.
 Over the week end I have been repairing, well renewing my fruit cage. It had birdnetting over the top but the sides were covered by the sort of orange plastic that you see round building sites to deter people. I found that this was not U.V. stable so it gradually began to disintegrate in places.  So on Saturday morning I decided to make a start. Incidentally, my Mate was going to come and help me but it is over 6 months since he has been to help me. His Mother is not good so he does not like to leave her for too long. He is her official Carer. Well I have some fruit cage material. This is U.V. stabilised and rot proof so it should last for a few years. I started to ge everything laid out when the first heavy rain suddenly appeared so in  I went for about 30 minutes later I was able to continue. I went and got my step ladder, the weather was not good, I saw my neighbour, I knew that they had entered the latest Pigeon Race. I asked him how he had got on. He told me that all but 5 had returned. I told him that with the poor weather around I was not surprised. There was dark clouds aroud and lots of cracks of thunder. He agreed that it was not good for the birds and I said to him I presume that they would all return eventually. I then started to fix the netting to the top, I could see that it was going to rain soon and I wanted to get as much done as I could. However I only managed to get 75% of the top fixed when the heavens opened up once again. It grew darker and I knew that this was it for the day. I was correct. It didn't really stop again that day.
 Sunday morning opened up a little dull with light rain but at about 9.00am it dried up sufficiently for me to continue. I could see that the weather was unsettled so I got on with the work. I was so pleased that I finally managed to get everything secure when down came the rain again. Not only thunder and rain but hail too. That put an end to Sunday work.
 This morning once again I woke up to rain. The outlook didn't seem great but the rain eventually ceased and around 9.00am I managed to put the finishing touches to my now secure(I hope)friut cage. Mind you, the Blackbirds are the most destructive of common wild birds, eating all friut, pecking flowers ans pulling out seedlings. I don't think however I will have many cherries and plums this year. I have had a look and noticed that  a lot of plums, also cherries have been damaged by the frosts. One Cherry tree was so covered with blossom that an awful lot would have dropped off anyway. All I can do now is wait and see.
 What most gardeners round here will want, is a period of dry warm weather. A lot of the seeds planted will not germinate let's ho[pe that the weather improves and gets warmer. More soon.
 P.S. This new set up is a pain in the backside for me

A little more

I forgot to say other things we discussed when I went to my Mate's.
I told him that the back road to his house was closed. It didn't cause any inconvenience but in the summer it saves quite a bit of time. I suggested that my neighbour had told me that where the Olympic Torch was being carried, the roads were being tidied and many had been temporary closed. My Mate then told me that he bet the torch would go out several times and that there would be quite a few torches in reserve.
This bought to mind the time when I was in the Army doing my National Service. I was posted to Hong Kong and the Chinese were always on hand to try to sell us different things. Cigarette Lighters were a popular sale. They were ordinary petrol lighters with a naked picture on the outer casing. One day however, a new lighter suddenly appeared. Fro what I can remember, it was a cylindrical shape, made of some metal with a push on top. what made this different to every other lighter was, when you took the top off the lighter it immediately lit up. We were all around 18 and to be honest, very immature for our years. We didn't give it a thought that it was a dangerous object because what it contained was Phosphorous. If you left the top off for a lengthy period. I mean about 1 minute the whole lighter got hot, otherwise if you just lit your cigarette and put the cap firmly back all was well. The good thing was that the amount of Phosphorous was small and they only lasted for about a week before not working at all. My Mate just laughed he couldn't believe that we would be supplied with such stuff. He didn't know the Chinese of Hong Kong.
I also mentioned to his Mum if she had, like we had, a swill bin in the street. As I have mentioned before, we lived on an Estate which was privately owned. There would be about 200 houses on the Estate. I can not remember just how many swill bins were in the street but we had one about 3 doors up from where we lived. It did smell. What these were used of was this. All homes were not allowed to throw anything away that was not reusable. Things such as potato peelings, vegetable leaves and anything not eaten would have to be taken to the swill bin. This was a sort of Beldray dustbin. Beldray were the heavy duty dustbins. I think they were emptied twice a week, we were told that the swill was boiled and of course meal or some other stuff was added and it was fed to the pigs.
Our dustbins were emptied every week. Not as you would think but a Dustman would call with a two handled pan, empty the contents of your dustbin and then take out the pan and empty it onto the dust cart. This made sure that all contents in the dustbin were of no value.
My Mate's Mother remembered that well. I told her that in the 70s when the Baker used to call on me when I was in business. He used to tell me that at the end of the day, food that had not been sold and was close to being out of date, not that they had dates on but what would not sell. The food was taken to a local piggery and that was fed to the pigs. Now I guess that it is against the Law to do that. What a pity. Potatoes that were too small to be sold to the General Public were dyed purple so that they could not be sold, they were then, whether sold or given, I don't know but they went to the pigs. An excellent way to use unwanted food. More soon.

Wet journey

This morning I went to see my Mate and his Mum in Skegness. When I left here the rain was pouring down and it continued until I got within a few miles of Skegness. They had some rain but the roads were reasonably dry, as I was travelling to their home I thought to myself that somewhere there would be flooding. Sure enough when I got Look North on the BBC i saw one place had flash flooding. It didn't surprise me at all because the rain was very heavy.
I went to plant a little cutting that my best pals wife had sent me. The ground was waterlogged. Still a few days of dry weather will soon put that to rights.
Now back to my journey. When I arrived it started to rain, my Mate told me that it had only just started. I took him and his Mum the last few carrots.
As you know I try to talk of odd things that we know of but the younger generation have no idea. I asked her if she remembered Golloshers, she smiled and told me she hadn't seen any of those for many years. I told her that it must be nearly 70 years since I had seen any. I told her my Mother used to wear them. I mentioned it to my Mate that all shoes were made of leather and as my Mother used to love quality shoes she used to protect them by wearing Golloshers. I told him that when leather shoes got very wet, when they dried they had a sort of white salty rim where the water had got into the leather.
I then asked her if she had Tripe. She pulled her face and told me she hated the stuff. We both talked of Tripe and Onions. It was done in milk. As kids we had to have this once a week. It was subsidised by the Government because of the shortage of meat. My Mate told me that he liked it, it was the cows stomach. I told him I thought it so but we all disliked it immensely. His Mother readily agreed but told me that her late Husband really liked it. My Mate told me that you could still buy it now. I would not entertain the thought of eating Tripe again. The other subsidised meal was Cows Heel. My eldest Sister liked it but to me, it was equally as bad as Tripe. By the way, if I have spelt Golloshers incorrectly, I apologise. More soon.

April?

Today has once again been very cold and wet. According to the weathermen we desperately need the rain. My garden though is very wet indeed.
Early Sunday we had a heavy hail shower which then froze. It was not until yesterday afternoon that I noticed my grape vine had been affected by the frost. Where the young shoots had touched the glass on my greenhouse they had been affected by the sharp frost and had killed off the shoots. I guess I have lost about 10 young shoots which carried the grapes. I am not bothered though as I should still have plenty for my use. I did protect the tender plants though and they managed to get by unscathed.
My best Pal has been staying in his touring caravan, which he keeps on a local site all the time. When he arrived he told me the temperature was showing 7c on his car. That was the outside temperature, I knew it was cold but didn't think it was that cold though. We have managed to see a little glimpse of the sun today. Well this evening to be precise. As I am writing this we have just had a little watery sun for about 5 minutes. Not good for me producing solar power. Still we have to take what we are given.
I went to get my haircut this morning. As it was raining, not too hard I thought there would be nobody much in the barbers shop. I was right. Well not quite, nobody was there at all. The shop was closed. Normally he opens on a Wednesday morning and has the afternoon off. Still it wasn't a complete waste of time, I needed a few potatoes to get me through the next couple of weeks before my new potatoes are ready so I bought 3kg enough to see me through alright.
Tomorrow I am going to Skegness to see my mate and his Mum, I don't stop long but she will be pleased to see me. Weather is supposed to be like today so cold and wet. It all brings nearer the summer when hopefully it will get much warmer.
I have planted more runner beans in pots, the first ones are showing nicely and I would like to think I can plant the first ones out in a week or so. More soon.

Sharp Frosts.

Over the week end we have had sharp frosts. On Sunday morning I got up at 7.30am only to find the ground wet. This was because we had a little earlier a sharp hail shower. Where it had hit my polytunnel the hail had slipped down and piled up. It was still there at 10.00am. However by 11.00am it had gone. When I went to the greenhouse there was hail on the glass, I still moved my protection of my plants. I have in there a few New Potatoes and French Beans. They had survived and today when I got up, there were cloudy skies so the frost had just about disappeared. Once again I managed to protect my plants. In the polytunnel I have again potatoes and french beans. I also have first early peas but they are hardy enough to withstand frosts.
These last few days I have been cutting down some of my Hawthorn Trees at the bottom of the garden. There is a large Fir tree very close to my boundary. In fact it was planted within 1ft. of my boundary. It has really grown massive these last couple of years. I asked the young guy next door if I could remove one of the main branches. He not only agreed but volunteered to do it himself. I was astounded just how quickly he managed to fell the thing. Now today I have been trimming the short bits off the main branches. I had already asked him if he would like the main side branches for his fire. He told me he would love them but he must get a woodshed built. I told him that I would move them to one side, let them dry out and weather too so there was no hurry.
I have managed to get most of the smaller branches and twigs cut and broken into smaller pieces. This is for when I have my green waste bin emptied so that it will be convenient for me to put the smaller bits in easily. Incidentally, they come to empty my green waste bin on Thursday.
Where my Sister lives, they are charged an annual fee of £25 for the green bins to be emptied. Very expensive I think. Especially as they don't start to empty the bins until April and finish in I think late October. Remember too that they are only collected every 2 weeks. More soon.

Bit of experience

Writing about my Sister going potato picking reminded me of my two experiences regarding working on the land.
The first experience was with a friend, not a close friend but we used to hang around together sometimes. He once asked me to go chasing a couple of girls, after about 10 minutes of chasing them and getting nowhere I told him that I had had enough.
Anyway this particular time was in the Autumn Term. It would be early September and one day he asked me if I would like to go spud picking with him for a couple of days. This lad in a lower Form who he knew well had asked him if he would help them get the late potatoes in. I, of course readily agreed and the next night. I guess it would be around 4.30pm we caught the bus to Barrowby, the next village around 2 miles away. He told me his pal would meet us at the buss stop and take us to the field.
True enough he was there. I forget his name but he seemed pleasant enough but I had no cause or reason to get to know him well. Off we went to the field. We only had a couple of hours of daylight left so when it got dusk, we stopped and was told that we could finish the field the next night. This would be on a Wednesday so off we went again and did the last of the field. The Farmers Son, my pals. friend told us that we had to go to the farmhouse the next night to get paid.
To be honest I thought it was a bit of a bind, going all the way to Barrowby to get paid. Anyway we went and my pal was well known by the Farmer. He greeted him by saying "Hi David, thanks for helping out. That is 2 hours a day for 2 days at 1/- an hour so I owe you 4/-" He turned to me and told me that as I had worked for 3 days I would get 6/-. I didn't say anything but David was a little peeved. We had both worked for 2 days but I had been paid for 3 days. I didn't complain.
Now the other happening was totally different.
I was by that time working on the Railway and a young Driver lived almost opposite me. We got on well and he was a nice guy. He came to see me one day and asked me if I would care to help the local Farmer out. He told me that the field at the end of our road was going to be set with potatoes and would I help him with setting the potatoes.
Now remember this would almost certainly be in the late 50s. What I can remember about the potato setter was that it was a circular design with spaces to put a potato in and as soon as the tractor moved the thing would move and drop a potato in the hole made below. We then had to keep filling the space where the potatoes had been dropped. There were 4 of these sort of rings so we had 2 of each. There were seats, if you can call them seats to sit on. I guess the field would be about 3 acres in all. It was an experience that to be honest I would never volunteer again as the ride was so bumpy and uncomfortable. It took us about 90 minutes to get the field set and if my memory is correct I think we both got 10/- each. By the way, I am not good at explaining things but think of the contraption as a bicycle wheel on it's side with compartments for holding a potato. I think it held a dozen when fully loaded.
I did however have another experience with farm work. This was a labour of love. I used to go to my Sister's each Christmas. My Mother would always be there. I should mention that my Sister's Husband, my Brother-in-Law was Farm Manager. The Farm belonged to Lord Brownlow so was large and was mixed with arable and cattle. I used to go out on Christmas morning with Jim my Brother-in Law to feed the cattle. It meant that the Farm workers could have Christmas Day off. To be honest I enjoyed it. I would ride on the back of the tractor and then we would pick up a trailer which was loaded with hay and other feeding bits, then off we would go to the field and I would then unload the food and watch the cattle come hurrying to get their feed. It was a custom that they bought the cattle in on 31st December, they were bought into the cattle sheds for calving. There were about 100 head of cattle. Each bull calf was humanely castrated by putting a ring on their testicles so that they were starved of blood and dropped off. After 18 months or so they then went to market. Any young cow calf's were kept. This way they intended to gradually increase the size of the herd. He had I think 2 bulls Hereford cross. What I did find out though was that for every calf born there was a subsidy of £100. No wonder Farmers in the eighties were well off. More soon.

Paper Boy

I did have a job, only for a short time whilst I was at school. It was my Cousin, the one who I played cricket with, he made the cricket bat and I found the balls from the fair. The ones used to try to get a coconut. Small wooden balls just the right size for 19 year olds. I also made the pads out of some old rush matting that we had used in the bathroom.
Anyway, back to the job. My Cousin asked me if I would like a job as a paper boy. The big advantage was that you had the use of the bike which was provided. It didn't bother me that the bike advertised on the side, the shop where we worked. In fact there were 2 Brothers. Mr Stanley, an Alderman and a Mr John. That is how we had to address them. My John was just an ordinary Councillor as he had not been on the Town Council long enough to be voted in as an Alderman.
By Law you was not supposed to arrive at the shop before 7.00am. It was a Newsagents and Tobacconist. I think they had either 3 or 4 shops in Town. They both insisted that you had to be on your way delivering papers before 7.00am. After I had been there a few weeks I was given my own round. It was HUGE. I had to deliver over 100 newspapers daily and on a Friday was the local Journal. Plus such things as the Dandy and Beano. As I had the largest round of all I was paid an an extra 6d for my troubles. Most other lads got 3/- or now 15p a week I was paid 3/6d or 17.5p. The biggest problem was that it took me well over an hour to deliver the papers and I finished up around 2 miles from home, bit I had the use of the bicycle so I just had enough time to get home grab a bite to eat then off to School. This was fine during the Summer and early Autumn but as the early winter came and the weather got wet my Mother decided that I must leave the job and so that was that. Mind you, it did have it's compensation. It made my Parents mind up and I was given a bike of my own. Not a new one obviously but I was now the proud owner of my own bicycle. I no longer had to have School dinners as I could get home in about 15 minutes. As Lunch break was from Noon until 1.15pm. That left me plenty of time to get home eat my dinner and get back to school in plenty of time for afternoon lessons. More soon.

Easter came and went

Typical Easter weather greeted the Holidaymakers. I must admit that as I was in business for over 30 years. I can only recall one fantastic Easter weatherwise. I can also recall several Easters when it snowed. Thank goodness it was only rain this year. My neighbour told me that the local town was very busy on Sunday.
It was me looking at my potatoes in my Greenhouse and thinking of things to talk about to my mate's Mother when I go next bought back memories.
What most will not know is that when the war was over men were not demobbed immediately. Very few were demobbed before 1946, this then takes me to my story.
My Sister who is just over 4 years older than I am was a bit of a tomboy. To give you some idea. There was a train waiting to gain entry to Grantham Station and it was full of Americans. My Sister, together with several of her friends started to shout and wave from the footpath below the tracks. One American threw an orange and my Sister was the one who finally managed to get her hands on it. Bear in mind, nobody saw an orange during the war at all.
Now as my Sister was 13 and we lived in rural Lincolnshire. It was decided that for 2 weeks in September, with one's Parents permission could go Potato Picking. My Sister jumped at the chance and of course my Mother readily agreed as we were very poor. Mind you, I didn't know just how poor we were until several years later.
I can't remember exactly how the girls got to the farm but I believe they were taken by bus. They were paid a little and she would come home with tales, so much so that I hoped that when I reached 13 I could go potato picking too. Of course I would never have been allowed as the 11+ was introduced in I think 1947 and anyway the scheme only lasted for 2 years. It was abandoned for good after 1947. Mind you, my Sister was a bit of a devil, she managed to get a few eggs which of course after scolding her for stealing my Mother was grateful for those bonus eggs.
When I next see my Sister I will ask her to give me more information if she can remember that far back. I wonder what folks would think of now having 2 weeks off school for spud picking. More soon.

A visit

I went today to see my mate in Skegness. Going by Butlin's reminded me that the season was almost upon us. Many rides were in use and there were plenty of folks milling around there.
I arrived at my mates easily and went to see his Mum. I mentioned Shove Halfpenny to her. She readily agreed that like me she had heard of the game but like me had never played and didn't know the rules. I told her that like me, she was bought up in a country that was poverty stricken but we didn't realise it at the time. I then reminded her of the wireless. She laughed and told me that we had to take the accumulator to be recharged each week. She told me that she rode an old bike to the shop and as the accumulator was filled with acid she was careful. Not careful enough as she split a little on her skirt. It ruined her skirt and she was given a good hiding. To be honest, almost all of the children in those days had a good hiding from time to time. She then went on to talk of rationing. Everything was rationed but she told me her Father worked on the land and they had a special extra cheese ration. I suppose that was because it was hard working on the land. Everything was labour intensive. She then reminded me that bread, potatoes the staple diet were also rationed. she told me 4oz. margarine and 2oz of butter per person was allocated each week. I then told her my Mother never ate margarine. We, as kids had butter on a Sunday, every other day we had bread and marge, with jam I might add. Mother had butter every day. To be honest, we didn't know any different and the taste was not bad at all. In fact we found no difference between butter and margarine.
I like going to see my mate's Mum and talk of old times. To see her perk up and smile and laugh at some of the things I bring back to her mind. I try to think of different things each time I go. I never stay too long as I know that it is nice to see people but also nice to see them go so I don't stay long and she always thanks me for coming. That's nice. More soon.

Shove Halfpenny

It is funny how things bring back memories. I was listening to Beyond Our Ken a precursor to Round the Horne. There was a little joke and Kenneth Horne stated that the winner received a compendium of games which included Shove Halfpenny. Of course pronounced hape penny. This took me back many years to my infancy. I guess I would have been around 7 years old.
It was at my Mothers parents, yes my Grandparents. They were refined nice people but my Grandfather was severely wounded in the First World War so never worked again. On the odd occasion we would visit them, sometimes we were informed that we had to be quiet because Grandad would be tuning the wireless, yes that is what it was called and he had to use a cats whisker. Heaven alone knows what he had to do but all I knew was that it was a devils own job to get the station and so he didn't want anyone to distract him.
They also had a shove halfpenny board. Now whether he had made it himself or bought it I do not know. What I can say is that the board did not impress me. It was a wooden board I guess 24" long and about 15" wide I think it was solid wood and looked about 1/2" thick. There were lines on it from around 9" from the edge right up to the other edge. It was put on the table and a coin, yes halfpenny was rested with a little hanging over the edge and you hit the coin with the flat of your hand. If the coin landed between the lines you gained the points what the space between was worth. I suppose that the further away from the near edge the more points were awarded. Of course I was not interested, neither was my elder Sister but it must me borne in mind that this would be in the 1940s so besides having no electricity in the house it was up to you what entertainment you had and shove halfpenny was a favourite of my Grandfather. I have heard since of the game but never saw another board. Now I am a little sad that I didn't take more interest when I was small. More soon.