Bad times, in my times.

                                                                 

I have written this because of coronavirus/covid-19 which came to the headlines early in 2020. I will write more about that later on, but it got me thinking about bad times in my lifetime, i.e. things I can remember. These will not be in any order but I have taken them from the earliest then along the years and when I come up with another. As I have gone along there are many things that come to mind, but I have done ones that stick out to me. I was born in September 1952. Friends have also helped me with this, do you have any?

1.   Smog. 1950’s – 1960’s.

                                   

 

I think I was born near the end of the Smog era, but I do remember some bad days. Smog is a contraction of the words fog and smoke. We lived in London and it was bad there and I do remember hearing about people dying because of it. The photo above gives a person some idea of how bad it was. When you think people used to call London, "The Smoke," I think that says it all.

     We did not live that close to my school and I used to walk on my own. I had to cross a large field on the way and I had times when I stood in the middle of the field and closed my eyes then spun around then when I opened me eyes I would have to work out which way to go in the fog/smog. Strange child!

2.   Bad winters.

                                                                                 

I suppose this follows on from the smog a little. There have been many bad winters, in the early 1960’s I remember two bad winters, the first stated on the 31^st December 1961, our Grandmother Little Nanny Crisp died in our house that morning. Then another bad one started late 1962 into 1963, again this went on for some time.

     Around the world counties get a lot worst than us in the UK but those places get it most winters and are ready for it and spend a lot of money on it. Of course we do not spend that sort of money as most of the time it would be a waste, but then when the "bad winters come,” we, get caught out.

     There have been other bad winters that have caused lots of problems in the UK. As I was in the construction industry all my working life I would often lose time for not working and would not get paid at all, or even get laid off. I am pleased to say times have changed.   

3.  Recessions.

                                                                                      No Vacancies!!!

Well, being in the construction industry I have been affected by recessions as our industry seems to be the first to be hit and the last to recover. No one wants to spend money during these times and many sites stop.

    I managed to work at times then there were other times I could not. I was born in London and did not get hit by unemployment until the mid-1970’s. I was living in Derby at the time, there was just nothing around so I came back down south and a few weeks later managed to get a place and moved the family down.

   The worst time I have had in a recession was the one that started in 2007. The company I was working for Premier Properties went out of business, the firms I worked for afterwards were owned by people I knew and had completed or picked up PP’s work. PP did not need to go and could have worked things out, but it came out late that the bank they owed to was RBS, who just tried to get money in any way they could!

    This took a lot to come back from, as a country, the world in fact. There was so many ‘cut backs’ it made things so hard for everyone, you name it, they were all hit. This was a joke about banks, I heard on the radio during that time, it was. “If you give a man a gun he will rob a bank. If you give a man a bank, he will rob everyone!!” Sounds about right. Interest rates have been become a total joke. 13 years on they are still coming down. I don’t think they will ever go back to what they were before the crash. 

4.  Flus – Hong Kong – Swine – Brid – Asian – Russian. 

                                                                               

How many different flus have we had? As I write this we are in the middle of Coronavirus, I will come to that later. Flus do kill many people each year in the UK and of course around the world. I read a short while ago that not many years ago (now 2021) that it got wrong “which flu was doing the rounds” that year and over 30,000 people died in the UK.

   I have had the flu twice badly, one when I lived in Derby. I had been feeling really bad and was at the bus stop in the morning going to work, I was not good, at all. I decide to go home. I passed out on the way home and ended up being carried in.  

5. Rationing of petrol.

                                                                               

      There seems to have been a few of this over the years. Petrol rationing after WWII didn’t end until 1957, not that I remember that. There was rationing in 1973 after problems in the Arab world then there were problems in the late 1990’s over a strike, I got up about 3/00 am one morning and went to fill the car up, I had to queue to do it.

     In September 2021 garages started rationing petrol because of the shortage of HGV lorry drivers. This was down to many reasons, Covid, drivers going back to their own counties after Brexit, drivers getting older and not passing their medicals.

    There was a joke in my paper where two men where talking at a petrol pump, on it a notice said “NHS staff only.” One man said to the other, “I am going to wait here so I can get to see a doctor!”

6.  3-day week.

                                                                               

  

The Three-Day Week was one of several measures introduced by the UK Conservative government to conserve electricity, the generation of which was severely restricted owing to the effects of the 1973-74 oil crisis on transportation and inflation. The 3-day week was announced on the 13^th December 1973 to start at midnight on the 31^st of that month. There was a coal miner strike in 1972 and one during the 3-day week.

      I was lucky during both of these times, the first time I was working in Scunthorpe, as a family we had two children at the time, Paul and Julie who along with their mother came to live me there in a caravan there that we rented near a co-worker of mine, Robbie. He and I needed coal for heating and there was a real shortage of this at different time. As I worked in the joiner’s workshop I was able to collect off-cuts of timber for us, and as we lived in woods we would often go there with a bow-saw to collet fire wood.

7. Miners and power workers strikes.

                                                                              

I suppose this is mainly about the UK coal miners strike of 1984-85. This went on for over a year. I was in fact working in the Falkland Islands at the time, but I did follow it on the radio etc. I had been a union member when I was young but I think this nearly finished them in a lot of ways. Arthur Scargill tried to bring the UK government down so he should have resigned when they lost the strike.

      The film Billy Elliot was set to the backdrop of the strike and is well worth watching if a person has never seen it. It showed how hard it was for people.

8. No sugar and bread.                                                                               

      

These were at different times. The lack of sugar was combination of events in 1974, and the ‘3-day week,’ and a reduction of sugar cane imports from the Caribbean. I do remember times when it was very hard to get both of these and of course queues at shops and rationing of each item. There was also a salt shortage in 1970.

The photo above is of 'sugar toast,' I have never had it myself!

 9. IRA – and other terrorism.                                                                              

          

The IRA problems were mainly in the 1970’s to the late 1990’s which ended with the Good Friday Agreement, I say end, will it ever end? 

    Starting with the IRA, the threat of them was a real problem, there were many times when places were blown up. There are many stories from over the years, the Birmingham bombings, NatWest Tower. I was working at the Old Baily which is not far from the tower when it was blown up.

    Al-Qaeda – Al Jazeera – ISIS and many more. Unlike the IRA who did at times give warnings these do not. Again, there has been many incidences, the London tube, Manchester concert, London Bridge, Westminster Bridge it goes on. All these groups say they have their reasons but it is innocent people who get killed! 

10. Threats of nuclear war.                                                                                  

       

When I was talking to a friend, Debbie, about making this list she mentioned this one. It was very frightening mainly in the 1980’s. There was a lot of this on the TV and depending where and what you read, unfortunately the threat is still out there? This did really frighten a lot of people and I remember at one point being very concerned myself.  

When I was looking for a photo to put here I found it very upsetting, so I went for the one above. That is in the hope they can stop it from ever happening.

 

 11. AIDS.

    

The worry of this was so bad across the world and particularly in the 1980’s and 90’s. Today (June 2020) it is still a pandemic, which is an epidemic which spreads over multiple countries or continents. As I have said it is still a problem today, while there is not so much news about it these days it is still out there.

      I had a friend Steve who had it. His wife was a haemophiliac who would need to have blood sometimes. She died of HIV in the late 1990’s. Steve had it, then got cancer. I had a long chat to him one day and he told me all about. I saw him a few weeks later and he said he was on top of both and was getting treatment and he was in good form. Two weeks later he killed himself. He was mad Newcastle United fan and had asked football fans to wear their clubs shirt to his funeral, which I and others did.

12. Black Monday and other days.

      

These are times when stock markets have crashed. I had been into shares over the years, this started when I worked in Algeria. I used sometimes eat with the office manager, Dave, who was into them and I first brought some when I came home. After the crash in 2007 I brought a fair few and really got into them. Of course, when a crash comes it can cost a person a lot of money. My worst one was after Brexit in 2016, I lost over £12,000 the next day. I have now got rid of them all. Too much pressure, ha-ha!!!

13. Floods.

         

We have seen many floods in this country alone, but there are many floods across the world many times a year.

     We had a flood in our house in May 2000, while over all it was very small and many around here that Sunday afternoon had it far worst, but it was awful. We had to have carpets and furniture replaced and redeclaration. My heart really goes out to people when I see them on the TV. Some floods just wipe out homes, villages, towns. It can be absolutely heart breaking.   

14. Twin towers – 11 September 2001.

             

This was the day before my 49^th birthday. I was on a new site which I had just started in Farnborough, I had one groundworker on site at the time. I had to ring our architect for some reason and he had a TV in his office and asked, “have you seen what has happened?” At that point one plane had flown into a tower than as we are talking he said, “another has gone into the other tower.” The groundworker and I then went and listened to it in his car. It was a co-ordinated operation when two hijacked aircrafts destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Centre: a third hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania. The death toll of over 2,500 – estimated.  

   I have to say that in my lifetime this has to be one of the most horrendous things I can really remember. As I said it was the day before my birthday and when people rang me the next day to wish me “happy birthday,” I was saying, “I really don’t want a birthday today.”

15. Grenfell Tower.

               

I have put these two together but of course they were caused by two very different things. The twin towers was the like that had never happened before and the fallout was massive as well. But with this one no one would ever have thought that a fridge exploding could do this kind of damage to a tower block.

      As a construction worker all my life I have been following the inquiry very closely. At the moment 2^nd Jan 2021 the inquiry is ongoing.  The insulation used, Kingspan/Celotex. Ex-employees of them have admitted they fiddled test results so they could make it cheaper to get the work. My guess is that people are going to prison over this. I will keep it up dated here.

      February 2022. Things are still on going regarding this, the latest has been who will pay for the insulation to be replaced in building with it in.

16.   JFK shot – 22^nd November 1963. And other assassinations.   

                                                

  

I remember this so well, I was 11 at the time and saw it on telly, the news that is, and they did have it on film and of course the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald (the supposed killer) by Jack Ruby who had terminal cancer and died in prison not a long time after. There are so many conspiracy theories about who set it up. If the reader has never seen the film JFK I would highly recommended it.

      Martin Luther King Jr – 4^th April 1968. 

Civil Rights leader. He was shot while standing on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. When a person reads the information, it says: The federal government has maintained that James Earl Ray was the gunman: That sounds iffy, doesn’t it? This was followed by riots throughout the USA.

     Robert Kennedy – 5^th June 1968.

Again, I remember this, and where I was when this happened. I had only just started work in the April when I was 15 and I was working for W&C French (who went out of business in the 1980’s) on the cargo area at Heathrow airport when we heard it on the radio in the canteen at launch time.

    John Lennon – 8^th December 1980. 

This happened in New York. I’d had an accident at work two weeks before and had both my wrists in plaster at the time and was off work. We woke up to this news on the radio, what a shock.

17. Falklands War – 2^nd April 1982.  And other wars.

Argentina invade the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic on the 2^nd April 1982. This was also the day my step father Tom Lyons died. The war/conflict lasted 10 weeks after the British Government sent a task force 8,000 miles. The Argentine forces surrendered on the 14^th June with a great loss of lives. This was the first war involving the British I remember as an adult. I later worked on building the new airbase at Mount Pleasant just over a year later.

My book The Lad's from the Pleasant 'B' Team, which is a fact/fictional account of me time in the Falklands is also available on this site.

     The Gulf War.

 

The Gulf War was a war waged by coalition forces from 35 nations lead by the USA in 1990/1991 against Iraq, in response to their invasion of Kuwait.

     The Second Gulf War.

The Second Gulf War started in 2003, this time Iraq was invaded and lead to the overthrowing of Saddam Hussein. The conflict continued for much of the next decade as a insurgency emerged to oppose the occupying forces and the post-invasion Iraqi government.

     Afghanistan War. 

This occurred after the twin towers were attacked in 2001. It was led by the USA and its allies who drove the Taliban from power in order to deny Al-Qaeda a safe base for operations. The allies left Afghanistan in August 2021 and the Taliban have returned. It is not good there at the moment, February 2022.

    Of course, the USSR had invaded Afghanistan in 1980 which led to a nine-year war. There has has been many other wars in this country over the past years. Unfortunately, there have been many other wars in my lifetime and I really can’t see an end to them.

18. Salisbury Poisoning.

I remember this happening on the 4th March 2018, but I had almost forgotten it until the BBC showed a 3-part dramatization 2-years later. As it seems to have been set up by Russia, it is unreal what could have happened but for the people who worked on the case. The nerve agent Novichok they used was dumped in a skip for anyone to pick up, when a person concentrates on the facts it is amazing only one person died, Dawn Sturgess.

    It was meant to kill Sergie Skripal and maybe his daughter Yuila. He was a former Russian military officer and double agent for the UK’s intelligence service. The people of Salisbury (which is not far down the M4 from where we live) had this, then just 2 years later things had to close again because of Covid 19. 

 

19.       Polio + TB + Whooping Cough + Smallpox.

This was mentioned to me by my sister Jean. I’ll start with Polio.

1.        Polio. 

While researching this I have found this is only now found in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is no cure but the vaccine protects children for life. Nigeria was the last African country to be declared free from wild polio. The girl in the photo above is not very happy!

2.       TB – Tuberculosis. 

Countries which have the highest MDR-TB burden (47% of the global total) are India, China and the Russian Federation. WHO (World Health Organization) have launched a new global strategy to end TB by 2035, i.e. less than one incident case per million. Let’s hope they can.

3.       Whooping Cough.

This illness is very serious, especially for babies and young children. It can cause pneumonia, seizures, brain damage and death. There still seems to be a large amount of whooping cough around the world. I found (November 2021) that Estonia is generally reported to have the highest rates. I think we had vaccinations for these when we were young, but there still seems a lot to be done around the world for this.

4.       Smallpox. 

It is estimated that smallpox was responsible in the 20^th century for 300-500 deaths around the world. In the 1950s it was estimated around 50 million cases occurred in the world each year. In 1967 WHO said that 15 million people contracted the disease and that 2 million died that year. Smallpox is said to have been eradicated in the late 1970s.

20. Russia – USSR.

  

There has been much about Russia over years. Taking over many countries, in fact not being alive in the war, but in my lifetime, they have been the most major threat to our everyday way of life. There was the ‘Bay of Pigs Invasion’ in Cuba in 1961 I remember this as a child and I think many people thought it was going to be World War Three.  

     Since the split up of the Soviet Union 26^th December 1991, Russia took a big hit. But since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2012 it’s like the Russia of old. Putin is the ex-KGB leader and it seems that when the USSR broke up that the KGB had a split up with all ‘the lads’ with the wealth of the country, between the ‘Oligarch’s. So now it’s business as usual, with the KGB back on top.

    They are now controlling gas and oil prices to a lot of Europe. (2021) In 2021 the opposition leader Alexei Navalny was jailed for two years when he returned to the country after they tried to poison him. Putin said, “it wasn’t us, because if we had done it, he would be dead!” 

   24^th February 2022. Russia had invaded the Ukraine overnight, there has been a build up for some weeks now. Word is that Putin will put a “puppet government” in like they have in Belarus.

   28^th February 2022. Russia invaded Ukraine last week, but it is not going all that well for the invaders at the moment and the Ukraine’s are fighting back and a lot of the world have turned against Russia.

21.  Ibrox disaster. 2nd January 1971.

There is a reason I have written about this and not other football tragedies. It was on the 2^nd January 1971. On the third of January I was moving to work away in Spalding in Lincolnshire, my first time away from home, I was 18. I was living London, I got the train up there from Kings Cross and it was full of Scots going home and it was before mobile phones etc. People had been trying to contact their families and most had no joy, it was very upsetting and some very worried people on the train.

   It was an Old Firm match between Rangers and Celtic, 66 died. Rangers fans were leaving the ground when their team scored an equalising goal with very little time left. Fans on the steps going out tried to return which caused the disaster.

  This was the worst British disaster until the Hillsborough disaster in Sheffield 1989 were 96 Liverpool fans died, I believe (March 2022) it is now 97? Also, there was the Bradford City fire that killed 54 people in 1985. But it was the Hillsborough disaster that changed the way we watched football, forever, and not before time.

  There was also the Heysel stadium disaster, in 1985. Liverpool and Juventus of Italy were in the European Cup Final (now the Champions League). 39 Italian and Belgian football fans died after a riot.     The blame was put on the Liverpool fans and English teams were banned from European football for 5 years.

22. Tsunami Indian Ocean – 26^th December 2004.

   

This was massive, it was an earthquake and tsunami which occurred about 8/00 local time on Boxing Day 2004. Anne and I were staying at my sister Jeans and husband Roy’s with my Mum on the Isle of Wight for Christmas. We woke up to this news, that morning.

   The Location was Banda Aceh, Indonesia. The research I have carried out says that 227,898 people died. I remember watching it on the TV and it was unbelievable, how the water flooded onto the land and how little chance people had. I have now been near three earthquakes/tremors. The first two was while I was working in Algeria in the mid 1980’s and last time was when we were on holiday in Madeira, in March 2020. It was some way off, but the epicentre was 6.2. We were in the lounge having drinks with friends and I was at the bar getting drinks, we did really feel it.   

23. US hostages in Iran – from 4^th November 1979 until 20^th January 1981. 444 days.

    

Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage after a group of Iranian collage students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line, who supported the Iranian Revolution, took over the US Embassy in Tehran.

   Eight Americans servicemen and one Iranian civilian died during an attempt to rescue the hostages. This was a diplomatic standoff between the US and Iran. 

   There is a film called ‘Argo’ which tells the story of a CIA agent Tony Mendez who slipped in and brought out six diplomats who had been granted refuge by the Canadian Embassy. Mendez died aged 78 in 2019. If the reader has not seen the film it is very good and I would recommend it.

24. Stanley, Falkland Islands hospital fire – 10^th April 1984.

           

I was working in the Falklands when this happened, were heard it on the local radio the night after, it was horrific listening to the stories from people. One female nurse Barbara Chick climbed in a corridor window to rescue people, she kept going back, until the last time, a total hero.

   Our project director Kim Benjamin was there the next day and said it was the worst thing he had ever seen. All of the wooden frame to the building was gone and he said that all was there was the metal beds on the concrete slabs. Eight people died. Barbara and seven islanders – five women, a new born baby and an 86-year-old-man. One solider who was interviewed and was crying when he talked about Barbara. "She wouldn't stop going back in," he said.

25. Afghanistan – 2021.

             

This has come up a few times now! The Taliban have taken over the country after the US, GB and other forces have pulled out after 20 years. They took over the country in such a short space of time. This is connected to number 14, the Twin Towers. Reports on TV at the airport in the capital, Kabul where so many people are trying to get out of the country as they will be under threat for the helping the west. IS sent suicide bombers to the airport and killed 174, including 13 USA soldiers. Joe Biden says they will get them. Two suicide planners have been killed by drones. This was on the news, it worked out later that they were not bombers at all.

    A lot of people say the USA have made a mess of it. How long could the west stay there? A lot of the Taliban have been in Pakistan, who have not come out of this very well at all

25. Migrant Channel Crossings – Belarus - Ukraine.

                   

This is a massive problem around the world with people trying to get to other countries for all sorts of reasons. It could be war in the country, trying to get work, make their lives better? One of the biggest issues is that criminal gangs are behind a lot of it. It is heart breaking to see what a lot of people are going through. Seeing the people trying to cross seas in in rubber dinghies, and many dying. And other counties can’t keep taking people, the problem needs sorting in their home lands, but I really don’t know how or when that is going to happen.  

  Another humanitarian crisis is on the border with Poland and Belarus. The latter’s president, who it seems is backed by Russia is trying to push the migrants into Europe through Poland. The Polish are not having it, at the moment, November 2021 and some of the scenes on the TV that are hollowing.

  Ukraine is having a really bad time (April 2022) after Russia have invaded their country. I have just been listening on the radio regarding the war-crimes that are being prepatterned by the Russian army/troops etc. I am just not sure where this is all going to end?       

 26. Hungerford shootings – 19^th August 1987.

          

This was a series of random shootings by gunman Michael Ryan, 17 people died, including his mother and himself. Fifteen other people were also shoot but survived. No firm motive for the killings has ever been established, although one psychologist has theorised the motive had been a form of “anger and contempt for the ordinary life around him.”

   I remember this very well for a few reasons. I was home on leave from Algeria and was finishing the kitchen I had put in at home. The new washing machine had broken and we were waiting for the engineer to come out and he had been held up in Hungerford which is not a long way from us. It had been on the radio all morning but not saying what had happened. I was talking to the engineer at home about it when it came on the radio saying what had happened.

   It was also my and my ex-wife’s 15^th wedding anniversary. In the court at Reading there is a plaque for a court official who was shot that day. I have never been there, yet, but it looks a very nice town. 

27. Kings Cross fire 18^th November 1987.

              

I was on leave from working in Algeria and we had passed through the station as a family while out in London the week before. This like the Bradford City fire (11^th May 1985)and was started by a discarded lit match on the wooden escalator. So many things were built of wood in those days, but how did it take these terrible tragedies to bring about change?

    Kings Cross is a major interchange on the London Underground as well as mainline railway stations above ground. The fire started under the wooden escalator severing the Piccadilly line at about 19:45 and erupted into the underground ticket hall, killing 31 people and injuring a 100.

 28. Aberfan disaster – 21^st October 1966.

          

This was one of the worst things I remember happening as a child, I was 14. Well in fact I will go as far as to say it was probably one of the first disasters that hit home to me. This was a catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip. The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the village of Aberfan near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales. The tip over laid a natural spring and a period of heavy rain led to a build up of water within the tip which caused it to suddenly slide down hill as slurry, to engulf Pantglas Junior School and other buildings, killing 116 children and 28 adults. 

  There was an enquiry and the National Coal Board (NCB) was blamed, but none of its employees were ever prosecuted or was the company fined. It was awful. 

29. Volcano in Iceland.

               

The eruption of Eyjallajokull in Iceland was in June 2010. While a person would not think the UK is not close to Iceland this did in fact stop planes flying here. We live close to Heathrow Airport and a person can always see planes flying, but I remember the skies being empty. This could always happen again. It was because of the ash flying in the sky.

   I am also going to put in here about the La Palma volcano in the Canary Islands. It is 14/11/2021. This has been going on for a while now and has done so much damage, burning everything in the path of the “flow of the molten lava.”

30. Riots – here and the USA.

             

Where would a person start with this one? Around the world there are many going on at different times. I will talk about the ones here first. The ones we had in 2011 worried me the most, as it went on for a while and were spreading all over the country. They were being organised on social media etc, which is a real downside to these things.

  We never had any near us as such. But some scaffolders I worked with at the time were telling me that there was going to be one in Farnborough. So, a load of them went to were it was meant to start, a out of town shopping centre, to greet them. They buggered off when they saw what was waiting for them. The courts came down on them hard which is the only way to be.

   The USA have so many, but there seem to be so many injustices there, riots in that country is a book on it’s own.   

31. Lack of HGV drivers.

             

This comes in the wake of Brexit and Covid 19. It is now late October 2021. There has been lot of problems regarding the lack of HGV drivers. A lot had gone home to Europe after Brexit, a lot of drivers had to pack up because of medical reasons and other issues. There has been a lot of “panic buying” of late, mainly of toilet rolls for a odd reason, but this time it was petrol. There were many queues to garages, people filling up cans and even carrier bags. I heard one woman topped her car up and it cost £1.50p, mad. We live in Bracknell in Berkshire and it was on the news that we were the worst place in the country. I think that is because we link the M3 and M4 motorways and fill up here!

I wrote this last year, at the moment it is May 2022 and things seem to be a bit better regarding HGV drivers, but there are plenty of other thing going wrong at the moment! 

32. Beirut explosion – 4^th August 2020.

               

This was a massive explosion in the dock area of Beirut Lebanon. Ammonium nitrate (2,700 tonnes) had reportedly been in a warehouse there for 6 years. I am writing this two days later, at this point there is a reported 137 dead, over 5,000 injured and the damage immense.

   The government there has said the blast was caused by negligence, four people from the docks are under house arrest. The blast was felt 150 miles away in Cyprus. There been other explosions because of ammonium nitrate, but not this size. Terrorises have used this in bombs, mainly the IRA. 

33. Oil tankers – oil slicks. 

                 

There has been many of these over the years, but what is said to have been the worst one was the Torrey Canyon on the 18^th March 1967. The super tanker SS Torrey Canyon ran aground on a reef off the south-west coast of the UK spilling an estimated 25-36 million tons of crude oil. I remember us going on holiday (in the UK) and seeing it washed up on the beaches.

   At the time it was the world worst spill, and led to significant changes in maritime laws and oil spill responses. It remains the worst spill in UK history.

34. Profumo affair – 1961.

             

John Profumo was the Secretary of State for war in the Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government. He had a brief sexual affair with Christine Keeler, a 19-year-old would be model. He resigned when it all come out. I have put this in as I was only about 9 at the time but I remember it being the top story at the time everywhere. My Mum who loved the newspapers (I got it from her) was reading about it all the time.

  He went on and worked as a volunteer at Toynbee Hall East London, and became its chief fundraiser. This helped him to restore his reputation and was appointed a CBE in 1975. He died in 2006.

35. Berlin Wall going up – August 12^th to 13^th 1961.

                 

East German soldiers laid more than 30 miles of barbed wire barrier through the heart of Berlin in the two days above. The wall went up to stop an exodus from the eastern, communist part of divide Germany to the more prosperous west. Between 1949 and 1961 more than 2.6 million East Germans, out of a total population of 17 million, had escaped.

    In response to the Soviet blockade of the land routes into West Berlin, the US began a massive airlift of food, water and medicines to the people of the city. The wall fell on the 9^th November 1989.

36. Dunblane school massacre. 13^th March 1996.

                 

This was at Dunblane Primary School near Stirling, Scotland. Thomas Hamilton shot sixteen pupils and one teacher dead and injured fifteen others before killing himself. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history.

   Like a lot of these I remember where I was when I heard this news. I was working in Wokingham when it came on the radio, totally shocking. The tennis players Andy and Jamie Murry were there when it happened. I read after this, that an ambulance person who attended here had also attended Lockerbie, what a thing in a lifetime.

37. Protesters storm the capital building – USA 06/01/2021.

                  

This was a very important happening against democracy and brought about by the then president Donald Trump, who continued to insist that the election he fairly lost was rigged. He encouraged his followers to march on Capitol Hill which they did and then smashed it up. I have written this the day after it happened, I think there is more to come, which I will report on here.

    At the moment (8/01/21) Trump has said he will not attend the inauguration of Joe Biden on the 20^th Jan, which is outrageous. Also, I heard tonight that rioting had now started in other cities by Trump supporters. Many troops have been called into Washington.

   Trump has now been impeached (14/01/21) for a second time. This is the first time this has happened in the history of the USA. 

   It was now 14th June 2022 and there is an congressional inquiry now on going, this has still got a long way to run.

38. Colin Pitchfork – murder of two school girls.

             

 

This happened in Leicestershire in 1980’s. It was when two school girls were raped and murdered.  He was the first murder to be convicted DNA – there was TV play called, Code of a Killer, starring Jon Sims in 2015. They did a test on all males of a certain age in a local area. In the first place he got someone to do the test for him from work. That person told someone in a pub, it was overheard then reported to the police. He was then taken in and made to do another test.

    He was sentenced to a life in 1988 with a minimum of 30 years. He came out of prison in September 2021 after 33 years. There was uproar from a lot of people at the time. He was given over 40 conditions on his licence. He was recalled to prison in November 21, just two months later, that was after he approached young women. 

39.  The Yorkshire Ripper.

     

Peter Sutcliffe 02/06/1946 – 13/11/2020, also known as Peter Coonan. He was a serial killer who died on the 22/05/2020. He was convicted of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others, this was between 1975 to 1980.

  He was sentenced to twenty concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which were converted to whole life order in 2010.

   This was a very scary time for women in that area. I remember reading and hearing the news as the total went up and up. It took a while to get him.

40. Chernobyl, Ukraine, USSR, disaster – Saturday 26^th April 1986.

    

This was caused by a nuclear accident that occurred at No 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukraine. There was fewer than 100 deaths directly attributed but there are varying estimates of how many people died of the ‘fallout’. This one was given to me by a friend of the family Maureen. Like she said at the time people were worried about winds changing etc, and we would get the fallout here in the UK. 

41.   The Cod Wars.

           

           

The Cod Wars, were a series of 20th-century confrontations between the United Kingdom and Iceland about fishing rights in the North Atlantic. Each of the disputes ended with a Iceland victory.

  Some Iceland’s historians view the history struggle for control of its maritime resources in ten episodes, or ten cod wars. Fishing boats from Britain were sailing to waters near Iceland in search of their catch since the 14^th century.

   The modern disputes or wars began in 1952 after Iceland expanded its territorial waters from 3 to 4 nautical miles, 7 kilometres. The UK responded by banning Icelandic ships landing their fish in British ports.

    A threat of damage and danger to life was a present, with British fishing boats escorted to the fishing grounds by the Royal Navy while the Icelandic Coast Guard attempted to chase them away and use long hawsers to cut nets from the British boats; ships from both sides suffered damage from ramming attacks.

  Each confrontation concluded with an agreement favourable to Iceland. Iceland made threats it would withdraw from NATO. I remember these so well in the 1970’s.

42. Container ship stuck in Suez Canal – Tuesday 25/03/2021 until 29/03/2021.

         

The Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. Construction was from 1859 to 1869. It offers a more direct route between North Africa and Asia,

     The Ever Given, a 400-metre-long ship became wedged across the canal causing a blockage of hundreds of vessels. The reason I have put this in is because it shows that along with the pandemic and Brexit how we in the UK can end up being victims to this sort of thing. I am writing this on the day it has been moved, so I will add to it once more is known. Just looking at it, it looks totally overloaded. 

     It is now more than a year on, 13^th July 2022. I followed this story and read a fair amount about how they managed to move it. It did cause a lot of problems, mainly with there being a shortage of things and other ships taking the long-way around to get to the UK.

43. The Moore’s Murderers.

       

While I was young at the time, 1963 to 1965. I remember it being on the TV and radio news a lot and then of course their trial and going to prison. Things would come up in the news about them every now and then over the years. I am going to say this was one of the worst things I remember in the "Bad Times."

   The murders were carried out by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, in and around the Manchester area of England. The victims were five young children aged between 10 and 17. They got whole life tariffs and like Sutcliff, I am pleased to say, they both died in prison. 

44. Coronavirus – Covid 19 – 2020.

            

This started in late 2019 early 2020 and came from a market or lab in China depending what and where you read. It was worldwide and the UK went into ‘lockdown,’ on the 20^th March until 4th July 2020, then a second lockdown from 5^th November until 2^nd December. A third lockdown was from Jan 2021 till May 17^th 2021.

   There is so much to say about this, how many people died? People with underlining health issues, over weight are at risk. People who would not have the vaccine. Traveling overseas – traffic lights to get back. Having to stay in a hotel if you came from a “red country.” Having to wear a face mask and keep 2 meters apart. Do not touch others. How many people around the world have died? Daly updates on the TV of cases and deaths.

  Saturday 4th September 2021. I am not sure if things are getting better or not. Around the world the issue seems to be getting worst in some ways. There is another new variant from Columbia which they are saying is worse than the Delta from India. It is of course a thing we are going to have to live with, but some people are being so stupid about it.

   I don’t think young people have come out of this very well at all, not going along with the rules.  I do wonder how I would have been if this had happened when I was sixteen? Not very well I may add.

   Pandemic. That is what we are faced with. We have a new one now, which I will write about later, 'Monkeypox.' It is now July 2022. It is still here, but the government have dropped all the the rules a while ago, and lots of people have had the 'vax,' but like I said before, "it is still here!"  

 45. The Kray Twins.

Ronald “Ronnie” Kray and Reginald “Reggie Kray, were identical twin brothers, who were foremost perpetrators of organised crime in the East End of London, England, from the late 1950’s to 1967. With their gang, known as the 'Firm,' the Kray twins were involved in murder, armed robbery, arson, protection rackets and assaults.

   As night club owners, the Krays mixed with politicians and prominent entertainers such as Diana Dors, Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland. They became celebrities themselves, were photographed by David Bailey and interviewed on television. 

  The Kray’s were arrested on the 8^th May 1968 and convicted in1969 as a result of the efforts of detectives led by Detective Superintendent Leonard “Nipper” Read. Each were sentenced to life in prison. Ronnie died in 1995 and Reggie in 2000.

   I remember this well as a child, and followed the case when the trial was on. They did some very nasty things.

46. Hot weather and droughts.

 

The one most people talk about is the hot summer of 1976. It is now August 2021. We have had a lot of heatwaves and droughts I think 1976 was one of the worst, because it just did not rain for many months. I lived in Derby at the time, and believe me it was a long hot summer. I was working for Ford & Weston building an extension to the telephone exchange in the then town centre, it is now a City.

   Many places had to have standpipes fitted in the street for people to get water from, we didn’t have that. I think there was no rain from about April until late September.

   There has been a fair few more where there has been a lack of rain, hosepipe bans etc. But when a person looks at some places in the world, once again, we are lucky to have been born in the UK.

     It is now August 2022, and we are in another spell of “no rain.” Hosepipe bans have been put in place in some areas from today, we haven’t had one yet, but there are more to come. They say it is because of Global Warming, which I will do in next Bad Times.

47. Global warming.

 

I think we all know what this is? It is a gradual increase of the overall temperature of the world’s atmosphere generally attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide, CFCs, and other pollutants. Out of everything I have written about up until now, (July 2020) I have got to say this must be the most dangerous to all of us and the planet we live on.

  There has been a new report out today, 8/8/21 saying how things are increasing. Many places are having floods and wild fires. The Pola Ice is melting, which is making sea levels rise all the time. I think the UK at the moment are one the better counties tackling it, but there is still a long way to go.

    It is now 14/11/2021 and yesterday was the last day of the COP 26 Summit in Glasgow, again trying to address “Global warming.” This is the first ever climate deal to explicitly plan to reduce coal and the worst fossil fuels. Of course, there are some countries not happy!

48. China.

I looked at a lot of Bad Times to write about China, and there are many, which still go on today (2022) will it ever change? Out of all the things I have looked at, I am going to do a piece on the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989, which I remember well.

   The Tiananmen Square protests, known in China as the "June Fourth Incident," were a student-led demonstration held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. Troops armed with assault rifles and accompanied by tanks fired at the demonstrators and those trying to block the military’s advance on the square.

   The protest started on the 15^th April and was forcibly suppressed on the 4^th June when the government declared martial law and sent the People’s Liberation Army to occupy part of central Beijing. Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundred to several thousands and more wounded.

    The “Goals” of this were meant to be; The end of corruption in the Chinese Communist Party, as well as democratic reforms, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of association, social equality, democratic input on economic reforms. Well “good luck, with that!” 

The photo above was of a chap who stood in front of a tank to stop them moving in the square, while he was never seen again, he was voted world wide, "person of the year!" I think that says it all!

49. Wild Fires – Crowthorne.

 

  

While there has been many “wild fires” around the world and there seems to be many more happening with the high temperatures because of “global warming.” It was not as bad as many but we had one in Crowthorne a few years ago, it is now August 2021.

     It was about four miles from where we live in Easthampstead Bracknell. It did look at one point as if it may reach a housing estate nearby, very scary! I was in Sainsburys on the Saturday morning and there was two men in front of me with trollies filled up with bread and milk. They were telling us it was for the “fire fighters.” What we had was nothing  compeered to what happens to others, but it is a real worry

    It is now August 2022, and we are in the middle of a hot summer and a drought in the UK. There have been a lot of fires around the country of late, but there are so many around the world, it is a real worry. And on the “other side of the coin,” one see’s on TV how bad the flooding is. Things are not good at all, and it is down to “global warming!!!”

50.  Winter of Discontent 1978 – 79.

"The winter of discontent," (I remember it well) as it was called, took place during the winter of 1978-79 in the UK. It was characterised by widespread strikes by private and later public sector trade unions demanding pay rises greater than the limits that had been imposed by Prime Minister James Callaghan and his labour government. There was piles of dustbin sacks piled high in many streets with rats running around.

   Now in August 2022 we have the “summer of discontent!” We have been having many strikes at the moment, trains, the underground in London, postmen/women, barristers, dustman/women in Scotland and others are meant to be coming soon. Fuel prices have been going up and up, for cars and homes. With winter coming up people are saying, “heat or eat,” which is a  real worry!

51. Airline disasters.

This idea was given to me by my osteopath Caroline. Of course, there have been many, but the first one that comes to mind to me was the Lockerbie air disaster. It was Pan Am Flight 103 on the 21^st December 1988. This was a terrorist bombing with 259 deaths from the airline and 11 on the ground which gave a total of 270. While I was working at Farnborough air base in the mid 1990’s they pieced the plane together in a hanger there.

   I used to live in Bedfont in Middlesex which is very close to Heathrow Airport. There was a crash at the airport in 1968 just a week or two before I started work at the airport, when I got there the burnt-out wreckage was still at the end of the runway, the airline was BOAC. Also a Trident crashed one Sunday afternoon in a field near where we lived in Staines, everyone died. That airline was BEA, these last two airlines join a few years on to become BA.

52. Hurricanes and storms.

They are many things I could write about this and of course a lot happen around the world all the time. It is now early December 2021 and there a storm last week, mainly up north, Storm Arwen. It did a lot of damage and a week on a lot of people up there have still not got any power and the army are taking food to them.

     February 2022, we had another very large storm that brought down a lot of fence in our back garden. But there was a house not far from us that had both gable ends of its brickwork blown down. The road near by was closed for some time. It is now mid-June 2022 and the repair work has still not been carried out.

    September 2022, the big news of late regarding this sort of story is the floods in Pakistan. I have been reading about them and it is just horrendous! Oh, and the work on the house above has just been completed.

53. The Year 2000.

I have put this in because on the face of it, it was meant to be a great celebration and it was, but leading up to it there were so many rumours that worldwide computers would crash, the banking system would collapse and much more. People spent a lot of money protecting their, companies, counties and their selves from this kind of thing, was this why it was put out there? A lot of people would have made a lot of money out of it, as leading up to it there was a lot of panic about it.

  22 years on a lot of people that I have talked to agree that it was put out there to rip people/companies off. I have to say on the whole I do agree with this way of thinking. 

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