39 years and 9 months later...

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Kleftiwallah

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39 years and 9 months later...
« on: October 21, 2018, 14:04 »
I married my beloved on the last day of my R.A.F. service, the Memsahib was still serving and wanted to continue so as she was a couple of months into a 2 year stretch on Gibraltar so shr claimed me as her dependant!  Our first married quarter was Calpe married quarters built in 1904. It was 'up the Calpe steps' (now called Castle Steps) until you hit the Moorish Castle, then turn right.  A more innaccesible couple of rooms I could not imagine, hanging out laundry in the back yard the clothes used to slap agaings the rock!  Climbing those steps a few tomes a day got us both fit.


I had a job 'down H.M.s dockyard in the lathe shop for a few weeks then as the Gardener/handyman at the Garrison Library.  More later...

Cheers,  Tony.
I may be growing OLD, but I refuse to grow UP !

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Goosegirl

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Re: 39 years and 9 months later...
« Reply #1 on: October 21, 2018, 14:40 »
I'll be waiting for more of your "moor-ish" update posts!  :)
I work very hard so don't expect me to think as well.

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Kleftiwallah

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Re: 39 years and 9 months later...
« Reply #2 on: October 21, 2018, 16:31 »
We were imprisoned behind the La Linea gates from the end of 1979 to 1981, we did escape to Spain via Tangier for a week with the help of the Editor of the Gibraltar Chronicle.  We have just come back with snaps, duty free and me with a stinker of a cold.  When we were there it was just like village life and with the heavy military presence a bar at every corner, my how things have changed! 

Scaffolding poles everywhere and  land reclamation so where we could see the sea from our 'new apartment at Chilton Court all we can see now are buildings.  Traffic was allowed to go up (and down) Main Street now it's pedestrianised with wall to wall tourist shops.  Wherever there isn't scaffolding there are scooter parks, there are thousands of them.

There are a couple of bars with the same names but completely steralized or turned over to the Spanish!  I worked in the evening as a barman in the Boxer bar, this bar was squady free as it was upstairs on the 1st floor, usually inhabited by young Brits who had travelled through Europe, through Spain and ended up at Gib only to find the wages of the few jobs available were so low that they couldn't save enough for the fare out.  One chap used to do magic tricks and passed round the hat!

More later (after a good sneeze).  Cheers,  Tony.


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Growster...

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Re: 39 years and 9 months later...
« Reply #3 on: October 21, 2018, 17:00 »
I had some work looking at development sites in southern Spain, and we stayed in The Rock Hotel for a week back in the mid-nineties!

I just loved the place, with so many oddities like a small cemetary for sailors who died during various gun battles. The one at the end of Main Street seemed very poignant!

But the taxi ride down from the top was white-knuckle stuff! Aircraft landing is a bit scary too, isn't it!

(When we were getting through La Linea as it was getting dark most evenings, sure enough, a fleeting box of fags was seen trotting along, then another one..;0)

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mrs bouquet

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Re: 39 years and 9 months later...
« Reply #4 on: October 21, 2018, 17:20 »
that is so interesting, people write books about stuff not nearly so good as yours.
Time to get out a ream of paper and get that book written.   We shall all want a signed copy of course :D
Please can we hear more, regards  Mrs Bouquet
Birds in cages do not sing  -  They are crying.

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JayG

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Re: 39 years and 9 months later...
« Reply #5 on: October 21, 2018, 17:25 »
Had a brief visit there in 1967 as the last call on our 'school cruise' round the Med - seemed peculiarly British after what we'd experienced during the rest of the fortnight (pubs, red telephone boxes, bobbies wearing helmets etc.)

Fortunately the barbary apes seemed quite orangutan-friendly (just one more gawping visitor to have to put with I suppose!  :lol:)

Look forward to seeing some pics (hint!)
Sow your seeds, plant your plants. What's the difference? A couple of weeks or more when answering possible queries!

One of the best things about being an orang-utan is the fact that you don't lose your good looks as you get older

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Growster...

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Re: 39 years and 9 months later...
« Reply #6 on: October 22, 2018, 07:05 »
I've been doing some clearing in the roof, and found a load of old receipts from when I worked in Canterbury!

Guess what - the Gibralter receipts, such as they are, have turned up!

Four of us went there, we also visited the Upper Rock nature reserve and went to the top via cable car in between site visits!

Best receipt is for dinner for four of us at 'Bunters' Restaurant, costing (back in 16th November 1992) £90.60 plus tip! I can recall several tinctures, and the US Fleet were in town enjoying the nightlife as well...

But how sad is that, keeping old receipts for twenty-six years...:0(

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Kleftiwallah

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Re: 39 years and 9 months later...
« Reply #7 on: October 22, 2018, 15:11 »
Perhaps the biggest single difference was the Casemates Square, back then it held accomodation for hundreds of Moroccan persons brought in to keep things going as there were no Spanish allowed in of course.  Now it's all 'al fresco' eateries, Pizza, local seafood and 'Good ol' British fish and chips!

Two incidents in the garden I remember, we had a palm tree blown down by the wind and due to the fibrous nature of the wood the chain saw kept clogging up so I had to divide it up with a hand axe, it took me ages (I made the front page of the Chronicle with that one.  In the garden was a HUGE Bouganvilie bush, it was immense.  It flowered on the outer 'skin' but inside was all dead leaves and catsI I started to cut it back, burn in a 45 G oil barrel again and again for weeks (along with dragon tree leaves, my, they go up when they burn).

Eventually we had uncovered a set of ornamental stone stairways and a section of garden never seen before.  We were left with the centre of the bush, I was all for carrying on cutting back and burning, but Jon Morgan Searle the Secretary of the library and the editor of the chronicle decided to set fire to what was remaining in place. 

He applied the match (M'Lud) and whoosh, up it all went.  All the spikey branches and all the dead leaves,  well It would have been O.K. but across the top of the garden was the mains cable and telephone wires for the whole area!  Well he said.  after the conflagration had been douced by the fire brigade "That will have to be tomorrows headline news"!

We had the only Double Hibiscus on the Rock and the Governer's gardener had his eye on it.  It wasn't there on my return, so if anyone gets invited to the Governor's house, keep an eye out for it!

My claim to fame is I reburbished the flagpole on top of the library for the visit of Charles and Diana and I watched them sweep past along Main Street from the roof of the Boxer Bar.

Cheers,   Tony.

Oh by the way, we never found the doorway to the Boxer Bar, the most likely candidate was number 33 Main Street. If anyone can shed any light on this...



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