Anything and everything
THIS IS A photo of Joan Morrison taken in 1946 outside number three Albert Road where she lived with her mother and father in the flat at the top of the house.
Her father, Rex Morrison, was an artist and graphic designer who designed and painted posters for the billboards outside various cinemas in Brighton. Her mother was Dorothy, who was later to become my mother’s lifelong friend. Continue reading A Short Story of a Local Girl
IN CELEBRATION OF 21 years of The Whistler’s ‘Love of Wine’ column, we have two beautifully illustrated books by Jane Hughes, ‘The Wine Lover’s Guide’ and ‘The Wine Lover’s Record Book’ to give away to the winner of this competition. These books inspired us to start the column all those years ago. Richard Piggott, Philip Reddaway and most recently, Andrew Polmear, all took up the chalice (so to speak) of writing interesting, varied and knowledgeable articles about wine (and occasionally other drinks). Emails with the correct answers will be entered into a draw to determine the winner. Send your answers to thewhistler1976@gmail.com by 31 August 2019. Continue reading Wine Competition – Answers added
Justin Simpson’s ‘Letter from Australia’
I KEEP MEETING Poms in Sydney. They, or we, are everywhere, cleverly disguised as Aussies; some with strong native accents after many years here; but others with only tentative links to ‘godzone’ and still with obvious ties to Blighty. A new friend has just gone back to Liverpool for a few weeks after living here for ten years: his mates in Scouserland will tell him he sounds ‘strine’ but when he returns here many will ask him where in the UK he’s from. Another – from Canterbury – six years here and still returns every year; a young Glaswegian who works at my local café here is returning for her 30th birthday in January but only for a few weeks (brrr!); and yet another to his motherland of Portugal. Continue reading Stranger in a Strange Land?
I WAS BORN into a military family and had lived at 26 addresses by the time I was 21! I met my wife, Mo, in South Africa in 1983 and, on returning to the UK, we lived in Crowborough from where we often visited Brighton. When our son attended college in Brighton in 1998, we acquired a house in the Kemptown/Queens Park area although my wife and I moved to West London. Continue reading Introducing the New Trustees – Chris Parker
DID YOU EVER serve in Geraldo’s Navy? Have you even heard of Geraldo? Gerald Ford, known as ‘Geraldo’, was a British bandleader and impresario whose career spanned the 1930s, 40s and 50s. While running his own very successful orchestra, he also supplied musicians for special events. One of his contracts was to supply music for the Atlantic liners, like the Queen Mary, when they resumed sailing to and from New York after WW2. Musicians who performed on these liners became known as ‘Geraldo’s Navy’. Continue reading New York, New York . . .
The Whistler 