TartanTed

Like the bird of legend TartanTed.com has risen from the ashes to take flight again.

Perhaps a bit like young Master Ted, seen here circa 1958 at Turnhouse Airport (now EDI), waiting to board what looks like a BEA Douglas DC-3 Dakota for a trip to London.

I actually remember the occasion quite clearly. Starting with this moment, to the strange lady in uniform on the plane offering me a barley sugar candy and suggesting that I swallow to ease the pressure on my ears, to the surreal gray double deck bus that met us in the fog on the tarmac at London and transported us to an odd cone like structure from whence we collected our bags.

Memory gets a bit hazy (London fog don’t you know) at that point perhaps because I fell asleep between the airport and Berkeley Square, where the nightingale sang in 1940, and we booked into a hotel with a very exciting cage doored elevator leading to our room.

Further memories include advising the catering staff that I only wanted the white of my boiled eggs for breakfast and a vague recollection of going to a fun fair. I suspect that the fun fair was at Battersea Park which, in the 50’s, was famous for the “Big Dipper” – a wooden rollercoaster which subsequently came to grief in 1972 heralding the end of the Battersea Park fun fair. I don’t think any of my party were up for a trip on the Big Dipper but I do recall throwing balls into holes and coming away with a small plastic toy prize.

Another highlight of this trip was a visit to Hamleys’ Toy Shop in Regent Street (the oldest toyshop in the world – 1760) where I had the gift of a green plastic Bentley Continental model car bestowed upon me by my impatient Uncle. I hate to seem ungrateful, since he had funded this entire excursion, but really – he was so anxious to get out of that shop that he made the choice for me and that was that! I was always a Mercedes kind of guy so what to do with a Bentley?

Hamleys’ carries a stock of some 50,000 toys so, on reflection, it’s just as well the choice was made for me or we might still be there considering the options!

One final fun memory, for me at least, is of being in Trafalgar Square. Me, my Mom and Uncle, and a few thousand pigeons. We had the place to ourselves which in this day and age would be unprecedented.