Free At Last

Wow, that took me back over 60 years. It was great being a kid in those days. I ate cereals for my breakfast, dinner and supper to get those freebies. As soon as a new packet was bought I was rooting through the contents for the free gift or cutting the box up . The frogmen that went up and down in the lemonade bottle, the submarine that submerged and surfaced using baking soda. I had a wall full of animal heads from the back of Cornflake packets, Shreddies Treasure Maps, Shredded Wheat Moon Rovers, the Rice Krispies Haunted House and luminous ghosts. I remember sending for a 'Stanley Gibbons' stamp collectors set advertised in one of my comics, 1/- it was, it had a stamp album, magnifying glass, tweezers, trays to soak stamps in for whatever, a bag of mixed stamps and two books of colourful stamps from all over the world. I took them all out and stuck them in the album then got fed up with it and swapped them for something. A while later my mother asked me about it as she had a letter saying quite a bit of money was owing. Well I didn't know what approvals were. She wrote back and said it was their own fault for sending them to a child.

A Stanier tender should have enough room.

Having no cats of my own now, I look after my Daughter's cat Olive, when she is on holiday. I try to keep her entertained but she soon gets fed up.

Accurascale have just put some up

When I posted that link they had over 10 in stock of all but four locos, sound and non sound. I thought it was strange as when I looked earlier in the morning they had none. I went straight away, got there and they had just closed for dinner, when they reopened they had none. 30 mile wasted trip, I should have reserved one first. 😒

Hattons have too....

After the guard blows his whistle.

The Cotswolds, apparently.

You lucky b****r, I never win anything.

I should imagine that most people who ordered them will now be getting notifications and having their models posted to them.

I remember in the '50s we made toast on an asbestos mat on the gas ring, and the ironing board had a piece of asbestos to place the hot iron on.

This arrived this morning and has done the job.

Or it might be this one...

This turned up this morning but is too big. By what I now gather the connection on my compressor is 1/8 BSP. So I am looking for a 1/8 BSP Female to something smaller. The only smaller thread size I can see looks to be M5. The airbrush kit came with an adaptor which fits the hose but the female end is too big for my compressor. I tried running an M5 nut on it but it didn't fit, although it is 5mm the thread looks finer. It looks like you were right. I can't find an M5 Male - 1/8 BSP Female but I did find this... Airbrush Air Hose Connector M5 Female – 1/8 BSP Male which I could fit to the airbrush to enable me to use my standard airbrush hose. BSP sizes and measurements have confused me. I

Just tried it on M5 and it doesn't fit.

It looks like this is what I need... Airbrush Air Hose Connector 1/8 BSP Male - 1/4 BSP Female... now ordered. Tx.

What adaptor do I need to connect a Draper airbrush to my compressor?

I have hopefully just cured the problem of my derailing Garratt. As I previously mentioned, the end of the chassis rests on the coupling pockets on the pony trucks and I discovered the bottom of buffer beam was not flush causing a slight interference on the pony swinging side to side. Filing this flush seems to have cured it.

Unless I missed it, no one has mentioned Pension Credits. I first heard about Pension Credits when I was about 58 (2009) from a work colleague. The idea of being able to stop working at 60, not have to sign on, and getting paid a pension seemed too good to be true, I thought he was winding me up. I looked into it and he was right. I wondered why this was not more widely known. Having had enough of electrical contracting I decided this was then my aim. When nearing 60 I found out I would be caught up in the pension age changes brought about during the Blair/Brown administration and would have to wait another 15 months. I had been unemployed for a few weeks and as I had now set my sights on not working after 60 I strung it out on the dole. Having no mortgage, being able to manage money and always living below my means made it easy. On reaching 61 and 3 months I was now able to claim pension credits (which was equal to the state pension) but I also had to draw on three small private pensions which lowered the amount of pension credit I received by the same amount. I found that being on guaranteed pension credits entitled me to other things, full council tax benefit (band D + parish precepts, was not to be sniffed at), 'Warm Home' payment, free dental treatment...etc. When I reached 65 I got my state pension and together with the private pensions it took me off pension credits. I don't know if retiring early and claiming pension credits has had any effect on the amount of state pension I now receive but I get more than I need to live on. I am 72 now and finishing work early was the best move I have ever made. I felt sorry for friends who were a couple of years younger and were robbed of being able to do this. I am quite happy with my lot. I don't go without, if I haven't got it, it's because I don't want it.

Send it back to Gaugemaster, it has a lifetime guarantee.

Dead man brought to post office to collect pension.

I find bits of pcb and guitar string can make suitable tender pickups.

@ISW I bought my first house in this street in Seaforth, Merseyside in 1972 for £975.00. Have you never seen Coronation Street?

My bad, when I read in the quoted post it was a horsebox I thought he meant it was a horsebox.

Why would a horsebox be on the rear of the diner train... was horse meat on the menu?