EARLY DAYS OF TROY

If you've arrived on this page hoping to learn about ancient Greek history then it is time to hit the backspace button. However, if you are regular readers of this blog then today I'm taking you on a trip back towards the middle of the twentieth century. Well mid 1960's to mid 1970's to be more precise.

Somewhile ago I scanned a number of my old Kodachrome slides into digital format. Then more recently I photographed a number of old photographs in my parent's album. I've just been looking at them again and I thought I'd use a few of them in a blog about the early days of Troy.

Here's me, with my sister when I'm about 10 and she's about 6. We are at Sewerby Park in Bridlington on the Yorkshire coast.


The next photo is taken towards the end of August 1966 when I'm eleven years old and about to start at the local Grammar School. I've always looked younger than my age and the short trousers in this picture don't help matters. Most of the boys in the first year at the Grammar School (now called Year 7) wore short trousers. It contrasts with Troy Junior, who has worn long trousers in winter and short trousers in summer to school since the age of seven or eight. Note too my school cap! It must be realised here that I'm proudly wearing the full uniform including the cap as the photo is taken just prior to me starting at the school. Later of course, I wouldn't be seen dead in a school cap although the prefects tried to enforce the uniform policy. Also, array of pens in blazer pocket (cringe!).


It's a photo of a photo and not very clear, but you get the general picture.

The next photo is taken about eight or nine years later. Away from the parental home I've grown my hair long in the style of Dave Davies from one of my favourite bands, The Kinks. Here, I'm running the shop in my university hall of residence. As we were fully catered with three meals a day, the shop just supplied the extras; chocolate bars, peanuts, biscuits, coffee, tea, sugar as well as things like washing powder. Looking at the photo, I'm also surprised to see cigarettes as I have absolutely no recollection from the time that we ever sold them.


Being elected "Shop Manager" by our Junior Common Room was, so far, my one and only election success in life. I won it by a landslide. My favourite memory of running this shop involved coffee speculation. In December there was an article in the newspaper regarding very poor coffee harvests. So at Christmas, instead of running down the stock and banking the money over the holiday, I instead used virtually all our funds to buy coffee from the cash-and-carry. In January we were short of most stock but the price of coffee had gone up about 80%. I was selling jars of coffee below supermarket prices but still making a substantial profit. When I was asked how we could undercut Sainsburys, my response was simply "bulk buying".

I have many happy memories of my time at the University of Nottingham. I'll leave you with a couple of photos taken on the campus, one in summer, one in winter.