Festival Of Britain Guide Book 1951

Official guide book for the 1951 Festival of Britain that was on the South Bank in London. Old enough to remember the Fun Fair in Battersea Park with Rowland Emmett's "Far Tottering & Oyster Creek Railway" and the 3D film theatre. I was only 4 at the time so memory is slightly hazy!

Beneath the City Streets by Peter Laurie (Revised edition / Panther, 1979)

When I first acquired this book a few years ago (I literally found it on the street as I recall), I considered it an amusing reminder of the grim extremes of cold war paranoia. Fast forward to 2017 however, and I am somewhat less amused. In fact, I find myself worrying about the likelihood that the government have let all those emergency food dumps go to pot since the Berlin Wall fell, and fearing the day when I might find myself vainly trekking towards one of them with my few remaining possessions stuffed in a bin liner. Oh well, you’ve gotta laugh etc…

The Old Gods of Tooting.

When I was living in Tooting a couple of years back, I used to regularly see these stickers, plastered all over one particular bus shelter. I always loved the way it was just that one bus stop – I guess the Children of Odin are pretty set in their ways when it comes to the daily commute.

Until today, I’d never actually got around to following the website link, cynically assuming that the Odinist Fellowship was probably some dubious, quasi-racist ‘aryan mysticism’ kind of outfit. They still might be I suppose, but they certainly give a pretty good account of themselves on their FAQ page, emphasising the life-affirming, mead-quaffing, nature-loving aspect of their beliefs, and cannily ducking the issue of how exactly Odin and co could really be said to constitute the “Old Gods of England”.