[olduser]

I found these on BBC iPlayer;

On my TV select Categories down on the list find Archive then on the main screen look for The Way We Lived look for Jumbo or Tuesday Documentary

Or they can be found on the internet at;

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...-the-jumbo-jet

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod...urs-at-le-mans

Both are sort of interesting, to a degree shocking, and above all unbelievable, in the sense of, did we live like that?

[Drivingforfun]

Can't remember if I shared this before...

My grandad traveled to the USA frequently for work in the 60s, and once around bonfire night he decided to bring some American fireworks home for the family, as they were much better as the ones in Britain

He brought a single rocket and a Catherine wheel, and maybe some other bits too. Being a Yorkshireman he didn't want to pay the import tax, so smuggled them in his hand luggage.

He was never caught so he didn't have to pay the duty... if he did it today I think he'd have a little more to worry about 😳

[Rolebama]

I had a friend neighbour who, like me, had a half-hearted interest in photography. I snowed him my new Minolta camera body, and ha asked me how much I had paid for it. I told him £450. He went in his house and cane out with the same model and told me he had paid $375, around £220 equivalent, from a shop in California. Because he was a Flight Engineer with BA, he just used to walk through customs and wave and smile at the Customs Officers.
FWIW: When I was in Germany, I came home a few times on the Bremerhaven - Harwich ferry. On one occasion I carried my guitar which was packed with cigarettes. (You were only allowed to bring 200 in then.) I had managed to get 180 in the guitar, a semi-accoustic Hofner. They rattled quite nicely. The Customs guy made me take them out so he could count them. Fair enough, but he paid no heed to the brand-new Hofner which, at the time, would have cost me around £150/200 Import Duty.

[Rolebama]

In 1965/66 I worked as an Apprentice Engineer in a workshop in Southall, part of the Ever Ready Vidor group. One day I was given a set of blueprints and 4 massive chunks of an aluminium alloy. I machined the blocks a la blueprints, and they were sent off to Quality Control for checking. I joined the Army in 1967, and just before Christmas in 1969, I received a letter from the company and a copy of a certificate. The certificate was to say that the wing leading edge to fuselage mounts they had provided had been used on the prototype Concorde which had made it's maiden flight earlier in the year. The company kept the original.

[Drivingforfun]

That's pretty cool about Concorde, Rolebama!

My dad was once stopped bringing too many cigarettes across the Gibraltar -> Spain border... sadly they threw the book at him as the relations over Gibraltar aren't too friendly. It was embarrassing as he was a police officer and also a non-smoker, just was talked into using his allowance for the person he was with, who had miscounted 🙄

When the questioning Spanish cops asked his occupation they found it hilarious and probably tried to have fun with him