Saturday 16 March 2024

5G comes to my village

Since its launch some while back, 5G has been making steady progress. I see that 5G coverage with EE (my mobile phone service provider) has now reached the point where every city and most towns in the land can get it. Various country areas can as well, some of them rural tracts of no great population. Presumably this is to fill in the 'not spots' in the 4G network, so that if one's local 4G service is weak or non-existent, there is now the chance of 5G instead.

In my village - my part of it, anyway - I would have described the 4G service as 'quite good, but occasionally fading to poor'. It seems to depend on the weather: rainy conditions have generally meant a problematic 4G service. It also depends on the sensitivity of one's mobile phone. I'm finding that my larger, more powerful (and of course completely up-to-date) Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra can instantly grab a 4G signal in most parts of my house, which wasn't necessarily the case with my previous phone, a Samsung Galaxy S20+.

A good mobile phone service matters. Modern living demands good, reliable communications and, in particular, access to the Internet with one's phone. For the last four years I have relied completely on 4G to connect me to the Internet at home. It was early in 2020 when the broadband service I was subscribing to - then provided by BT - was cut off after heavy rain ruined the wiring and other equipment in a green roadside cabinet. It took a lot longer than a few days to fix. I contacted BT and they gave me a massive temporary increase in my 4G data allowance, so that I could get the Internet on my mobile phone without worrying about running out of paid-for data. 

They gave me 100GB for £25 a month, although I only paid £20 because of a £5 discount for having my broadband from BT. I made good use of that enhanced data allowance, and discovered that most of the time 4G was all I needed. I'd been a light broadband user: I was the only one in the house, and I didn't stream TV much, nor films, nor was I a gamer. The heaviest call on that 4G-based Internet was when -tethering the laptop to the phone - I uploaded photos to Flickr, composed photo-rich blog posts, or downloaded Windows updates. 

Essentially this was how it was when away in the caravan. I could usually do whatever I needed to when pitched in a farmer's field: why not then at home as well? Why pay for expensive broadband, when 4G was good enough for my usage? Suddenly it seemed daft to pay for two Internet services, especially as being away from home so much meant that I couldn't get full value from the broadband. Later in 2020 I cut my broadband contract and had my landline disconnected, intending henceforth to go completely wireless. 

I was conscious that it was something of a gamble. Would the local 4G signal remain adequate? Would my village ever get upgraded to 5G? On the other hand, I'd be saving around £30 a month. And there were things I could do to improve 4G reception in the house, such as buying a powered aerial/router for a window sill (which I could use in the caravan too), or even having a an external aerial fixed to the chimney. 

Well, four years later the wireless-only gamble has worked out fine. My next door neighbours have been kind enough to let me tap into their unlimited broadband whenever I need to - there are occasional 4G outages - so I have an emergency Internet source. A privilege I don't abuse. Otherwise, I just use 4G, which has been good enough for watching the odd TV programme on my tethered laptop - even more so since upgrading to my S24 Ultra. 

But to make the experiment a complete success, I needed 5G. 

Well, a week ago EE sent a message to tell me that they wanted to carry out 'maintenance' at the local installation. Uh-oh. That probably meant several days without a 4G service. I was right. Initially they spoke soothingly of only a sixteen-hour outage. But it grew. Then they spoke of 'improvements'. Huh. That meant new equipment, and more delay for installation and testing. Still, EE might be boosting the 4G service. It turned out to be something better. 

Yesterday, early in the evening, and sitting in my lounge at home, I glanced at my phone and saw something I'd only seen when visiting large towns: the 4G symbol had been replaced by the one for 5G! 


Wow. At last. 5G here.

Granted, it was only a moderate 5G signal - I'm near the edge of the village - but this was something I hadn't really expected to see for several years yet. It meant that I would definitely never need to consider reconnecting/upgrading my landline and reinstalling broadband, and I could permanently keep my £30 a month saving (it's probably more now).

So the latest outage was worth enduring.

Is there a downside? I can't see one. If bad weather makes the 5G service wane, it defaults to 4G, which has been - as I said - adequate for most of the time.

I thought about whether it was a possible drawback not to have a modern fibre landline connected to the house. If I ever had to sell the house, the lack of a fibre landline might put off a potential buyer. Or would it? In any case (a) I have no plans to move, unless climate change forces me to (I'm thinking of unbearably hot summers); and (b) I could always pay to have the very latest type of installation as part of a pre-marketing decision. 

Meanwhile, I've got 160GB of data every month for £26.98, the new price after the annual hike. My old SIM-only contract with EE expired a long time ago, but I've let things run forward on a rolling basis. It's a lot of data for a reasonable monthly cost, and (importantly) it's supplied at EE's very best speed. I expect that one day they will ask me to move to a proper new contract with them, or leave. But until they do, I'm going to enjoy what I have.  

Monday 11 March 2024

Big nibs at Newhaven - 2

It's late January 2024, and I've made a special point of seeing what the developer did with the former Parker Pen European management HQ and manufacturing site at Newhaven. I was in for a pleasant surprise.

I had thought that there would either be no link with the old use of the site, or merely a token reference to it - in the name of a road or building perhaps. I was expecting a series of industrial buildings in the modern 'warehouse' style. What I saw instead was a rather attractive affordable-housing estate - already fully occupied - nicely finished off with planting and green areas and some beautiful street furniture that went much further than strictly necessary to remind residents and visitors - and the town at large - that a nationally important factory had once existed here. I was impressed. 

I parked Sophie and walked around to take the place in.


I've passed over the entrance to the development for the moment - you'll soon see it. While driving in, and looking for a place to park, I noticed that I was on Parker Drive. And I passed street signs for Arrow Lane and Fountain Row.


Arrow Lane was obviously referencing the iconic arrow clip that Parker put, in one form or another, on all its pens. Fountain Row clearly brought to mind 'fountain pen'. And a bit further along was Sonnet Drive. 


The Sonnet was (and still is) a popular Parker fountain pen. 

Right where I was parked was an information panel that explained the timeline for the Parker Pen manufacturing here, and the aims of the development. Click on any of these shots to enlarge them.


They'd called the development Safford Park, in memory of Parker's founder in the nineteenth century. 

The estate was still new, and on the whole it seemed clear that its residents were being careful to keep it looking that way. 'Affordable housing' isn't actually cheap, and if you have paid a small fortune to own one of these modern housing units, there is an incentive to look after them. There was a variety of building styles. I especially liked the curving take on traditional terraced houses in Arrow Lane.


But the most enjoyable part was at the entrance. 


On each side of the road into the estate - Parker Drive - was a giant stainless-steel fountain pen nib, set on a white plinth, and roughly as tall as myself. 


These were embellishments of beauty. They were almost exactly what real nibs would look like (as on the Sonnet), except that they bore the text SAFFORD PARK. They were like nib-shaped mirrors. 

Behind each of these sentinels was a line of coloured bollards, in the form of giant pen caps - with, of course, the Parker arrow clip.


It was extraordinary. What a brilliant idea. And it was all much more than I had expected to see. 

But there's even more. I had a notion (from the information panel) that the giant stainless-steel nibs might be lit up in some way at night. The opportunity to go there after dark came up last week. I'd spent the day in Kent, with Romney Marsh my main objective, and I timed my departure for home so that I'd be passing through Newhaven well after sunset. As I turned into the estate, I thought I saw a blue glimmer from the two giant nibs. I parked as before, and walked back to take a close look.


Nothing was happening with the coloured pen caps. I walked on, stood next to that white van, and looked back.


Hmm. The giant nibs seemed to have a blue light inside them that - every few seconds - flared up, then died away. I got in close and took a series of shots at mid-flare.


I couldn't see what was producing the blue light, nor how it was able to grow brighter before waning. But it lit up a line of apertures around the base of the nib, as well as the SAFFORD PARK lettering. It was rather discreet illumination, all said. In any event, a very nice touch. 

Quite possibly this is the prettiest thing in Newhaven just now. I'm hoping that rival developments will try to cap it, so that bit by bit Newhaven becomes more attractive as a rather cool and chic place to live. I hear that the large quayside scrapyard further down the road is being moved to a bigger site on the Thames estuary, freeing up the land for fresh use. An opportunity then.

Big nibs at Newhaven - 1

The Sussex coast is a strange mix of once-elegant Regency resorts, breezy seaside towns, yachty backwaters, and one or two working ports. Newhaven is one such port, sitting astride the River Ouse. It has a seaborne trade in scrap metal and gravel. It is also the ferry port for crossing to Dieppe in France. I've never taken that boat, but really must one day, just for the experience. Newhaven also has a small marina, with the usual sort of brightly-painted modern housing that you see at marinas everywhere, which used to look startlingly clean, fresh and upmarket against the rest of Newhaven's grimy terraces, but is now toning down and becoming just a little tired. Newhaven undoubtedly has a close-knit community with a heart, but ever since I've known it has looked a bit scruffy and down-at-heel. I imagine that any person disembarking from the ferry and driving through the town must be far from impressed. Even less so, if they stop and explore the rather forlorn town centre. The place desperately needs new money thrown at it. Meanwhile it's still one of the very few places in Sussex where you can pick up a cheap house. Cheap by south-of-England standards, that is.

But the town used to have the European HQ of a pen industry giant. The Parker Pen factory was here. It was housed in a modern complex on flat ground adjacent to the East Quay. 

Do you remember the heyday of Parker? Of pens in general? When every department store, and every good High Street stationer, had a pen counter with a display of pens - fountain pens in particular. Pens, especially fountain pens, were once important. They were in everyday use by everyone who needed to write something during the course of their day. That changed, of course, when a cheap and disposable ballpoint - the BIC Cristal - was perfected and launched in 1950, the twin development of gel-like ink and a finely-engineered stainless-steel ball bearing making the pen leakproof and capable of writing smoothly and reliably without breaks in the line. 

It soon had its imitators. Gradually the ballpoint took over the pen market, but it took time. It was always regarded as a practical, convenient, but utilitarian alternative to a 'proper' pen - much as today's smartphone is regarded as a practical, convenient but utilitarian alternative to a 'proper' camera. The ballpoint's victory was inevitable, and almost complete. But it never had the perceived value or status of a fountain pen. When presidents and prime ministers signed treaties and trading agreements in front of press and TV cameras, they did so using a symbolically-posh large fountain pen, probably a Mont Blanc, and did not scribble with a BIC ballpoint. That largely remains true even today - although I imagine that should (say) the Ukraine eventually be forced into an unwelcome cessation-of-hostilities agreement with Russia, the President of Ukraine will sign the hated document with a cheap ballpoint, to indicate what he really thinks of such an expedient. 

Fountain pens have kept their status as fine writing instruments for special occasions. But writing with them was always an acquired skill that some never mastered. When I learned how to do handwriting in my junior school on Barry Island in the later 1950s, it was at a desk with a pot for liquid ink which had to be periodically filled, always making a mess. We used scratchy dip pens with replaceable steel nibs, and always ended up with inky fingers. I was diligent at learning how to use such a pen, but still made a mess. You can imagine how the little sons and daughters of dockers and poorer tradesmen fared. They hated those pens. Like their parents, they would use a simple pencil once they had left school behind.

Slowly using a fountain pen became the mark of having higher education, and after that brainy professional work. I remember, for instance, how the family doctor always wrote out prescriptions with a fountain pen. Fountain pens represented handwriting at a higher level, appropriate for pupils at a school with high and traditional standards. When I first attended my grammar school in Southampton in 1963 it was compulsory to use a proper fountain pen. Ballpoints were forbidden. So the parents of scholars like myself had to kit their expensively-uniformed offspring with fountain pens made by the likes of Conway Stewart, Sheaffer and Parker. I suppose Sheaffer and Parker were the best-regarded, but any school pen needed to be hard-wearing and easy to use, and all of them met those basic requirements. There were various filling systems and various grades of nib. And similar to the situation today with phones and other devices, there was a certain rivalry or partisanship where pen makes or filling systems were concerned. But the most kudos came from being given a pen with a gold nib at Christmas, or on one's birthday. That really was something to crow about. I don't remember any posh pens getting stolen. A high crime and misdemeanour like that would have meant instant expulsion for the perpetrator, such was the oppressive regime in my grammar school, where even in 1969 someone who unwisely swore in morning assembly was thrown out of the school. (I never found out whether they were permitted to sit their A Levels: maybe not) 

Adults too generally rated gold-nibbed fountain pens highly. As late as 1970, it was a standard gift when being transferred to another office: my Dad was given one, a black Parker 51, very handsome, which he used until he retired in 1980. Then he passed it on to me. Although ballpoint pens were by then what one usually meant by a 'pen', there was nothing unusual about using a fountain pen in an office - at least for the Inspectorate in the Inland Revenue - until it became routine to use a computer keyboard for nearly everything. But I still used a fountain pen for signing letters right up to the day I retired in 2005. Indeed, my very last official act on my very last day at the office was to sign a string of Penalty Notices addressed to non-compliant limited companies, using Dad's Parker fountain pen. 

People still use fountain pens, even now. You can still quite easily buy one online, and most stationers sell bottles of ink. But it's an unusual personal choice. You need to be a dogged individualist and an unswerving devotee of the old and arcane. I think fountain pens - new or used - have remained popular among a few because in the modern world there is a pushback against too much soulless electronic gadgetry. People crave something 'real' and 'analogue', that they can touch and handle, something that needs a little skill and expertise to use successfully. Something that conjures up an older-style world that they vaguely remember, or have heard about. Hence the fascination with vinyl records and record players, old board games, and film cameras. 

Readers will know that I own a teal-coloured Parker 51 of my own - named Water Dragon - that I bought online in 2019, and have used several times daily ever since. I steeped myself in Parker Pen history in order to find out when Water Dragon was actually made, and I discovered that my pen was manufactured in July, August or September 1955, at Newhaven. 'Steeped' was the word! I brought together snippets of information from the many online pen websites and blogs, and eventually produced this essay on my particular pen's origins:


WATER DRAGON - MY PARKER 51 FOUNTAIN PEN 2019-

Purchase

I bought Water Dragon online from Vintage Fountain Pens, run from Hornsea in East Yorkshire by Mark Catley. She cost me £125, and arrived on 2019 0109.

Teal-coloured, with a Lustraloy cap, Water Dragon is a classic Parker 51. She has a fine/medium nib and writes beautifully.

Condition, probable age and ownership history

Mark Catley thought my pen was manufactured in the ‘mid-1960s’, and if that meant 1965 then Water Dragon was already 54 years old when she came into my hands. (In fact my own research revealed she was 63 years old at that point - see below)

Mark had serviced the pen, and may have cleaned it up a little, but that wouldn't have hidden any signs of heavy-handed usage, damage from dropping, or neglectful storage. Considering her age, Water Dragon had no very obvious blemishes, suggesting that she had been quite well looked-after in her previous life.

To be sure, there were micro-scratches all over the cap and barrel, and there was some very slight pinprick pitting on the cap.

There was also a hairline crack at the clutch-ring end of the barrel, which I didn’t see at first because it was inconspicuous and might easily be mistaken for a surface scratch. Indeed, I could assume that Mike Catley had himself failed to detect it, especially as he hadn’t noticed the 1955 manufacturing date-mark on that part of the barrel (see below). But its true nature was revealed when I carefully examined the pen with a loupe in sunlight. Reassuringly, the crack was clearly of long standing, and therefore stable, and I quickly decided that it was best left alone. No likely repair would make it vanish, or look much better. The crack was, in any case, normally out of sight when holding the pen, and covered when the cap was on (and therefore protected from impacts). I simply needed to avoid tightening the barrel too much when screwing it back on after an ink refill.

I wasn’t too perturbed about this crack. Yes, it was a potential physical weakness, but like all senior but cherished things (such as cars and boats), Water Dragon deserved (and would get) careful and considerate handling. She ought to go on year after year without the crack getting worse. In any case, the micro-scratches, the pitting, and the crack were all to be expected after so long. They were evidence of many years’ past usefulness as a working pen - badges of honour so to speak. 

Bottom line: when seen at a normal distance, in the hand - rather than through a loupe - Water Dragon looked unmarked and in nice condition. It was hard to believe she was so old.

Mark hadn’t deep-cleaned the cap, and so I was able to discover from ink residue inside it that the previous owner had used blue ink. (Blue ink or black ink is always kindest to fountain pens, blue especially)

As for Water Dragon’s year of manufacture, it seemed to me - as a starting point - that cap, pen hood, filler and barrel were original and contemporary with each other. This surely wasn’t a pen cobbled together from bits and pieces belonging to other pens of different age and provenance. (Such a pen is called a ‘Frankenpen’ among collectors).

Water Dragon had all four of these key Parker 51 Mark II features:

# The Aerometric filling mechanism.

# The black plastic end-piece on the filler.

# The rounded barrel-end.

# The wide clutch ring.

As a Mark II pen, she would have been made sometime from 1948 to 1969. But there were six important clues - all consistent with each other - that narrowed the year of manufacture down to 1955:

# From 1965, caps bore an engraved 51, but this was absent. Water Dragon’s lustraloy cap was very plain, with only ‘PARKER’ engraved on it.

# From 1964 caps no longer had a lip, but my pen had one.

# From 1962 caps used an open 'four-fingered' clutch (as on Dad’s Mark III pen). My pen had the older five-barred clutch, connected with a ring at both ends.

# From 1960 the breather hole in the barrel was moved from the rear end to the side of the barrel. My pen had a hole at the rear end.

# From 1958, caps bore the Parker logo - the halo with a vertical arrow shooting upwards through it. But this was absent.

# This was the clincher. It needed a loupe and good light to see it clearly, but on the screw-on end of the barrel (on the opposite side from the hairline crack) was a faint imprint in the plastic: MADE IN ENGLAND °5. Water Dragon was clearly a Newhaven product. The figure-with-a-dot would refer to the year and quarter of manufacture. In America, dating a Parker 51 in this way (using a two-figure system) ended in 1952, but it continued for several more years on English-made pens (using a single-figure system), right up to 1959. On an English-made pen, °5 meant the third quarter of 1955. That is, July, August or September 1955.

It seemed pretty conclusive that my pen was in fact datable to one of those three months in the second half of 1955. The pen was older than Mark Catley had thought. Water Dragon was actually a mid-1950s pen and already 63 years old when I acquired her in January 2019.

That's an old pen! Fully fifteen years older than Dad's pen, and only three years younger than myself. Remarkable then that it still looked good, worked faultlessly, and wrote so well.

Mark had nothing in his records concerning who the previous owner had been. I did ask: he told me in reply that he’d bought the pen in a batch from a dealer in the Nottingham area, but had no further information about it.

Still, the generally good condition, the teal colour of the pen, the use of blue ink, and the lack of wear on the nib (indicating only light writing pressure) all pointed to a careful female owner, perhaps someone like a retired headmistress. If she had been 21 in 1955 (let’s say the pen was a 21st birthday or graduation present from her parents) then in 2019 she would be aged 85 and presumably either dead, or in a home, and the pen would have come onto the market following a house clearance.

I’m guessing that Water Dragon might have been regularly used until that elderly previous owner found that filling her up with ink had become too difficult for arthritic fingers, too much of an effort, or just pointless. If that stage was reached when the owner was aged 80, then Water Dragon could have rattled around in a drawer for a number of years before eventual salvation, and some of those micro-scratches could well date from such a final era of redundancy. (If the original presentation box had still existed, it would have been sold with the pen and meanwhile preserved it from knocks and abrasions)

Well, Water Dragon now had a fresh lease of life in my hands - and a new, handmade leather case to rest in. 


So it was a British-made pen, not an import, made not far away on the Sussex coast, and was nearly as old as myself (I was born in 1952). But good-quality fountain pens were truly 'consumer durables': they lasted. My pen is in perfect working order, and is a pleasure to use. Here are some pictures of it. Click on any of them to enlarge.



The brown leather pencase I made used offcuts from the Pittards factory in Yeovil. Pittards were a big name in the leather world until recently, but went into administration last autumn. Originally wholesalers only, they diversified into a retail trade too, selling high-class leather goods from a shop at their Yeovil factory, and from a shop in Clarkes Village at Street. I bought my favourite blue-green handbag from them - now irreplaceable. When last on sale online it would have cost £195, a bit expensive for a bag that, although made in England, and of high quality, didn't bear a name like Radley, Ted Baker or any of the well-known exotic brands. Pittards struggled, but the times were against them. The Covid lockdowns were the last straw, as they were for many a manufacturing business that relied on steady sales to a discerning customer base. 


The shots just above reveal why fountain pens all but died. It was always messy and inconvenient to refill them. Even the innovation of ink cartridges were a faff. No wonder ballpoints (and later on, rollerballs) had an easy victory. 

Back to Parker. The pen factory at Newhaven, long-established by 1955, grew in importance during the next thirty years and was a major local employer. The Prime Minister visited in 1988, to mark Parker's centenary there. 

But the writing was on the wall. Some rationalisation became inevitable. This gathered pace during the 1990s and 2000s. The managerial suite was modernised, but much of the manufacturing went abroad in 2007, and the site was vacated in 2010. Demolition followed in 2014. I used to have a 1990s picture of the factory building when it was still standing - in fact still very much in use - but somehow it didn't get scanned and digitised, and it's lost forever. There is however quite a lot of material scattered around on the Internet about Parker at Newhaven. I won't regurgitate it all here, but here are some examples that show the factory in its heyday. 


There are also pictures of the managerial offices, taken when an enthusiast was able to visit with his camera. He was overwhelmed by the extent of the manufacturing records, and the vast collection of specimen pens made over many decades. None of this was subject to a preservation plan, should another reorganisation move the manufacture elsewhere. You wonder what in fact happened to it after the factory closed.


I was intrigued to learn that in 2008 a time capsule filled with contemporary Parker-related material was buried near the factory entrance, with due ceremony, intended to be exhumed and examined in 2088.


What happened to this, when the entire site was demolished in 2014? One person commenting at the time on a local Newhaven blog thought it had been dug up for its own safety, though who knows where it is now.


The same person mentions the big brass arrow-shaped front door handles being cut off and stolen. You can see one being held in the first of the time-capsule pictures (bottom left corner). The arrow clip on fountain pen caps was Parker's especial trademark. 

By 2019 the demolition site was looking very forlorn. This time, I do have my own pictures!


In 2020, however, something seemed to be happening at last.


What was going to be built on the site? A warehouse complex? Industrial units? Was all sign of the site's pen-manufacturing history going to be obliterated? Next post.

Tuesday 5 March 2024

1988 and all that

Here's an interesting slice of social history. I have before me a copy of The Field magazine for October 1988. This is the front cover:


This was - still is? - a magazine primarily aimed at well-off male landowners and (to some extent) their wives, containing serious articles on various aspects of country living, especially the sporting side of it. I think I found this copy in the attic of one of the houses I have owned. It's a fascinating glimpse of what these gilded people might have read in 1988. I can't tell whether it's truly a mirror of actual high-level country living, or whether it is at least partly aspirational. I suppose it depends on how you are placed, and who you think you are. I've seen copies of The Field in private hospitals, and sporting hotels (such as fishing hotels in the West Country and the Highlands). Perhaps something can be deduced from that. 

Not every landowner can have enough money, or the inclination, to care about the things shown in this magazine. It's a world I have rubbed shoulders with only on the odd occasion. I've nothing against it. But even if I had the necessary means, or the connections, or the upbringing, to rub along with the magazine's select group of readers, I'd probably still do my own thing. Owning a lovely horse that I can ride expertly; owning a pair of well-matched and well-trained hounds; owning a fine handmade shotgun, and able to shoot well with it; needing the best waterproof jacket, or the best boots: I do get it. But none of those things are useful in my own world, except the jacket and boots.

In this post I'm concentrating on what that copy of The Field had to say about what to wear in 1988. I think it's most revealing.  

I also refer to another source of material from 1988: an episode of Inspector Morse that aired on 19th January 1989, but clearly filmed during the summer or autumn of 1988, called Deceived by Flight. It's about a murder made to look like a suicide, with an Oxford university college cricket tour in the background. The victim was one of the Gentleman players, well-off and urbane but without the snobbishness shown by another so-called Gentleman (the one who done it, m'lud). Morse investigates, and there are plenty of scenes where the two women who attempt to charm him - one being an undercover Customs & Excise officer, the other the victim's wife (whose lover did the deed) - show off their different clothing tastes. 

Let's however look first at what The Field in 1988 looked like, if you open the glossy pages of my copy. There's an editorial about yobbish behaviour spoiling the game. Opposite it, a 'clever' cigarette advertisement.


Cigarettes and booze could still be advertised in magazines. Here are ads for a single malt (suggesting the successful salmon fisherman), and a whisky liqueur (relaxed candlelit sophistication in female company). 


Sporting guns for the well-heeled country gentleman are much to the fore. 


And not just for adults. Here's an ad for a toy shotgun - to whet the 'young sportsman's' appetite for shooting. For boys aged four to nine. Presumably ten year olds graduate to the real thing.


Fashionable shooting clothing, and other gear, for both him and her also features.


Not only shooting, of course. Horse ownership and its accoutrements is another big topic.


And naturally, waterproof jackets by Barbour and others are de rigueur.


The picture above, of four men in Barbour jackets, isn't an ad. It's part of an article about the work of the RSPB, and they are bigwigs in the bird-preservation world. All are wearing ties, you notice. Indeed, all are wearing suits under their waterproof jackets. Suits were important. The right suit conferred prestige, authority, and self-assurance on the right man. There's an article about just such a man getting a properly-cut town suit from a Savile Row tailor. A young peer.


He'd need the right watch to go with it, of course...


What about somewhere to live? Just like (say) Country Life, this October 1988 issue of The Field has some property pages, with grand houses - and shooting estates - like these on offer.


I'd be surprised if the mixture of articles and ads would be very different in a modern issue of The Field. Why would anything have changed? Let's now look at what was fashionable to wear in late 1988,  according to The Field, if you lived in the country and had leisure and money. 


Gosh, what a lifestyle. Which scene would suit you best, for a regular diet? Me, the breakfast picture, although I concede that the others have their own allure, especially the off-to-the-opera shot. Nice house, too. I wonder if a picture like this is hung somewhere inside?


There was however one ad that offered a product that was cutting-edge for the time, but now looks ludicrously old-fashioned, almost a joke. An ad for the latest mobile phone. Here it is. Remember, this was super-up-to-date in 1988.


We have come a long way, haven't we? It's sobering to realise that even ten years later, in 1998, it was by no means usual to own a mobile phone, even though they had all become much smaller and lighter. I scorned them for a long while, and didn't buy one until 2001, and only so that I wouldn't be incommunicado when commuting to London by train. It was a cheap 2G affair from Woolworths, good only for voice calls and texts and something called WAP, but handy all the same. Primitive now; but it would have astounded any buyer of the brick phone in the ad above.

And would you believe it, I spotted the brick when watching that episode of Inspector Morse! Look at these scenes. The murder-victim-to-be is speaking to Morse from an Oxford college guest room.


And here he is again, phoning from his car.


The thing looks like a Second World War walkie-talkie, as seen on Omaha Beach or Iwo Jima, only slightly smaller. Yet, as I say, it was cutting-edge: the only alternative way to phone from a car was with a built-in wired phone like the one Morse is using in his rather spartan office (which bears a striking resemblance to my own room at every tax office I served in, except the last). If you buy something from Carphone Warehouse (at a Currys superstore say, or online) the odd name is explained if you are aware that the company began in 1989 as literally a seller of car-phone installations, although it rapidly expanded into more general telecommunication and computer marketing.
  
The same episode of Inspector Morse has him pursued by two women, who for different reasons want to keep tabs on his investigation. Morse, who never has much luck with the ladies, is flattered. Here's one of the ladies, the murder victim's wife.


Here's the other, an undercover Customs & Excise officer on a drugs case, who has a passion for cricket (really?), explaining to Morse why she likes it so much.


Shortly afterwards the two women confront each other. The 'grieving' wife of the murdered man was hoping to catch Morse alone, but must exchange polite words instead. At least she is nattily dressed for the summer sunshine.


The presence of the C&E lady (bottom left) is desperately unwelcome, but the widow is able to square up to the challenge with her shoulder pads. That broad-shouldered look was all the rage. I disliked it. It wasn't a look that, in truth, looked great on many women, and it left you open to the 'she's only trying to be a man' jibe, unless you genuinely had personality and presence and could carry it off. It was all too easy to look ridiculous. And afterwards, when the fashion passed, all those shoulder-padded jackets were unwearable.  

I was thirty-six in 1988. It's now thirty-six years later. Sometimes one keeps the odd item of clothing or jewellery from way back, but I genuinely haven't anything of the kind to reveal. That's a pity. Well, here are some ordinary people, photographed in 1988. And here's the challenge: spot the shoulder pads.

First, Mum and Dad and their friends on a bowling holiday with a difference - they were being filmed for a BBC TV series:


And next, some of the people watching the Changing of the Guard in London later in the year:


I don't think any of them were regular readers of The Field.