Only the wealthy had telephones at home. The rest of us had to walk to the nearest public phone box. You had to put your money in and then dial the number you wanted. If it was answered you pressed button A and you were connected – but when the money ran out you were [...]

My first car, in about 1970 cost me £55  it was an ancient clapped out Vauxhall Velux . The bodywork was mostly rust.  I spent a fortune and endless hours patching it up with glass fibre!  A couple of years later when it eventually died I bought a gold colour Ford Granada - it was [...]

An adjective meaning mournful, doleful, dismal.
I always think of the comedian Tony Hancock as haveing the best example of a lugubrious face!

Aside from Fire, the Wheel, and medical discoveries/advances, what are the greatest inventions of your lifetime, and why?… Jet Engine, Computers, Mobile Phones, Dyson?

With technology, media and globalisation, how comes no-one has found a better guitarist than Hendrix since he died in 1970?

Inclined to war or fighting - warlike.
I have known several bellicose people over the years!  Always want to settle arguments with their fists!

A situation in which there are two choices or alternatives whose consequences are equally unpleasant!
Named after John Morton 1420 - 1500 Archbishop of Canterbury and a minister of Henry Vll who used the argument that ‘the rich must have money and the frugal must have savings’ to extract loans.

Why do Grandads hate pop music, and did they ever like it (when they were younger)?

When I was about 8 years old I remember playing on the bomb sites near to where we lived. One had a bombed house on it that was just a shell. It had no roof and the floors upstairs were just hanging down from the only two walls remaining – but we had great fun [...]

An early type of plastic.
Very hard and usually dark brown or black.  Things like telephones, light switches and  Radios were made from it.
Technically is was a thermosetting plastic made by copolymerization of a phenol with formaldehyde!
It was invented by a Belgian chemist called Leo Baekeland - 1863 - 1944