Highway Inn, Dobwalls, 1963

I've just found these articles from the local papers re gaining a licence for The Highway Inn Dobwalls, from about 1962/63:

Rotary Club of Saltash

Jack Smale was a member of the Rotary Clubs, I think it was in Callington and Saltash. Including being President:

He also enjoyed being Secretary and held that post for many years.
His one disappointment was that when we all moved up to Derby they would not accept him due to his age.

Callington Probus Club

Jack Smale was the first President of Callington Probus Club when it was formed in the early 1980s.  He was subsequently made Life President:

Old Family Photos

Lots of old family photos are stuck in boxes in the loft or storeroom and no-one ever looks at them. Many are  tiny, grainy and faded.

With Picasa (which can be downloaded, free from the internet) I've been able to bring many of these old photos to life and in the process been able to pass them on to other family members.  
There are several ways of improving photographs.

One way is to use the cropping facility to look at the part of the picture which you're interested in, whilst still keeping the original photo on the computer.

Here's a good example - a photo of my grandmother (Bunty) staying at a friend's caravan back in the 1960s.  It's such a long time ago that no-one knows who the friend is so, apart from the retro caravan, the important part of the photo is  Bunty herself.

So it's been cropped and now we see Bunty and in greater detail:

When I become more adept  I'll learn how to delete the friend's shirt and tie - but that's for another day!

Another advantage is shown by next photo (taken about 1929) which was so faded that no-one could see what it was.  The photo was imported into Picasa and then I pressed the button 'I'm feeling lucky' and lo and behold my mother's parents appeared in their motorbike and sidecar:

Before (above) and after (below) 

Not as clear as today's photos but what an improvement!


Another very useful feature of Picasa is being able to straighten pictures. Take this photo from our living room window:

A great pic but the sea somehow doesn't look right. After applying straighten, the photo is a great improvement:

and it's less likely to make me feel seasick. As you can see, when a picture is 'straightened' it does lose part of the sides, so this can't be done with every picture.


Web Albums - coming ...

Bianco and Unicorn

Jack, Bunty and Dorothy by Bianco, moored at Richmond Walk, Plymouth

Jack's other leisure boat, the Unicorn

Excitement in 1956

For one day only, in October 2011, the Saltash Ferry is celebrating 50 years since the opening of the new Saltash Bridge.  For details see this link: http://www.saltashferrylink.com/

Back in July, on a post, I mentioned being rushed to hospital in 1956 for an emergency appendix removal.  The local Doctor (Eckersley) packed me into the front of his car, wrapped in a blanket, then drove my mother and me in his big black car from Liskeard up to Saltash (not such a good road in those days). Then we were first on to the ferry and it left pretty quickly.  When we reached the Plymouth side of the river we were first off.    

Luckily, at five years old, I didn't realise the seriousness of the journey and so it was very excited about the whole experience.  All I can say is thank goodness for the fast, efficient ferry. Otherwise we would have had to drive all the way up to Gunnislake to cross the River Tamar via the single lane 'new bridge', built many centuries earlier, and perhaps I might not have survived to write this blog! (see below for details about the Gunnislake Bridge)

Until the construction of the Tamar road bridge at Saltash in 1962, Gunnislake New Bridge, built in the early 16th century, was the lowest bridging-point on the Tamar and one of the main routes of entry from Devon into Cornwall. 

Truro High School