Ten to two feet

When Caerphilly Council gave out advice recently to walk like a penguin, with feet pointing slightly outwards, in order to keep upright when combatting the snow and ice inflicted on us by the Beast from the East, it resonated with me straight away. I’ve been doing that all my life.

Chris reminds me [regularly] that as I turned the corner out of Glen Park Road into Mount Pleasant Road, in Wallasey, in 1967, I was always immediately recognisable from my ten to two feet as she walked up the hill to school from the opposite direction and that was from a couple of hundred yards away, down at Hose Side corner - no mean feat!!

As I waddled into Newark Northgate station recently, I found the grand old Potts clock not knowing what time of day it was, though it was adamant that it wasn’t ten to two or even ten to ten. 

William Potts set up his clock making business in Leeds in 1833. The clocks were sold to cathedrals, town halls, schools and engineering works, as well as to the railways, both at home and abroad.

An iconic part of the platform one landscape at Newark Northgate for many a year, it must have seen every Eastern namer under the sun stream by during the 50s and 60s, so there’s a thought.

Luckily, for the benefit of today’s travellers there is an alternative digital affair nearby, which appears to be more in synch’ with both GMT and the current railway timetable.