RAINY REPOST: WINDOW On The PAST - TAKE TWO...

It's raining memories...

It's pouring of rain outside (well it is where I live), so I thought it an appropriate time to dust off this old post from 2017.  Even if you've read it before, you've probably forgotten it by now - so refresh your memory.

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You're looking at my current screen-saver, which is a photo taken in 1991 from the bedroom of the house I'd moved from 19 years before.  I'd previously returned to the house 3 years earlier, which was the first time I'd been back since flitting in 1972, but on that occasion the day was sunnier.  However, there's something about rain which I find relaxing, and though the house across the back didn't have an extension when I lived in the area, the picture captures, mood-wise, exactly how it would've been on a similar day when I occupied the room.

The toys on the sill are mine, taken with me to 're-connect' them to the home in which I'd first obtained the originals.  The owl is from the Aurora BATMAN model kit, and was painted and affixed to the model when I finally assembled and painted the rest of it around 1993/'94.  (I'd obtained it in 1984/'85, as a replacement for the one I'd owned in the '60s.)  The photo below is taken from a slightly different angle, and you can glimpse my old primary school, which was demolished in 2014.  Houses now occupy the spot.

When these photos were taken, the original windows were still in use, though they were replaced around 1992 with new PVC-framed ones.  I'm glad to have got the chance to look through the same windows I'd known as a child, and see again my reflection staring back at me as it had done when I was a boy.  I wonder if the panes recognised the taller, older face that stood before them as the one it had once been familiar with - or was I just a stranger who meant nothing?  I'd like to think otherwise.

Click on the images to enlarge - then just relax as you look at the rain on the glass - just as I often do when I want to relive the past.  Remember, the droplets you see are 26 years old - so, in a sense, you're reliving the past too.  Just thought I'd share the moment with you.   

   

PSSST! WANNA SEE A PRETTY PICCIE?

Then cop a gander 'ere...

Copyright BBC TV and the Estate of TERRY NATION

Twenty-six years ago I wandered into my local branch of John Menzies (four years before it was taken over by WHS) and spied a magazine I simply had to have - The Dalek Chronicles, published by Marvel UK.  I bought three just to have spares, in case my selected reading copy ever became damaged by my incessant handling.  I loved poring over its pages and remembering rabidly devouring the strips when they first appeared on the rear cover of TV Century 21 back in the '60s.  Unfortunately, they got a page out of sequence, but that apart, it was a valiant attempt to make these strips available to a new audience, as well as to those who had read them as kids.

I've still got those three Specials, and even though I now also have a trio of Panini's recent deluxe re-presentation of the same material (though digitally restored and remastered, mostly from the original art boards), I won't be parting with my 1994 incarnations anytime soon.  (Or ever, in fact.)  Why?  Just one look at them takes me right back to 1994 in a heartbeat, that's why!  What I find hard to believe though, is the fact that more than a quarter of a century has elapsed between the two editions.  Cliched as it is to say, it seems like only yesterday since I purchased my three copies of the first, primitive (scanned from published issues of TV21) collected edition of those strips from childhood.

Now, I know I've bored you all to tears on multiple previous occasions, warbling on about the complexities and paradoxes of time, but it simply staggers my senses when it hits me just how many years have passed between now and when that first collection was published.  It's a mere three years shy of the same period of time since the debut instalment of The Daleks first appeared in 1965, and it's all gone by (spoiler alert - Gordie's catchphrase coming up now) faster than a fart from The Flash!  But that's not quite accurate when I think about it.  1965 seemed like quite a large span away from 1994 back then, but 1994 until now seems like no time at all.

Ach, I just can't get my head around it!  Sometimes, looking back today, the '60s seem like centuries away, sometimes much more recent than that.  How is such a thing possible?  Tell you what, while you're thinking about it (unless you just skipped past this post without reading it) feast your eager eyes on ace artist Ron Turner's wraparound cover to that 1994 sensational Special!  Click to enlarge, then click again for optimum size.

No, I don't really know what I meant to say with this post either, but who cares as long as it's accompanied by a pretty (and pulse-pounding) piccie like the one above?!  True, Ron's depiction of The Daleks isn't exactly accurate (then again, neither was the Marx Toys version), but it still has its own charm.