The Day The Music Died...

3 February 1959...
On this day in 1959, rising American rock stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson are killed when their chartered Beechcraft Bonanza plane crashes in Iowa a few minutes after takeoff from Mason City on a flight headed for Moorehead, Minnesota. 

It's not that I'm particularly a fan of theirs; in fact Buddy Holly is the only one whose music I know and quite like but I was in a quiz team once and the date of Buddy Holly's death was one of the questions. The team decided on a different date and were very reluctant to listen to me because I was known to have no interest in music but I think I talked them round on the basis that this was my 10th birthday. My boss, who is Cliff Richard's double (but usually had whatever style BEFORE Cliff did) never forgot my birthday after that and it was often mentioned. So to save the maths, today I am 66.

What has this got to do with the photograph? Well this is the interior of the old fruit and vegetable market and what is now the sports shop was the back of the Income Tax Office I blipped here. In front of the lower windows was Dave Birch's fruit and veg stall, where we used to buy apples for lunch to eat with Edam or cheddar cheese bought from Jim or Albert at Wise's shop in Fountain Street, which is just down the steps on the right of the pic. The next floor up was stairs and our little kitchen where we made tea, coffee and a boyfriend and I also used to make milk shakes with ice cream in them... The top floor was offices.

Behind Dave's stall was a little room with the addressograph machine in it. This was a giant machine which stamped out metal plates with a taxpayers name, address and tax reference on. These plates were only used once a year to produce the labels for tax forms which were sent out each January (we have a calendar year tax year). Every time someone moved house a new plate had to be produced for them. I used to love operating that machine and very often would spend days on end in there bringing the records up to date. Because the fruit and veg stall was in front of the window it was pretty gloomy but also very sheltered from prying eyes and since I was always a particularly fast worker at whatever I did, I could speed through the changes of address far faster then the time the bosses allocated, so had plenty of spare time. And I did have a boyfriend who worked there. In fact over the years we were there I had more than one! But you did have to be a bit alert. One friend who worked there before I did was moved quick smart to another States department when she was caught in there with another staff member. He was more important than here and stayed...

I liked the guy who photobombed this shot...

For anyone interested in photographs of Alderney you can find plenty on Flickr