Celebrating Harry's 18th Birthday - early!

Our grandson, Harry, is 18 next Tuesday, so as we are away for half term with our other grandson, Joshua, we decided to take Harry out for lunch today and also to buy him some clothes for his birthday.

In my younger days - and for a special birthday - we had presents that would last for years and be a constant reminder of the time when we "came of age". We didn't even celebrate our 18th birthdays back then - our 21st was the "big one" - when we got the "key of the door"! I had a gold watch for my 21st and it still works now, 46 years later, but of course, it is a wind-up one as there were no digital watches around then!

How different things are today - watches are rarely worn by young people because they have their mobiles to tell them the time and living as we do in a "throw-away" society, things are not really made to last.

We met Harry at the Swindon Designer Outlet Village, which is a covered shopping mall occupying the site of the former Great Western Railway Works, near the town centre.

The Works transformed Swindon from a small market town into a railway town, boosted the population considerably and provided medical and educational facilities. The new building of locomotives finished in 1965 and the Works finally closed in 1986.

My husband, John, worked "inside" from 1957 until he was made redundant in 1971 - and one of the photographs in the collage shows him, in the Boiler Shop, explaining how the massive crane moved heavy parts around to be fitted to boilers of locomotives.

We had a great time together - and when we took our leave of Harry, Grandad slipped him a fiver so that he could buy his first "legal" pint next Tuesday.