BY A NOSE

Back in the sixty's when I was but a nipper I remember going to visit an old Aunt in Reading, I don't recall a lot about the encounter apart from that she lived next to Readings football ground, jump forwards to 1976 & I joined the Army and was based at Arbourfield, no more than a bus ride away from where she lived, one Saturday on a whim I decided to see if I could find her, ten years had past so I had no idea if she was even still living (aunts and uncles always looked so very old in those days)! Finding the ground was easy enough but it was surrounded by four streets of terrace house, where would I start! The only other recollection I had was my Grandmother saying that Aunty Hilda and her husband use to own a fish & chip shop and lived above the premises, needless to say the chippy had closed many moons ago but on asking around I found an old local who remembered the shop and pointed me down the right street, after a couple of misses I rang a door bell and waited what seemed an age when suddenly from an upstairs window popped a head and before I got a chance to speak shouted down to me "you're a Stocks, I can tell by the nose", up until then I thought my olfactory organ to be quite unremarkable but there you go! Aunty Hilda passed away thirty years ago but I'm sure she's pleased that I've passed this family trait onto my own offspring, shouldn't think he's to happy though!

This ones for MrJohn who suggested the use of my fisheye lens for a portrait.......not sure if I'll take his advice again!

ONE TO SCARE THE LITTLE ONES, HORRENDOUS IN COLOUR