A little bit of Cambridge returns to Manchester after 50 years in Milan

Now, in a country which is known for style the classic Ronson Varaflame held its own against all that Italian design could throw at it.

It was introduced in 1957, and was one of the world’s first gas lighters, which was refilled by those distinctive blue torpedo tubes, which when empty ended up as a prop on my model railway.

I remember the lighter well, mainly because it looked so modern in a house still dominated by clunky heavy unfashionable objects from the late 1940s.

And today, holding one in my hand, it combines a robust solid body with that pioneering aerodynamic shape, and it knocked the socks off everything else  that was around at the time.

Mother had one, which she cherished, but I rather think it has long been lost.

All of which made the discovery of Simone’s Varaflame a real find.

It was bought sometime in the early 1960s, in Cambridge, and travelled to Italy a decade later where it  busied itself doing the business for sixty years, and has now made its way to Manchester.

Sadly, the Kodak Instamatic, 304, has not be joined it.  

It first appeared in 1965 and was one of the more sophisticated instamatics, which along with others in the Kodak range introduced a generation to low-cost photography, and in turn had many imitators.

But as fun as it still looks, it is old smelly photography, relying on film, chemicals, and a dark room to recreate its magic.

And we have embraced the digital alternative.  So if it made its way to Manchester, it would just sit in a corner of the study, gathering dust, but never likely to be put on the market for sale

Such are the relics of family history.

It was also bought in Cambridge in the 1960s, left with the family for Italy, but will stay in that country.

Location; Cambridge, Varese, Manchester

Pictures, Ronson Varaflame, 1957, and the Kodak Instamatic, 304, 1965, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Travels with Friends ..........

Now, I maintain, and I maintain most strongly that there are no age limitations on adventures.

That said, I do concede that during the years you have to go out to work, raise a family and just be grown up, adventures become more modest.

But even so, you can cram them in, like my first trip to Greece as an adult.  We hadn’t made it easy and had opted to fly from Stanstead via Cambridge, which involved the long drive from Manchester.

But it did allow us time to explore Cambridge and visit Lois’s Uncle Sid and Aunt Audrey.  As I recall we ate cucumber sandwiches, followed by fruit salad and Aunt Audrey’s special cake.

The rest is a haze.  I don’t remember visiting any historic buildings or catching sight of a Cambridge Don, although we must have fallen into several pubs.

And I long ago just assumed it was a lost bit of the Greek holiday, but then I rediscovered a pile of negatives dating back to my flirtation with smelly photography, which required chemicals, and a dark room and in my case a dollop of luck.

For years they had sat in the cellar along with the rest of the collection, never to see the light of day, But Christmas brought a scanner, and with that the means to turn them into JPEGs.

What has been revealed is a mishmash, of images.  Some are too dark, others too light and a few out of focus, which is where the dollop of luck enters the story.

These were my first attempts at taking pictures with a proper camera and it has to be said my timing for developing and printing pictures could be hit and miss.

But the Cambridge ones worked.

And here is the clue to where we ended up, because most of what has survived are pictures of the river.

I vaguely remember it was hot and the pictures confirm it, with one father striking the pose as he punted the family down the Cam wearing just Speedos and an unbuttoned shirt.

More circumspect was the man beside the bridge who was content to wear a bomber jacket and jeans as he fished the water.

But dress can be a double edged way of making a statement, and I was laughed at for the whole of the week because of my “Speedy Ducks” which were a pair of soft leather casual shoes in tan.

I rather thought they would set me apart on the beach in Greece, not realizing that plastic flip flops were required wear under a Greek sun.

I remained the butt of jokes well into the winter of that year, which made me all the more determined to continue to wear them, until on one foul night the following spring, the bottom of one parted from its top.

We had long since drunk all the bottles of Retsina and Domestica, lost the addresses of the bar companions we promised to say in touch with, and those shoes were pretty much all I had left.

But along with the Cambridge pictures there are the Greek ones, which set me off on a Greek story.*

Location; Cambridge













Pictures; Cambridge, 1981, from the collection of Andrew Simpson


*Adventures in Greece ........ a ferry and a trip into the unknown, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/adventures-in-greece-ferry-and-trip.html