I spent a year sitting in a room at Aramco, Saudi Arabia.  At least it was well cooled, except when the air conditioning went wrong, in which case they improvised this giant hose into the room from a standby AC unit just outside the door.

One day I went round to the frame and one of the Filipinos looked entirely different- he had started wearing a wig! having been used to him bald as a billiard ball up until then it was hard to keep a straight face. In fact, whilst I took this photo it was hard to keep the camera still, I was laughing so much.

You can see how long the frame was, I was about half way down.

In the 90s, we had a bit of a gang of older ex-18 Plussers, still organising events and known colloquially as “Renegade” . We had an annual trip to Center Parcs, various parties (30ths, then 40ths, now 50ths) and a few trips abroad, notably to Paris and Amsterdam.

This picture was taken on Brighton Pier. It was a planning weekend and an excuse for a few beers and a meet up. I’m the little girl, the Dad is Martyn, the Mum is Dave Dom and the baby is Charles who acquired the nickname “Pampers”  after a particularly funny impromptu cabaret at Center Parcs when he was dressed in an improvised nappy.

Sadly, Charles accidentally killed himself and this sent shock waves through Renegade and Eighteen Plus as well, him still being active at National level. Charles, we still miss you, rest in peace…

The Eighteen Plus Easter Holiday had a big budget for entertainment, but then again, it had to cater for thousands of Plussers across five venues at its peak during the 70s so it needed it.

At my first Caister in 1979, I was delighted to bump into Radio 1 DJ Simon Bates buying a paper in the on-site shop. I persuaded him to pose for the camera wearing a Coventry badge and as he handed it back, I said he could keep it but he assured me that he was offered way too much stuff to keep all of it.

There was always a big comedy element at certain lunchtime shows. Her is Roger DeCourcey with Nookie Bear. He was a rubbish ventriloquist but that bear could swear! (He wasn’t originally called Nookie before TV either…)

I’ve supped a few Pints with comedy folk singer Fred Wedlock over the years as he used to compere the traditional talent contest that I became involved with organising. He had an unexpected chart hit in 1981 and I am starting to feel a bit like the subject of his song these days!

This was Alex Carlyle, the software specialist at Nortel when I started there. As we were both batchelors, we went drinking occasionally, although we were something of opposites. He had bought himself a tiny detached house which needed a lot of work doing then built himself a mammoth shed to restore vintage cars in. (I just did without a car, then bought a new one when I needed one).

His house always felt cold, whereas mine was always sweltering. I once made a lunch for us using a crock-pot and cook in sauce- when he reciprocated he cooked from raw ingredients and I discovered that Ginger could be bought raw.

He married an 18+ Member, I dragged him along to Caister one year (probably 1985) and he met his future wife sitting on the pink plastic hippo in the pool.

(I can’t be bothered to find the picture of the hippo but I do have it somewhere!)