Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Post Office / Newsagent at 31 Turnpike Lane 1960s

This premises is opposite the junction with Vernon Road.

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Comment by Reginald summers on Sunday: Yes forgot to mention Humbrol paints one shilling for that tiny tin we used paint our bikes with it over two pounds I would guess now.

Comment by Paul Loke yesterday: Reginald Summers - I had forgotten about “Jetex”, that type of toy wouldn’t be allowed these days on health and safety grounds! That little jet engine was lethal, I had a small plastic and balsa wood speed boat powered by Jetex. We were playing with it on a local boating lake, it hit the side of a rather large sailing boat broke some rigging flipped over and spun round in the water! The sailing boat owner was not amused and chased after us, sadly that was the end of my Jetex boat 😢.

Comment by Richard Woods yesterday: Was that at Broomfield? That was where I and my brother Mike would run his homemade Jetex powered hydrofoils. We avoided Sundays due to the yachts. Later I bought and built a yacht but found it all a bit tame.

Being a rather sad old git a few years back I bought a 50th Anniversary edition of a Jetex 50 - 1947-1998! Which means since I was four in 47 I must have had my fist Jetex several years after it was introduced. Brother Mike (10 years older) built the hyrdrofoils from scratch. I recall one of them leaving the pond and shooting across he green to alarm all round!

We also had one of these which flew rather well if briefly:

Comment by Richard Woods yesterday: I found this site which is fascinating. They are still available and were never banned. In fact if you look at what flies today they are very small beer indeed!

https://www.jetex.org/index.php/faq

Comment by Richard Woods yesterday: I first did that with fireworks night rockets. I found the 1s 6d were the best size! We moved on to putting bangers in our damages rubber flight models - very satisfying! I was misled by my brother - he once converted san old model Sten gun to fire pellets using Swan Vesta matches and bits of 1/4 inch dowel cut to length! He tried the same trick on a Brittans' model anti-aircraft gun I had which fired those gun caps? But it split the barrel! I was furious!

Comment by Richard Woods yesterday: So Colerain Road from 1952... I knew a Paul from nearby and delivered papers from that very shop - Duncan it was and thank you. I was aged 9 in 1952 and my brother would have been four so may we have mixed? I was a regular user of Garrisons - bought two bikes from him - and sent all my would be present buyers there!

Comment by Reginald summers yesterday: Ha Ha those were days we used get a tuppenny cannon light it hold it for it a bit then drop it into a drain. There was one almighty bang. We did the same putting a cannon in a brick wall had to rake out some of the mortar though and the cannon used to do the rest.

Comment by Richard Woods yesterday: Oh yes. My older brother was inventive and ten years older than me. He would buy some rockets and then build with balsa etc a multi-stage thing. We were ahead of our time - although the WAC Corpora/V2l had flow by then. Anyway our beast had three stages and used Jetex fuse to link the ignition. Of cou4rse timing was impossible and you cam guess what happens. Stage one gets it to about 50 feet and then it starts to fall back and turn. Stage two fires and it careers hopelessly out of control into our neighbours garden where it lodges, still cascading, under the ledge below their French doors. Brother rushes to try and douse it but is too late. Stage three - the one with the banger attached! - starts; he back off hastily and there is a sort of flash and no sound and it all comes to an end. Seems the banger was damaged! So were the French doors. Brother Mike has no choice but to own up and cough up. The neighbour is furious - "what did you not ask me to watch? Sounds like great fun". Still cost him heavily though! I was about 7 or 8 and he had just been called up!

Comment by Gordon T yesterday: Yes I remember Jetex and their uncontrolled outcome. In a related experiment (I was a science A-level student) two of us took a container down to the nearby river Medway, (a wide, muddy expanse) and lit the fuse. BANG!! Much bigger than we expected.

No one hurt, no one muddied, but we didn't do that again. I won't say what was the mixture, but it wasn't gunpowder and was widely available then AND ISN'T NOW.

Comment by Richard Woods 12 hours ago: Jetex was anything but uncontrolled. But you did have to follow instructions. The solid rocket fuel pellet was covered by gauze and more and ignited by a fast hot fuse which was intended to be lit by a dethermaliser fuse which burned at a controlled rate. A single motor aircraft was fairly simple/ The 50 size would power a silhouette aircraft; it took a 150 or 250 size to power anything bigger. We built an Attacker and a Hunter using 250s and they flew quite well. This show how the Jetex was assembled:

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