Vintage Photos Wembley Stadium

Picture: English Heritage/PA

The Telegraph had a photo slide show of vintage ariel photos of England which readers on line have been invited to share.

Many of the photos, which range from 1919 to 1953, were so old and fragile that they were close to being lost forever. Above, the FA Cup Final Wembley Stadium on April 27, 1935. Sheffield Wednesday beat West Bromwich Albion by four goals to two. The Cierva autogyro in the foreground was flown by Scotland Yard, experimenting with air observation to monitor crowds. (Telegraph)


I found the above photo very nostalgic because this is where I spent a large part of my childhood. Yes, I used to run around Wembley Stadium. This was because my grandfather Henry Thorpe was the chief accountant and in 1926 nearly the owner.  I went to the Olympics Opening Ceremony in 1948. I was five.


Ariel photography was very rare up until relatively recently until the advent of Google maps and Earth. It was a bit of a learning curve to get my brain used to seeing objects from the top. I found it hard to find the pyramids. I knew they were on the West Bank but I have never been to Egypt.  Even the Eifel Tower is difficult to pick out from above.


I used to make the drive from Stanmore to Taplow for over twenty five years. I could trace it on a map. Recently on a dull afternoon I tried to do this on Google Earth. It was incredibly difficult and so enlightening. In fact I found it fascinating to see exacty where and in which direction I was going. London is so large there are many areas which I do not know well and to actually see the lay out from the air was mind boggling.


Pilots are used to this but again picking out London Airport from way up in the atmosphere for the first time was challenging. How they do this I can only guess.


Now I am used to looking at the world from above. Google Earth has added vintage photos to ordinary streets and I can relive the days of my youth in Stanmore when our street was lined with elms and oaks that now sadly have been cut down.


Enjoy the photos. 

FDA Warning Rantidine/ PPI

This is a warning to all of you who take anti antacid drugs regularly. You know the sort you buy over the counter at the chemist and supermarket. For years these drugs like Zantac/Ranitidine have been considered as safe as houses but now it seems they are not and the US Federal Drug Administration has delivered a waring that long term use of these drugs can damage your health as  use can lead to diarrhea and the deadly hospital super bug Clostridium Difficile.  You do not want this.

How do I know? Well ten years ago I caught this bug possible because of a hospital stay and use of a Protein Pump Inhibitor for heliobacter. CD nearly killed me. CD kills.

Consequently the hospital docs warned me never, never to use a PPI again EVER! I knew this, I have it written on all  my medical notes, NO PPI's but my GP who has now left for Australia did not think it was of consequence and prescribed one without telling me. I immediately checked on Wikipedia and found it was a PPI and I refused to take it

My oh so clever GP then prescribed Ranitidine without telling me that this was a sort of PPI! He said it was a safe alternative. He warned me I should not get well without it and that I had to take it for at least 6 months. I did not fare well on this drug. I took it for two months because my GP said if I refused to take it he would not treat me. I lost weight even though I was eating over 2000 calories a day and started to have long term diarrhea.

It got to be so bad I returned only to be fobbed off with a slightly lower dose. I felt awful.

It was only after a visit to the hospital dietician who had been very helpful when I was first ill I discovered that Ranitidine was in  a PPI and later that day to my horror I discovered that on the 2nd February this year the US FDA had issued a warning that these drugs can lead to CD. I came off it that night.

My message is  it is vital to check any drug given on Wikipedia or browse for Adverse Drug Effects before you take it. I trusted this doctor but he let me down twice and if I had not found out it could have been serious.  Obviously to be fair a GP cannot know everything. Medicine moves too fast these days but even so this is a serious warning.

Lesson. Only take an anti antacid if absolutely necessary. Even simple ones like Mylanta should be used sparingly and if you do not believe maybe you will believe the FDA

PS Twenty one days later I am feeling better thanks in due to a new diet regime I found on the web Reflux Defense. I have gained weight and slowly recovering.
This is last post on my health.

Vitamin B12 Deficiency the forgotten killer

Must read! Available at Amazon.com

Could it be B12? Yes in my case it was. B12 Deficiency once a major killer is now mainly ignored  by the present day doctors and goes so undiagnosed leaving sufferers with a life of misery and even early death. A simple blood test and a course of cheap safe B12 injections can restore life to normal if diagnosed in its early stages.

Symptoms include fatigue, numbness of hands and feet, memory loss, irritability, depression, gastrointestinal disorders and, in extreme cases, dementia. Barring the last, as the other symptoms are of a general nature and usually ignored, it becomes difficult to detect the deficiency. (Read more at:http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/low-vitamin-levels-making-delhiites-sick/1/200333.html)

I was lucky but it took two months and a hospital stay before my Croatian GP diagnosed my problem. Nobody else had thought of it. A raw spotty tongue, misdiagnosed as Lie Lumps,severe weight loss and increased anxiety should have been major clues to what was wrong with me but for many doctors this rang no bells.

It seems I have been B12 deficient for many years and the lack of it had left me with  serious problems. It has been a long voyage to get the amount of B12 I need back into my system. B12 is completely safe. It is a vitamin and can be bought over any chemists counter. According to the FDA there is no upper limit to the amount of B12 that can be taken as any  B12 the body does not need is removed in one's urine. Bought in bulk B12 costs pennies and it improves the quality of life for millions of people.

Yet in NZ and UK this vitamin is harder to obtain than heroin. It appears that the governments of both countries are not prepared to fund it and many poor who cannot afford to go private are refused. In the UK at the moment there are Bills before parliament to end this situation.

I am lucky. I can fund my own B12 injections and in fact now that my body has enough I can gradually ease off until I get the balance just right for me. Others are not so lucky.

So friends, take my advise and get a vitamin B12 blood test every few years to avoid deficiency and problems. I became very thin and anxious. Because it was left almost too late I shall always have problems but I am alive. I owe my life to my GP who although less than perfect at other times gave me this simple test.

NB Before you go for a B12 test it is important you are not taking any multi vitamin supplements which could effect the results. The Pernicious Anemia Society UK recommends that the level of B12 in the body should be around 450 points and that any result below that means one is deficient. However the Medical Fraternity in some countries who may for financial reasons not wish to fund at that level reduce the levels in UK to 200 and in NZ to 170. In my country one has to be very deficient to get the injections. I was around 150 which is 300 points below what is considered normal. 

The treatment of B12 Deficiency has not changed for 50 years and is now out of date. Everybody is different and has differing needs and with B12 one size does not fit all. I and many other need much more. Fortunately as B12 is so safe one can resort to subcutaneous patches and pills that go slowly into the blood stream but these are not as good as an injection.

The enlightened treatment is to medicate as required and I am lucky as I can do so. 

So if you have any of the symptoms listed above take a B12 test. It could save you from a life of misery.

In Praise of Vitamin B12

On my YouTube Xmas message I ended by saying how much I enjoyed my life and how one never knew what was around the corner. If only I had known! In fact it was a good thing that I didn't know!

I ate some smoked salmon a day before Christmas and I unlocked the genie out of the bottle. It has taken five months to recover and I am a wiser woman as a result.

It is difficult to know where to start. Perhaps I shouldn't but it has taken ages  to get to the stage where I can just about begin to live again. This has been challenging.

My blog has suffered as I have not felt up to writing it. Nobody is interested in the illnesses of others and I have no wish to bore or embarrass so this will be the only reference.

Well that's not quite true because in my next post I shall tell of my adventures with Vitamin B12 and the subsequent of the dangers of Losec and Ranitidine as a warning to others.

Coming back to my blog I find all the formats have changed and I am back to the challenge of new technology. I hope I am up to it.

Ever heard of Lie Bumps?

Have you ever heard of lie bumps? Until a week a go I hadn't and neither had my doctors. It took me a good Google and Wiki to track them down but they have made the start of 2012 memorable in a nasty unpleasant way.

Lie bumps or Transient lingual papillittis as they a officially known are infected taste buds that are all over your tongue. You probably have experienced that annoying enlarged bobble that suddenly arrives on your tongue and is so annoying that eventually you get your teeth around it and bite it off and indeed this is an old wives's cure not officially sanctioned.

My lie bumps arrived this week on Tuesday night to be exact with a bout of wretching in the middle of the night. Never be ill on a public holiday. The medical system comes to a complete stop. I did go to the all night emergency but at that time there was nothing to see. All changed over the next few days.

It was not until Thursday that I noticed these strange, extremely sore and sensitive lumps on the back of my tongue. By this time my right ear was infected. I saw a female doctor and she was puzzled but I said I had researched on Wiki and I think I knew what they were. If you tried this with a male doctor you would get short shrift! She looked it up and agreed.

They are not dangerous and should go away but I have lots of them, hence the infected ear and worst of all I can hardly eat. The pain is excruciating! The nearest thing I can give as a example is shingels in the mouth. The antibiotics for the ear will not cure the virus based lie bumps and have given me tinnitus as well, sounded like a police siren but fortunately this has stopped.

It seems the lie bumps take 15 days to clear. I shall be a skelington by then!

So not a great start to 2012. Trust me to get something unusual!

Update Friday 29 June 2012

Six months later I feel I must write a postscript for anyone reading this and it has surprisingly been one of my most viewed blogs.

Yes lie lumps are harmless but they could indicate something that if allowed to continue could kill you and today many doctors fail to recognize the symptoms namely lie lumps and a sore tongue can be a sign of Vitamin B12 deficiency or Pernicious Anemia. In India B12 deficiency is the first thing a Doctor thinks of.

I had B12 deficiency. I became ill in December 2011 but it took till February 2012  till my GP did a blood test. This test might never have been done. What might have followed is to awful to contemplate and it is it has taken 6 months to sort of recover as it is. It has been most unpleasant.

My suggestion is if you experience lie lumps have a B12 blood test. I cannot harm you and it may save you a life of misery.

Janette The Woman in a Dressing Gown

When my friends or strangers knock on my door and I do not expect them they are likely to find me in my dressing gown. They are shocked! It seems to their normal conservative lives that living in a dressing gown qualifies one in the slut category. A woman in a dressing gown is beyond saving.

I have given up trying to explain that professional performing artists live in their dressing gowns. For us it is the norm. Sitting around for hours in cold theaters and film sets with tissues draped over every white collar and cuff to keep the make up off the costumes or getting ready in one's cold dressing room in Bradford a good warm cuddly dressing gown is a tool of the trade.

To me a dressing gown is the real me. I have lived in one nearly all my life. When I go out I put on my going out costume or for normal people my everyday dress but my dressing gown is what I live in all day.

This wasn't always the case. When I was young there was a war and clothing coupons so I did not get a real dressing gown until I went to Aldeburgh, my first job away when I was 15. I was so thrilled but I bought a cotton one which for UK was not warm enough for sitting about in freezing churches at 10 pm and it was too long so it got wet on the muddy paths on the way from the dressing rooms 100 yard away in the rectory. I learned my lesson after that. Since then all my dressing gowns have been short, very warm and when in the theatre a shade of peach so as not to show the powder. Now I favor black!

It was at my ballet school, Arts Educational Schools in London, where the importance of a dressing gown was forcefully drummed into me. The little ballet dancers had to don a housecoat to move from class to class. It was forbidden to appear in ballet practice gear in any other place other than the studio. Our housecoats were very unglamorous, a nasty shade of grey cotton with a tight bright blue web belt that was a torture to wear.

I think my favorite dressing gown time was during the interval between shows in London musicals on Saturdays. For me this was a magical time. Food was shipped in from the Act 1 Scene 1 cafe and I just loved their jam doughnuts. We used to visit each other in the dressing rooms which were warm and cosy with the light bulbs around the mirrors and the delicious smell of make up. We never got fat. One dressing room I was allotted in The Cambridge Theatre was 72 stairs up and the lift wasn't working. On a matinee day I climbed the Post Office Tower twice. When I caught a cold my dresser had to bring my costumes downstairs.

And so began my life in a dressing gown which still lingers to this day. It is so comfortable and I am not going to give it up! So next time you call to see me unannounced do not be surprised to find me in my dressing gown.

Happy New Year 2012

A New Year has dawned. 2012 has arrived in a blaze of downpours. We have been deluged in Auckland and I believe Christchurch has been hit with yet another earthquake. They happen so frequently these days that everyone is rather blaze about them. 'Oh yes, only 5.9 nothing to get excited about'.

2011 was so wonderful that the thought of 2012 scares me a bit. Being of a mature age  every day is now a gift so I have to use my time wisely. I have decided to start a separate blog Janette Miller's Strange Life where I am going to write about some of the strange events that have colored my life. I did not ask for any of this. I should have preferred a more normal existence but it was not to be.

The reason I am writing this is mainly for my grand daughter who I shall never really get to know. I want her to at least know a bit about the real me. In my blogs I am franker than I am in real life as I do hold what many many consider extreme positions on some subjects that socially should never be mentioned and in real life I don't but in my Strange Life Blog I shall. I am too old now to worry about  being cut off Christmas Card lists.

Doing it this way makes me do it but this blog is not going to be my major project for 2012. My DVD of Schubert's 'Die Winterreise' is Project numero uno! I have recorded the 24 Songs again. I did them in a sound studio just before my husband Miles died and you can see his appreciation here . But we did it in two one hour sessions and on the latter Miles was very ill so the 24 songs were by no means perfect. Neither of us were at our best. His last comments on leaving the studio were that 'Someone could put the wrong bits right' and ten years later much to his surprise I can. I am doing the cycle as my own personal Winter Journey. Traditionalists can ignore it but Schubert Songs are so approachable they can be reinterpreted ad infinitum.

For relief I am going to make a food DVD with the help of the artistry of my local butcher. He is a real butcher and I like real food. The way my butcher butchers a  lamb carcass in ten  minutes is sheer magic and like bookbinding a dying craft.

Of course there is my garden to consider. It is so easy to manage  as it looks after itself but I am going to go for more lilies and gladdies next year so I have to plan ahead.

Then there is my novel, yes I have written one of those and my short stories that I intend to self publish this year. The novel is teamed with a CD, a chapter a song and I still have to do some work on that to make it fit.

With all those projects I shall be kept busy for a year and I don't expect to finish them all but it is important at my age to have a project on the go. In my experience them without projects die!

Lastly I intend to take two short holidays one in Rotorua to film some mud pools and if I have time I have a go at upgrading my web site as it looks awful on Google Chrome and I dread to think what it looks like on an iPad. but I have to upgrade my Adobe Suite and that is expensive and may have to be put off. It also will take months as Web designing is challenging.

But you never know with life! At my age I may not be here. Will I live to see the Olympic Games in London? Oh I do hope so. I am going to give it my best shot.