TIME for us to turn the clock back for a couple of minutes as we look over our shoulders at times gone by.

This week I've had a bit of feedback and correspondence and first up is this Email from my good friend, Mel Horn.

"Hi Jeff…Just reading your column, and was delighted to see the picture...A 1930s Pill Fair crowd, with my much-loved Auntie Katie (Coomber)...second left, and her niece Kitty Phillips (nee Evans)…third left, looking out at me.

“They both lived in what was then, Gracechurch Terrace, now Pill Road, right opposite the field in Eastleigh Drive, where the fair, circus, and travelling evangelist meetings used to be held.

“Great memories for me, and for many of a certain age, I'm sure."

Cheers, Mel, it's always great to hear from someone who has connections with one of the TRM photos.

Now it's time to include the final piece from The Pill Boys at War, which we've been enjoying so much over the last few weeks. I still have no idea who the Old Pill Boy who penned it might be, or if he is still around today…but he has my gratitude and compliments on an article, so well written, and so evocative of those Second World War year.

Sir…you are a gentleman and a scholar…please take a bow! Here are his ultimate thoughts…

"I have tried to write this article from memory, they are the events that did happen, a little mixed up perhaps.

“The Pill people were good people, a fact realised by many. When I have asked people to do me a favour, and they are not too inclined, they have done the favour with the remark…’Ah well..you're a Pill Boy’...a reflection on the people with whom I was brought up. I have also tried not to mention any names.

“I am sure people of my age, some younger, some older, will have remembered, or have a good idea who I was talking about.

“However, I must mention one person, probably my best friend as a youth.

“He was older than me, and I admired him immensely. He liked ferreting, cutting beanstalks down Coombs, and had a particular liking for donkeys!

“He was always whistling, except when the donkey refused to move when loaded with wood from Scotch Bay, and he had a special liking for cocoa.

“He became ill just before, or perhaps just after the end of the war, and when I returned home some months later, he was so ill, my mother persuaded me not to visit him, because he was so ill, and it would be better to remember him as he was.

“He passed away some time later, and although my mother was quite right, I always regretted not going to see him. His name was Joey Beavis, a good friend lost, but never forgotten.

“Pill and Milford have changed now, the modernisers seem to have got hold of them. No more Charles Street shops, where everyone knew everyone else.

“The Docks is just an open space with masts and Tesco's, and the last time I saw it, shiny new paint.

“Luckily I married a Milford girl 54 years ago, so at least we can reminisce on the good old days we spent before and after our marriage.

“PS...No one seems to whistle any more, could it be this Government ?

“The old times were the best you know."

Thanks again, OPB…and I agree wholeheartedly with your post script, I can't recall the last time I heard anyone whistling. My dear old mum was a wonderful whistler, so clear and melodic…My dad was another one.

As well as being an inveterate talker…he was a natural conversationalist…as anyone who knew him will confirm.

And when he wasn't talking...he was whistling...sometimes, if it was a particularly long sentence...he'd do both!

Just for the Old Pill Boy, here are two pictures I think he would've liked.

Scotch Bay...and a busy looking Charles Street.

Now for another of those…"can anyone help" items.

This week I have been exchanging a flurry of emails with Sue Barker, who'd got in touch about her great grandfather...Henry James Reeve.

Her research showed that he was born in Norfolk in 1862, served on the drifter Pescatorial YH 297 which, in June 1915, was captured and sunk by the German U-Boat 38.

Initially she believed that he had drowned, and his body not recovered.

But subsequently she discovered that he'd actually died on board the drifter from a perforated ulcer and that he was buried in Miford Haven cemetery.

Knowing it's highly unlikely, Sue just wonders if anyone has any information in respect of Henry James Reeve. If someone does...please let me know.

Now for our loyal teasers last week's answer was silver medal, and those who ran away with the prize were…Joyce Layton, Mel Horn, Avril Sturley, Les Haynes, Anne and Jets Llewellyn, Margaret Jones, Tricia and Alan Hawthorn.

Many thanks to all who got in touch.

Try this head-scratcher.

If a bottle weighs eight ounces plus half a bottle...what is the weight of a bottle and a half?

And there goes the bell telling us that time's up for another week. Don't forget to practice your whistling, if I bump into any of you over street, I'll be asking you to blow me a tune!