Henry240:


Grand-Pa!



Sir, there's a book I'm also looking for, i can't remember the title of the book or Author (most have been Cyprian Ekwensi or Elechi Amadi).

I remember, the story was about a boy who met a man, a Northerner in the train. This man goes on to tell the boy or amaze the boy with stories of his adventures. I think the train was traveling from Lagos - Kano.


I would be glad if you can help me recall the title of the novel, i won't call it a proper novel, it's more like a story book. Just a few pages long.

naptu2:


Telephone service was provided by P&T (Posts And Telecoms) which became Nitel in 1985. There were area codes - Ikoyi was 68, Victoria Island was 61, Lagos Island was 62, Festac was 88, Ikeja was 97, etc.

You had to wait for a dialling tone before you could make a call. We were lucky, the government paid our phone

There were huge telephone books (1978, 1979, 1982 and 1983) and you could find people's phone numbers with the telephone books.

Some short codes were 199 (emergency), 198 (speaking clock), but I can't remember what the ring back short code was.

You had to book international calls with the operator.

Henry240:


Grand-Pa!



Sir, there's a book I'm also looking for, i can't remember the title of the book or Author (most have been Cyprian Ekwensi or Elechi Amadi).

I remember, the story was about a boy who met a man, a Northerner in the train. This man goes on to tell the boy or amaze the boy with stories of his adventures. I think the train was traveling from Lagos - Kano.


I would be glad if you can help me recall the title of the novel, i won't call it a proper novel, it's more like a story book. Just a few pages long.

baddosky1:
And it was an IPOB that brought him to limelight in one of his works! Even his fellow afonjas did nothing for him in his condition!

Tell me what an afonja anywhere has done to bring an Igbo person to limelight rather than bash and cheastbeat with tribal rantings? Sick peeps

naptu2:
I used to see him every single weekday in the late '70s and 1980s. He used to busk on Igbosere Road and Broad Street on Lagos Island. I had Ekwensi's book, but it was not until the 1990s that I discovered that the book was loosely based on Kokoro.

What amazed me the most about him was that he knew the streets so well that he could walk around unaccompanied.

baddosky1:
And it was an IPOB that brought him to limelight in one of his works! Even his fellow afonjas did nothing for him in his condition!

Tell me what an afonja anywhere has done to bring an Igbo person to limelight rather than bash and cheastbeat with tribal rantings? Sick peeps

naptu2:


Telephone service was provided by P&T (Posts And Telecoms) which became Nitel in 1985. There were area codes - Ikoyi was 68, Victoria Island was 61, Lagos Island was 62, Festac was 88, Ikeja was 97, etc.

You had to wait for a dialling tone before you could make a call. We were lucky, the government paid our phone bill.

There were huge telephone books (1978, 1979, 1982 and 1983) and you could find people's phone numbers with the telephone books.

Some short codes were 199 (emergency), 198 (speaking clock), but I can't remember what the ring back short code was.

You had to book international calls with the operator.

vivaciousvivi:

Much respect daddy! 70s and 80s? Phew!

At topic: is it only me that feels some form of melancholy after reading this piece? The poor man

naptu2:


Telephone service was provided by P&T (Posts And Telecoms) which became Nitel in 1985. There were area codes - Ikoyi was 68, Victoria Island was 61, Lagos Island was 62, Festac was 88, Ikeja was 97, etc.

You had to wait for a dialling tone before you could make a call. We were lucky, the government paid our phone bill.

There were huge telephone books (1978, 1979, 1982 and 1983) and you could find people's phone numbers with the telephone books.

Some short codes were 199 (emergency), 198 (speaking clock), but I can't remember what the ring back short code was.

You had to book international calls with the operator.

Henry240:


Grand-Pa!



Sir, there's a book I'm also looking for, i can't remember the title of the book or Author (most have been Cyprian Ekwensi or Elechi Amadi).

I remember, the story was about a boy who met a man, a Northerner in the train. This man goes on to tell the boy or amaze the boy with stories of his adventures. I think the train was traveling from Lagos - Kano.


I would be glad if you can help me recall the title of the novel, i won't call it a proper novel, it's more like a story book. Just a few pages long.

Zehner:
that's called " The passport of Mallam Illia

Lilcentt:

It must surely be "passport of mallam illa" by kola onadipe

Daninya11:
One of the best novel that I have read is, " African Night Entertainment". I can't even remember the author sef.

We also had great novels like the drummer boy, passport of mallam Ilia, born without the silver spoon and so many others.

I noticed that if I don't read for a day, I find it difficult to carry out a decent conversation.

Beremx:
Long time naptu2. How are you doing?

naptu2:



I'm fine thank you dear. Have you seen this thread? https://www.nairaland.com/3439718/list-150-greatest-nigerian-songs

Henry240:


Grand-Pa!



Sir, there's a book I'm also looking for, i can't remember the title of the book or Author (most have been Cyprian Ekwensi or Elechi Amadi).

I remember, the story was about a boy who met a man, a Northerner in the train. This man goes on to tell the boy or amaze the boy with stories of his adventures. I think the train was traveling from Lagos - Kano.


I would be glad if you can help me recall the title of the novel, i won't call it a proper novel, it's more like a story book. Just a few pages long.

shakablaiize:
yes sir about the phone book i found one in my dad's wardrobe when i asked him if he knew every body in the book... he smiled and said you won't understand my son...i was much younger tho.... mehn life much have been really boring without internet

Henry240:


Grand-Pa!



Sir, there's a book I'm also looking for, i can't remember the title of the book or Author (most have been Cyprian Ekwensi or Elechi Amadi).

I remember, the story was about a boy who met a man, a Northerner in the train. This man goes on to tell the boy or amaze the boy with stories of his adventures. I think the train was traveling from Lagos - Kano.


I would be glad if you can help me recall the title of the novel, i won't call it a proper novel, it's more like a story book. Just a few pages long.

Ishilove:

Another 'ancient' one sighted

naptu2:


It's almost de ja vous (in more ways than you can imagine), but not quite. This is the thread that you are referring to.

https://www.nairaland.com/3228867/nairalanders-how-many-remember-these

obiageIi:

You can say that again, I thought I was the only one that felt it

metallisc:



haaa! somebori have teey in this life o! and you dey here dey form young girl.. chai! but you are right though...

bjbukzy:

yeah! pls there is this one where d main character was a blacksmith apprentice, (dy had a snake dy worshipped in Dia compound or he was bitten by 1) m not really sure!
can't recollect sha but I think it was written by a Cameroonian

naptu2:


Boring ke? What does boring mean I grew up in heaven, so I didn't know the meaning of boring (I always joke that I've been to heaven, hell and earth in my lifetime).

There were so many things to do and not enough time in which to do them.

Video games



You could play video games.

We had a Binatone TV Master in the 1970s.

All the games were pre-installed. I particularly remember the tennis game.
www.nairaland.com/attachments/1714590_1pd2909976_jpgbace0e56344955b32fb8a8c3065acd57

We had an Atari 2600 in the 1980s.


www.nairaland.com/attachments/1714599_109296319801985theconsolewarsbeginjpg09eb13aa605f4d137c1e47805a91c2ac_jpgcd34801d9c765e8e7c1bc35522156b9d

It had lots of games which you bought separately. The games came in cartridges.

The most popular game was Pac Man


My second favourite game was Spiderman




My favourite game was Maze Craze



I never really understood this game. Superman

---

You could watch TV

TV stations began transmitting at 5pm and shut down around midnight. There was no 70% rule at that time, so they showed a balanced mix of foreign and Nigerian programmes. I knew the tv schedule off heart. The tv became my clock.


Then came LWT. There was a battle for supremacy between NTA2 Channel 5 and Lagos Television and sometime between 1980-1982 LTV started Lagos Weekend Television (LWT).

LWT began at 7pm every Friday and ran (non-stop) until 7am on Monday. They showed the best movies and series all through. Series like Incredible Hulk, Invisible Man, The Man From Atlantis, Charlie's Angels, Wonder Woman, Dan August, The Avengers (John Steed and Emma Peal), etc.


There was a boy in my house. At around 11pm, the adults would make him go and sleep because it was past his bed time. Then, at around 1am, I would hear noise in the kitchen. This guy would be in the kitchen cooking all kinds of food. Then he would go to the parlour and sit in front of the tv with his meal. He would lower the volume so that he would be able to hear what's being said, but none of the people sleeping in the house would be able to hear it. Then at around 5am, he would sneak back into his room and sleep.

So I would wait until it's around 1:30 and then join him in the parlour to partake in his meal

Unfortunately the LWT studios burnt down in 1985 (or '86) and that was the end of their marathon transmission.

This is Chariots of Fire by Ernie Watts. It was the signature tune of LWT. It used to make a lot of people happy on Friday nights.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMIKJG3uUWQ

---

You could go to the video club and rent movies, tv shows, sports, etc or borrow from friends.

You could borrow video cassettes from friends or rent them from video clubs.

There were hip hop themed movies like Break Dance The Movie (Ozone and Turbo), Fame (the pilot was a movie, then came the tv series), etc.

There were movies and series that were adapted from classic books like The Other Side Of Midnight, Kane And Abel, Hollywood Wives, etc. These usually require TDB (Till Day Break). There was a day that we started watching movies at 7pm, took a short break to watch the news headlines at 9pm, then continued watching till 6am (I only realised what time it was when my mum called me to lock the door for her).

We were one of the first people in the neighbourhood to have a VCR (this was the late '70s) so neighbours often came over to watch with us.

Of course, in the 1980s there were video clubs like Video Mart, Cosmo, Videoscope, Glowe, etc and in the '90s there was Mega Movies.

---

Sports

I played football, basketball, tennis, rounders, baseball, cricket and table tennis. I watched, but did not play, rugby.

---

You could go to Ikoyi Club to hang out.

---

You could read books.

I had a gigantic library. There were crime novels, story books, major literary works, everything from James Hardly Chase, Jackie Collins, Jeffrey Archer and those kind of authors, to Pacesetter novels, to works by Wole Soyinka, Ngugi Wa Thiongo, etc, to the African Writers Series, to story books by Enid Blyton (Famous Five, Secret Seven, Five Find-Outers, Mallory Towers), etc.

---

You could go out and play.

I grew up in a multi-national environment and the kids taught each other various games from their countries. We had buried treasure, we had our own makeshift kitchen (where kids would bring recipes from their countries. That's where I first ate curry rice), etc.

In fact, there were so many things to do, that I could spend the whole day telling you about them.

APCmyheart:




Wow so we really have lots of kids on Nairaland, OMG and most of them will be talking to someone like their mates.. make any of una try nonsense with me again.