Thanks for the lead,enjoyed my first (of many I hope)sojourn, picking up a feel of THE FOREST.

May I recommend a site www.way-mark.co.uk/forestofdean which you may wish to put a link to which amongst other items has an excellent memoir about life in the 1920s and 1930s in the Cinderford area.

I've today realised that this wonderful website has changed it's address. I've just found a couple of dozen of my old posts to update the links, but no doubt there will be others I cannot find. Apologies to anyone who's found outdated links in the past.

If any forum users haven't yet visited this great site, I recommend you do so. It can be a little awkward to navigate - one tip is to hover your pointer above every heading, and often that causes a new menu to appear - but it's well-worth the time and effort, as it contains a massive wealth of interesting historical and more current information about all aspects of the Forest of Dean.
The website's new address is http://way-mark.co.uk/foresthaven/start.htm