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Me too. The slide rule was a mystery for a while but I managed to master it. Mind you, if you put one in my hands now I'd probably be lost. How quickly we forget - unlike riding a bicycle.
I'm not sure whether or not I ever owned a slide rule though. My father was a surveyor so there was always one in the house for homework (his, mine and my siblings') and suchlike. My father eventually came into possession of a mechanical calculator. I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called but it wasn't half a miracle of mechanical engineering. It consisted of a cylinder with dial-up numerals around the top lip and a fold out device - it looked like a ring pull from a soft drink can, only much more solid - which, once your settings were done was whizzed around at a million miles an hour in order to perform the calculations. This was compacted into a cylinder about, oh, I don't know, say 3" high and 2" in diameter.
Alex, as a child I'd occasionally help the local milkman, sitting on the back of the dray and leaping off with a ladle (there's probably a more accurate term) and racing up to each front door to pour the milk into the jugs left on the doorsteps. When I started work in a bank one of my duties as office junior was to empty, wash and refill the inkwells (black and red). The ink had to be made freshly each day. Ballpoint pens were not allowed; the reasoning was that no one was sure as to how long such impressions would last, so, being tied down to a system which required long term retention of records, understandably they were banned.
I also had to set and light the fires in wintery weather. All calculations were done by hand. In order to get us sprogs up to speed we were given a page of the telephone book each day and consigned to a corner to add up a column of 'phone numbers. Ah, halcyon days.
Shame on you, Alex, for bringing back all these memories.
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