I was trying to remember some of the presents I loved in my childhood. See if you remember any of them.
'Baco' sets - you got plans and could build small houses with them. They were made from bakelite, there were bases with lots of holes that you placed rods in. The bricks and windows slotted in between the rods. There were ready made roofs of different sizes to finish them off.
'John Bull printing outfit' - There were lots of small rubber letters and numbers which slid into slots in wooden blocks. You made up a few lines of text and pressed it onto an ink pad and then stamped it the text onto paper.
'Meccano set' - I'm sure we all remember those. Various metal shapes, wheels, nuts and bolts for making all sorts of models.
'Triang and Hornby Double O electric train sets' - Every boy's dream. I didn't think my parents could afford one and found a smaller version in a Grattan's catalogue. It was a 'triple O' scale and that's what I thought they would buy for me. They came up trumps and bought me the Triang set. Do you remember the fantastic smell of ozone from the electric sparks of the engines.
'Sweet shop' - I though this was great. It had small tubes of candy/sweets and some weighing scales. The box made up into a shop.
'Chemistry set' - Lots of test tubes and powders. I thought it was really exciting at first but it soon turned boring when I realised you couldn't do anything very interesting with it. No explosions or nasty smells!
'Mechanical penguin' - Simple little toy. Strangely enough it was green and white. Made from pressed metal it had a wind up mechanism and two wheels. The wings flapped up and down and it moved around, changing direction every so often.
'Wigwam tent' - I went downstairs one Christmas to find it standing there. I loved this and had many good times with my mates in it.
'Desk and chair' - One year, both me and my sister got one. Made by triang, they had a little ink well and a lift up lid where you could keep paper and things underneath it and. We played at schools with them (strange since I hated school), wrote stories, drew and painted etc.
'Bagatelle' - A weird toy, it was a board with a curved wall around the edge. Inside were small cupped holes with nails around them. There was a plunger thing that fired glass marbles into the board and you had to try to get them to land in the cups which had various scores.
If I can think of any more I'll add them later.
Friday 19 December 2008
Wednesday 17 December 2008
Christmas approaching
It’s that time of year again. What was it like in the 1950s? For children of any generation, it is a time of great excitement. 1950s-style Christmas was quite different to what it is today and I have to say, it was much better. Bear in mind that treats were few and far between and television was still a rarity in many homes. We weren’t pummelled with advertising every fifteen minutes like we are now and it didn’t start in October either! So when it did come, it was the most exciting and welcomed part of the year for us (maybe not for our parents though).
Winters were colder and snow more frequent, so the setting was more naturally ‘Christmassy’ than it is now. For us it would start with the odd brown paper parcel from the postman, which mum would quickly ferret away out of our sight. We had a lot of aunties and uncles who sent us gifts but we didn’t figure that was what the parcels were until much older. We still believed in Santa for a long time. The first exciting event was probably helping mum make the Christmas cake. Putting all the lovely ingredients into a big bowl and helping mix it up. Of course, the best part was scraping the bowl clean and eating the sweet, gooey mixture. It always caused arguments between my sister and I so we used to draw a line halfway across the bowl – mine and hers.
Next piece of fun was decorating the rooms. An old cardboard box, full decorations appeared along with a small artificial tree. It had a small round wooden base, which was too small to support the tree, so dad wedged it into a fruit bowl, packed the sides with sand and covered it with cotton wool to make it look like snow. Mum did the tree decorating, assisted by my sister and I. We took it in turns to pick out a piece, which we had carefully wrapped in newspaper after the previous Christmas. There were certain favourites that we hoped we would find when we opened them. There was a green, frosted-glass church with sparkly snow on the roof and a bauble with a long spike and an indented face that looked like an old-fashioned car headlight. That one went on the top (no fairy). Our most favourites were two small glass birds with nylon brushes for tails. They had a clip on the bottom to attach them to the tree. Shirley and I had one each. I think mine was yellow and hers pink. We didn’t have any lights for the tree but I really longed for some. We finished it off with a long string of pink, glassy beads and small lumps of cotton wool for snow.
Meanwhile, dad would be getting fraught with the paper streamers that were hung from corner to corner of the ceilings in the two downstairs rooms. I didn’t understand why he seemed so cross about the affair until I grew up and had the job to do myself. I reckon it was mostly the frustration of drawing pins. You teeter on the top of a stepladder, stretching over the settee and trying to pin the streamers to the wall. Your back is killing you and you either drop the pin first or find that it is bent and have to come down for another one. You try to push that into the hard plaster and that one bends too, or the streamer rips. Over-excited kids getting under your feet and demanding you put this one up now doesn’t help either. Plus you know it’s all to take down and put away again in a couple of weeks. Bah humbug – anyway back to the reminiscences of childhood.
My favourites decorations were the ball and bell shaped things that started out flat. You opened them like a book and clipped the two edges together to make a coloured, paper, 3D decoration. We usually made some paper chains and lanterns from different-coloured, gummed, paper strips. Blowing up balloons was always fun, making us dizzy. Some would escape our grip and fly around the room making a loud farting noise. Sometimes they’d go completely haywire and disappear up the chimney. Best was if one burst whilst someone was blowing it up. Lastly were the small figures that we put on the mantelpieces. There was a set of three small fir trees that looked like tapered bottle-brushes. I think we had one of those clear plastic domes that were filled with water and white flakes. There was a snowman inside and you shook the thing to create a small snowstorm inside it. I think we had a small plaster santa that held one of the trees.
The scene was set and we were pumped up with excitement. Mum would soon be busy baking buns and cakes, making trifle etc ready for the BIG DAY. Christmas Eve arrived and we were so excited we thought we’d simply explode. Usually, my parents arranged a pie and pea supper for the adults – mum and dad, mum’s parents and my auntie and uncle who all lived in the same town. They were never big boozers, a couple of bottles of pale ale each for the men and a glass of QC sherry or port for the ladies. Sometimes grandad would bring a big cigar each for the men. We were never allowed to stay up for the supper and it was one day in the year that we didn’t argue. We figured that the sooner the night was over the better, then it would be Christmas Day and the real fun would start.
Usually on Christmas Eve my sister and I slept in the same double bed. I think it started when one of my uncles was staying and was using my bed. After that, we always wanted to stay together on Christmas Eve because we were so excited we couldn’t sleep at all and we could talk and pass the night away better. Grandad would usually come upstairs to say goodnight and spin one of his yarns about how he’s just seen Santa and his sleigh on one of the roofs down the road, but we had to be good and go to sleep before he would come here. The night seemed so long and we would keep peeping out of the bedroom door to see if ‘he’d been yet’. The tradition in our house was to leave our presents in pillow-cases on the stair landing. After several disappointing investigations, I guess we eventually fell asleep in the wee hours. We’d soon be awake again though! Probably around five or six am we’d see the pillow-cases there, bursting with parcels. Sometimes we had a furtive feel to see if we could guess what was in them. I remember one year, an umbrella-shaped parcel in my sister’s sack – no surprises there then! Eventually we woke our parents and begged them to let us open the presents…………More to follow.
Winters were colder and snow more frequent, so the setting was more naturally ‘Christmassy’ than it is now. For us it would start with the odd brown paper parcel from the postman, which mum would quickly ferret away out of our sight. We had a lot of aunties and uncles who sent us gifts but we didn’t figure that was what the parcels were until much older. We still believed in Santa for a long time. The first exciting event was probably helping mum make the Christmas cake. Putting all the lovely ingredients into a big bowl and helping mix it up. Of course, the best part was scraping the bowl clean and eating the sweet, gooey mixture. It always caused arguments between my sister and I so we used to draw a line halfway across the bowl – mine and hers.
Next piece of fun was decorating the rooms. An old cardboard box, full decorations appeared along with a small artificial tree. It had a small round wooden base, which was too small to support the tree, so dad wedged it into a fruit bowl, packed the sides with sand and covered it with cotton wool to make it look like snow. Mum did the tree decorating, assisted by my sister and I. We took it in turns to pick out a piece, which we had carefully wrapped in newspaper after the previous Christmas. There were certain favourites that we hoped we would find when we opened them. There was a green, frosted-glass church with sparkly snow on the roof and a bauble with a long spike and an indented face that looked like an old-fashioned car headlight. That one went on the top (no fairy). Our most favourites were two small glass birds with nylon brushes for tails. They had a clip on the bottom to attach them to the tree. Shirley and I had one each. I think mine was yellow and hers pink. We didn’t have any lights for the tree but I really longed for some. We finished it off with a long string of pink, glassy beads and small lumps of cotton wool for snow.
Meanwhile, dad would be getting fraught with the paper streamers that were hung from corner to corner of the ceilings in the two downstairs rooms. I didn’t understand why he seemed so cross about the affair until I grew up and had the job to do myself. I reckon it was mostly the frustration of drawing pins. You teeter on the top of a stepladder, stretching over the settee and trying to pin the streamers to the wall. Your back is killing you and you either drop the pin first or find that it is bent and have to come down for another one. You try to push that into the hard plaster and that one bends too, or the streamer rips. Over-excited kids getting under your feet and demanding you put this one up now doesn’t help either. Plus you know it’s all to take down and put away again in a couple of weeks. Bah humbug – anyway back to the reminiscences of childhood.
My favourites decorations were the ball and bell shaped things that started out flat. You opened them like a book and clipped the two edges together to make a coloured, paper, 3D decoration. We usually made some paper chains and lanterns from different-coloured, gummed, paper strips. Blowing up balloons was always fun, making us dizzy. Some would escape our grip and fly around the room making a loud farting noise. Sometimes they’d go completely haywire and disappear up the chimney. Best was if one burst whilst someone was blowing it up. Lastly were the small figures that we put on the mantelpieces. There was a set of three small fir trees that looked like tapered bottle-brushes. I think we had one of those clear plastic domes that were filled with water and white flakes. There was a snowman inside and you shook the thing to create a small snowstorm inside it. I think we had a small plaster santa that held one of the trees.
The scene was set and we were pumped up with excitement. Mum would soon be busy baking buns and cakes, making trifle etc ready for the BIG DAY. Christmas Eve arrived and we were so excited we thought we’d simply explode. Usually, my parents arranged a pie and pea supper for the adults – mum and dad, mum’s parents and my auntie and uncle who all lived in the same town. They were never big boozers, a couple of bottles of pale ale each for the men and a glass of QC sherry or port for the ladies. Sometimes grandad would bring a big cigar each for the men. We were never allowed to stay up for the supper and it was one day in the year that we didn’t argue. We figured that the sooner the night was over the better, then it would be Christmas Day and the real fun would start.
Usually on Christmas Eve my sister and I slept in the same double bed. I think it started when one of my uncles was staying and was using my bed. After that, we always wanted to stay together on Christmas Eve because we were so excited we couldn’t sleep at all and we could talk and pass the night away better. Grandad would usually come upstairs to say goodnight and spin one of his yarns about how he’s just seen Santa and his sleigh on one of the roofs down the road, but we had to be good and go to sleep before he would come here. The night seemed so long and we would keep peeping out of the bedroom door to see if ‘he’d been yet’. The tradition in our house was to leave our presents in pillow-cases on the stair landing. After several disappointing investigations, I guess we eventually fell asleep in the wee hours. We’d soon be awake again though! Probably around five or six am we’d see the pillow-cases there, bursting with parcels. Sometimes we had a furtive feel to see if we could guess what was in them. I remember one year, an umbrella-shaped parcel in my sister’s sack – no surprises there then! Eventually we woke our parents and begged them to let us open the presents…………More to follow.
Wednesday 3 December 2008
some wintry memories
Coming home from school to a cold house, warmed only by paraffin heater. Do you remember the smell? Or maybe mum had lit a fire but you couldn’t feel it because there was a clothes-horse around it, full of damp, steaming washing.
Buttercup syrup or Gees Linctus to sooth your cough. Having Vic ointment rubbed on your chest and nose when you had a cold – boy did it sting if you had a sore nose. Sena pod and raisin tea when you were constipated
Chilblains and sore calves from cold, wet wellies and lads dropping snowballs inside them. Why did your socks always slip down and end up in a ball on the end of your foot? Ballaclavas mum had knitted and woolly mittens held together with string and threaded through your coat sleeves, so that you didn’t lose them.
Ponds, lakes and rivers freezing over. Long icicles hanging from dripping overflow pipes. Bottles of milk on your doorstep that had frozen. The solid milk expanded and pushed the tops off. Sometimes bluetits had pecked the foil open to drink the cream.
Cars that wouldn’t start in the morning and had to be ‘pushed off’ or started by cranking a huge handle through the radiator.
Being the first one out in the morning and running through the fresh, virgin snow to leave your tracks. The fun of just watching your breath coming out as steam. Looking to the sky, watching snowflakes falling, how they hurt when they hit your eyeball.
Power cuts and the excitement of having to use candles to light the house.
Having a bath in front of the fire, then toasting bread or crumpets on a fork. Drinking hot milk and honey and snuggling up to mum or dad for a story before bedtime.
Buttercup syrup or Gees Linctus to sooth your cough. Having Vic ointment rubbed on your chest and nose when you had a cold – boy did it sting if you had a sore nose. Sena pod and raisin tea when you were constipated
Chilblains and sore calves from cold, wet wellies and lads dropping snowballs inside them. Why did your socks always slip down and end up in a ball on the end of your foot? Ballaclavas mum had knitted and woolly mittens held together with string and threaded through your coat sleeves, so that you didn’t lose them.
Ponds, lakes and rivers freezing over. Long icicles hanging from dripping overflow pipes. Bottles of milk on your doorstep that had frozen. The solid milk expanded and pushed the tops off. Sometimes bluetits had pecked the foil open to drink the cream.
Cars that wouldn’t start in the morning and had to be ‘pushed off’ or started by cranking a huge handle through the radiator.
Being the first one out in the morning and running through the fresh, virgin snow to leave your tracks. The fun of just watching your breath coming out as steam. Looking to the sky, watching snowflakes falling, how they hurt when they hit your eyeball.
Power cuts and the excitement of having to use candles to light the house.
Having a bath in front of the fire, then toasting bread or crumpets on a fork. Drinking hot milk and honey and snuggling up to mum or dad for a story before bedtime.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
