Practical Jokes

The Magnet Toys and Fancy goods store, at 179 Wavertree Road in Liverpool, sold an amazing array of stuff. In this post I'll just list off some of the jokes they had for sale.

As you entered the shop, to the left, was a display cabinet, on top of the counter, in there the numerous jokes were stored, some benign and some downright trouble.

The most trouble, were the stink bombs, a packet of three in a little cardboard box, these thin glass vials usually smelled like rotten eggs when broken and were very popular amongst young lads. The occasional bomb would "go off" in the front of the shop and usually it didn't take much reasoning to work out who did it.

I liked the fake things, which were many, there were fake rubber/latex fried eggs which seemed almost real, something to place on your grandads plate and giggle, fake food items like bacon, sausage and seagull poo. The latter not being a food item of course could be placed on a car windscreen, other car jokes included bullet holes that could be applied.

The list was amazing, cigarettes that glowed and puffed out smoke, which was fine talc, little, round cardboard containers of sneezing or itching powder (which was usually finely chopped hair) and of course, the exploding snake in a can.

I think a lot of these can still be bought today, such is the longevity of a good prank, although some, like the rubber pencil, would be difficult to fool someone with, or the little camera that squirted water. I think kids might see through stuff like the fortune telling fish that curled in your hand due to heat and I would expect that schools have long since banned the whoopee cushion.

The more distasteful items, such as the fake dog poo, that actually looked very realistic, fake boils and spots that could be stuck on your face, and I believed, as a kid, that the nail through the finger item, especially with the bloody bandage, was one of the more horrific items.

The list could go on, of course, there were more expensive items that I never had, but could play with in the shop, like the laughing bag or the hand buzzer, and then there were items that I would have liked to use, black face soap, red face soap, floating sugar cubes and melting teaspoons, but, pocket money would only stretch so far.

And I only, really needed those stinkbomben...

Ice Cream

The Ice Cream van was a daytime distraction for my dad, taxi work was always busy in the evenings and he was looking for something to make money with during the day.

In Whiston, mum and dad had a shop on Milton Avenue and mum would look after that during the day while dad was out on the Ice Cream round. Occasionally I would help out in both places, although the van was far more exciting than the shop.

The van was equipped with a soft serve machine, so it had to be loaded periodically with industrial sized portions of the mix, that was subsequently cooled and then extruded through the taps. I think the machine had the ability to do two colours but it was never loaded that way, so ice cream would be made more exotic with crushed nuts and raspberry or chocolate syrup.

The options were cone or cup, and of course, in addition to those toppings the deluxe version would include a Cadbury's Chocolate flake, called a ninety-nine for some reason, the occasional mega deluxe version would include two flakes, not sure what they were called (besides expensive).

The end of the shift would be marked with the extraction of what was left in the soft serve machine into a big stainless steel bowl, and, what the family did not want was always a treat for our alsation dog, Sooty.

Unproductive Nostalgia

While I was growing up in the house, there was a drawer in the kitchen that was filled with stuff, all sorts of articles that could not find their own place on the planet, besides a drawer full of similar lost and unused orphans.

In there, medals, an eyeglass, an old pocket knife, a cigarette case, an ammeter, ronson lighters with no flints, emery boards, a map of Liverpool, an AA key or two, a magnifying glass, an assorted medley of Yale keys, a padlock without a key, chains and old broken watches, knobs and buttons, lost years and dreams, secret wishes and dashed hopes, smiles tears and heartache, love.

I always found those medals, I think they were my dads, he was in the war you know, well, when I was my age they all were.

In Palestine, my dad probably never thought that one day he would have a medal for driving his half track around the Middle East, a force of British Men far from home and their loved ones, shocked by the hardships and horrors of the preceding seven years of war and the ongoing bombings at hotels full of civilians.

The King David Hotel. July 22nd, 1946.

Those medals, I believe, meant nothing to my dad, he threw them in that drawer, after keeping them in another drawer, in our previous house in Liverpool, a long time after the Ministry sent him his wartime parting gifts along with an ill fiiting demob suit and a cardboard suitcase.

Thanks.

Medals in drawers through time.

Rain Dance

The weather tonight was perfect for our walk, it had been raining all day and it decided to stop, well almost, for our half hour walk. It was like being back in Britain, back to those miserable days when the light rain would eventually soak you to the skin, grey skies and the exotic scent of dampness, bronchitis and dysentry.

The memories of youth with wet Crosville buses full of drenched smokers with steaming anoraks and parkas, the happy feeling of finally being in a mostly dry vehicle with that warming second hand smoke filtering through your nostrils and the thought of mum cooking liver and onions for tea and perhaps a slice of apple pie and a cuppa to wash it all down.

The rain became such a part of my early life that I enjoy the stuff, I stroll through the car park while other people run, I love mornings when it has rained overnight, the feeling of life and the freshness of the air, a long way from those smoke filled Crosvilles.

There is no real negative to rain, and a lot of very good memories can be had in those bygone rainy days.

The early trips to Butlins when the weather wouldn't always cooperate and we'd all have to go indoors for plan B and maybe stuff matchboxes or watch the redcoats performing or presenting our fathers with their trousers rolled up for the knobbly knees competition.

The afternoons spent sat in the back of the Vauxhall Victor estate with our I-Spy books or magnetic disguise kits, the rain pattering on the roof while thermos flasks of hot tea filled the car with steam and spoilt our view of the seaside.

In my teens, I cycled with my brothers road club on a Sunday, and it probably rained, we'd cycle across the bridges of the Mersey and end up at Two Mills for a pint cup of tea and the best beans on toast on the planet. Then on to Colwyn bay and more rain, more tea, probably more beans and then a long cycle back. The exhausted, soaked David being helped along on the way home by his older brothers mates (seldom by his older brother who was always at the front of the pack).

Happy times.

Match Box Stuffing

It's been a while since I blogged about Butlins, the British holiday camp that my mum and dad took us to every one of our formative years, well, it seemed like it at the time and we didn't complain.

How could a kid complain about endless days, massive swimming pools, different nosh and pirates.

Yep, that pesky pirate that the redcoats finally captured at some point and made walk the plank (high dive board) and take his come-uppance in the pool. Hurrah!

It must have been a break for mum and dad as well, most of the time me and my brother Rob were being baby sat by those same redcoats, lots of activities to tire the kids out during the day, games, treasure hunts (pirate stuff again), rambles and of course the all rides are free amusement park. in the evening there was the chalet patrol, a mobile babysitting service, while mum and dad enjoyed time in such exotic locations as the Gaiety Ballroom, the Continental or Blinkin' Owl bar.

If you corner me, and get me started about it all, my eyes will glaze over talking about the fountains, late night donuts, a famous childrens entertainer called Mr Pastry and long soaks in the Olympic size pool with my multicolored rubber ring stuck underneath my armpits and fingers and toes that were pickled by water.

There's a website called Butlins Memories and the old memories indeed come flooding back. I'd forgotten about Radio Butlins, the local propaganda station, the so called "social cycles" that had four wheels, Puffing Billy, the train that puttered around the streets delivering happy campers to glamorous granny competitions, afternoon variety performances and beautiful baby contests.

How did I forget about match box cramming?, where the eager Butlins Beavers would rush off and find as many things in half an hour to cram into a matchbox, the winner being the one with the most unique items in theirs.

It was a great time, it may all seem pretty naff to todays kids, with their internet, Nintendo, minivan dvd systems and big screen five point one everything. It certainly wasn't back then, it was magical and it was core family fun that will stay in my happy memory storage files until the hard drive gets busted.

God bless you Billy Butlin.

God Bless and thank you mum and dad.

Best Birthday Ever

October 13th, 1969.

As an eleven year old boy with a great need, my mum and dad had played on my emotions in the weeks before my birthday. There seemed to be many “off camera” conversations relating to the facts “they could not get one anywhere” or that “even the wholesalers have no stock” and “nobody knows when they will get one in”.

It seemed like it was the only thing I’d ever wanted, well, besides football boots with screw in studs that is, and here in the eleventh hour, with my parents, networked, ex-toy shop owners with connections, giving it their best shot, it was all falling apart.

No it wasn’t.

They were having me on, the rascals.

The psychological process was complete, my mother and father had worked their mind games on me and I was primed for the event.

October 14th, 1969.

I came down the stairs and it was there.


The Raleigh Chopper.

It was the best bike I ever had.

It was cool, trendy and a joy to ride and show off with.

Three speed stick shift gears, brilliant orange paint, big handlebars and a comfy seat. It was destined to be customized with mirrors and multicolored tassles and for a couple of years there it was the focus of my young life.

Thanks Mum and Dad for the best birthday present ever.

The Sweet Spot

It was back in 1971, I was thirteen and a bit, had a brand new orange Raleigh Chopper bike, complete with handlebar tassles and an air horn, had a best mate called Joe Haines and I was in love with a lovely young thing called Yvonne Blakemore. The summer was long and my older brother, Rob, was off with the Prescot road club, cycling time trials around Ormskirk and Kirkby track, cycling across the Mersey every Sunday, breakfasting at two mills, supping beer at the Liverpool arms near Conway Castle and still making it home for Sunday night tea and toast.

My younger brother, Paul, affectionately nicknamed "totty limejuice" by mum (or was it Auntie Alda?) was tracking around the house, most of the time on his potty, dragging his stuffed dog around and making trouble, destroying my Dinky toys and Action men and generally being a regular little toddler.

Mum was working up at the shop on Milton Avenue during the day, making crab apple wine and apple pies at night and enjoying being a mum again, the garden was huge and time consuming, the kids were home and life was good.

Dad was being dad, had fingers in every pie available, taxi cabs, wedding cars and the famous ice cream van. It was the moment when his social life was changing, with Freddy and the Masons, selling tomatoes to the customers and of course, fresh, free range eggs from the chickens at the bottom of the estate.

And grand-dad was also busy in that garden, planting carrots, potatoes, raspberries, building chicken pens, sheds, composters and generally making himself useful in his retirement.

Even our dog, Sooty, the black alsation with the patch of white on his throat was there, his back legs were good, he was getting his "Shapes" every day and his "Pal" mixed with "Spillers" and he was lapping up whatever was left from Mister Whippy’s drip tray every night.

Nobody realised at the time, but coincidently it was the best moment of all our lives.

The Magnet

My mum never gave away any of my Dinky toys, there was no need to as nobody would have wanted them anyway after us three boys had finished with them, I took a long look at the ravaged box of diecast a few years back when I was visiting my dad when he was sick and decided that it must have been my younger brother Paul that was the guilty party, after all, I always took good care of them, didn’t I?

However, there was no trace of my Action Men. They were missing in action, absent without leave, taken by aliens, or the binmen...

I'm repeating myself, but in the 1950s my dad, Arthur, was employed at the Meccano factory on Binns Road in Liverpool. His job of paint tester was basically quality control for the many enamel paints that were used on the Meccano construction kit parts, toy trains and Dinky cars. He’d spray paint onto glass and then monitor the drying time, consistancy and colour against existing charts.

It was around this time that during lunch and tea breaks, he would sell shirts and ties to the many female employees. It was an inbuilt trait of my dad, to sell things, to make money from next to nothing, and to work hard.

He used to cycle from Botanic Road in Liverpool 7 to Binns Road via Edge Lane on his old boneshaker, which would usually take 30 minutes or so, and was warned about his timekeeping, I also suspect that his bosses looked down on his barrow boy antics. After a bout of what he called dysentry, he was late one more time and was sacked.

They did that back then.

I think it was the best thing that ever happened to him and the family, in the short term the supply of Meccano and Bayko kits in the household dwindled, but my dad found his true calling and progressed from a paint testing barrow boy to a full fledged shop owner. In the early 1960s the "Magnet, Toys and Fancy Goods" shop opened at 179 Wavertree Road in Liverpool and if you could put a name to it, he probably sold it.

I’ll try to list what the shop sold in a later blog, but, two of the most important toy lines that he started selling, much to the joy of his two sons, were, you guessed it, Meccano’s own Dinky toys and after a trip to a toy show in Bell Vue, Manchester, Palitoy’s Action Man.

And so the first collection began.

Without that first collection, how could there possibly have been a second?

Thanks Mum, thanks Dad.

xx

Chips and Water

Living in Botanic Road, Liverpool 7 in the early sixties, my brother and I would make the journey to Picton Road baths, the nearest swimming pool. Mum would give us enough bus fair and entrance money, but we knew that if we walked there, or walked home a few stops, we could stop off at the chippy and grab sixpence worth of chips. I recall that a cup of hot bovril or hot chocolate was also affordable at the baths café.

Simple days and simple pleasures, probably cost a couple of shillings (or two bob) for almost a day free of the kids.

The baths had changing rooms either side of the actual pool, with swing doors and gaps under the bottom. The usual kit was a rolled up towel and a pair of swimming trunks, but often a valued set of full face goggles or flippers would be available, we could dive under the water and view the lower regions of some of the women, however, I think they always knew what we were up to!

As kids we would spend hours in that water, well over the prune soak time, the subsequent showering and drying and dressing would be exhausting and the reward of a hot drink, a bag of crisps or a bag of chips would rejuvenate us all for the walk home, sometimes there were a few pennies left, these could be used to hop on a bus at a later stop or buy some blackjacks or fruit salad. They were eight for an old penny back then!

Pwllheli

There he is, top left is the Taxi driver, a few years before he was one that is, I would think this was proably around 1960.

The Butlins adult scene included some responsibilities of sorts, Arthur volunteered or was coerced into various activities, here he is a member of Edinburgh House at the Pwllheli camp, mother is notably absent...

At each end and centre there are the "redcoats" who looked after all of us at the Butlins camps, arranged activities and became minders for the kids during the day and kept the parents sanity intact at night.

Butlins

The family holiday in the 1960s would be to one of the so called "Holiday Camps" from Mister Billy Butlin, a very special place for kids and somewhat of an oasis for parents.

The Peter Pan railroad, Puffing Billy, huge water fountains and constant activities for the children, great adventure, games....and Pirates!!


The yearly trip would be remembered with some 8mm movies and a couple of badges, usually a Butlins Beaver membership card and badge and the yearly camp site pin. The above picture shows Filey camp at night, something that was magical about the place because it was always well lit.

I can remember sitting under and to one side of a Butlins swimming pool, the area that ran along the length of the pool, but about five or six foot below the water. There were big glass windows that allowed you to see under the water, and of course the water always appeared to be sky blue.

Sitting there, with mum, dad and Rob, mum would change us under our towels and I'd end up with dry pants and usually a matching shirt on, tired from what seemed like hours bobbing about in the water in my inflatable rubber ring. A glass of Milk or Tizer or some other wondrous substance in front of me and the prospect of a Mars bar, Milky Way or bag of Salt n'Shake crisps.

It was an age of innocence, times when at night, the kids could be parked in chalets and looked after by the chalet patrol while mum and dad grabbed an hour of freedom down at the club.

Septuagenarian

I'm going to start cutting and pasting from a lost blog of mine "The Fool on the Hill" which since changing my email address, and subsequently retiring the old email, has become inaccessible.


Something I wrote for my dad when he was 70.

Some say that A Mason is a Craftsman that Builds,
And in 1926 a great Craftsman was born,
Who, with time, built an Empire for himself,
This refers to, of course, the Septuagenarian, Arthur Weldon.
(Hey, sorry but this just isn’t going to rhyme!)

Look at this man’s life, A tapestry, an Epic,
Starting from the time he took a wife, young Dorothy Edwards.
to this fine Day in September 1996.
He has truly made his mark.

The Meccano Man who made wood shine,
Market Stall, “Barrow Boy” to Wavertree Road Fancy Goods Magnate,
And not forgetting Our favourite Ice Cream Man.
And of course Grand Chief Buffalo of the Ovaltinee’s.

Huyton to Liverpool and almost Australia,
From Botanic Road, Pottery Lane and Kimnel Bay,
With thousands of miles as that “Taxi Guy”,
This man has driven to the moon and back.

Vauxhall Victor, delivery Van, Wedding cars or Taxi,
All those times he took the time, to deliver all of us safely,
To Ainsdale or Butlins or just “down the M6 to Romford”,
Occasionally taking the Scenic Route, He always got us there.

And along with Dot, his lifelong mate, like two swans in the pond of life,
They’ve seen and done more in their time, than most of us could wish for,
But one great wish from all of us, is that both of them will continue.
(And now that the house is insulated we can visit when its Cold...)

A Great Big “Thank You Dad” from all of us,
We love you wherever we are, near or far, Earth or Star,
And lets cheer for whats gone and whatever will be,
Happy Birthday!!


September 1996.

The Hairdresser

Mum and Dad moved to North Wales around 1978 and settled in to a coastal life, with an attempt at another shop, this time a little grocery store, however, as with a lot of small shopkeepers of that time they struggled against the introduction of the big supermarkets. In the case of Arthur and Dorothy, they had little chance of profit from the cash and carry "wholesalers" who were undercut by a newly built Asda superstore.

Mum started cutting hair again, it was an ideal opportunity to get to know people in the new community. Just to show that you can't keep a good hairdresser down, Dorothy returned to her "roots", bought a moped with a carrier box and set off around Kinmel bay to quaff "doos". She was born in 1930 and was buzzing around Rhyl in 1982 (at the ripe old age of 52) to sort out blue rinses and split ends.

Mum used to drink a lot of Malibu back then, but I don't think it's related to the following :

It was exactly this time that, after an afternoon of cutting hair, she parked her moped in the front garden at the house (which was called Korner because it was on the corner) in Kinmel bay and uncontrollably dropped to her knees. Arthur found her passed out in the garden and rushed her over to Glan Clwyd hospital, St Asaph.

I was informed by my boss at the time, Bob Morris of APPH, Speke that there was an urgent phone call. I rushed down to Wales to the Hospital where I found mum in bad shape, basically paralysed and unable to coherently speak. It was the nightmare situation and it was happening to my mum, it looked like she had a major stroke.

There was some discussion and for some reason, the Doctors, who seemed clueless at that point, decided to do a spinal tap as they suspected viral meningitis (not normally done with supposed 'stroke' victims) - they did this and almost instantaneously Dorothy's power of speach returned, they rationalised that the spinal tap process actually released pressure on the brain. I tend to think that mum found the whole process so unbearable that she decided to not go through it again.

In a miraculous fashion, A few days later she was shaken but fine.

She never used the moped again...