Friday, September 4, 2009

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.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

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.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

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