Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Christmas

I may have written about some of these things before, but nevertheless, I'm writing about them again because they are fresh in my memory one more time.

This is from the early 1970's era when I was fast approaching teenagerdom and thoughts were veering away from such concepts as father Christmas and sweet baby Jesus. This time of year was not quite as special as it was when I was younger, now that I was "so much older" at about a dozen years under my belt, Christmas was becoming about other things.

I could not wait until that Thursday a few weeks before Christmas, my granddad would bring home the TV Times and (BBC) Radio Times holiday specials, two weeks of extra special programming, great articles and the expectation of great stuff on those British TV channels.

All three of them.

So, how did we change from excitement about what was on with three channels with today's total apathy about what is on in the universe of three hundred? - beats me, but at twelve years old I could not wait for some of that holiday faire, maybe because it was all so fresh back then.

Morecambe and Wise Christmas special, the Two Ronnies, the fantastic Variety shows on ITV and the BBC and of course, the Christmas films.

No Christmas could have been right without at least one of the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby "road" movies, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin and at least two Carry on Movies. Of course, the less used Alistair Sim in the Charles Dickens masterpiece "A Christmas Carol" was always welcome.

The season was not all about the telly, mum would be in full swing with the two fake trees we had in the house, one sat on top of the telly, the other would be in the front room or "the best room" or the "lounge" whatever it was being called at that moment. In the lounge mum would have her stash of Cherry Brandy, Malibu and other tempting Christmas tipples, dad's would be nearby. I know he liked the occasional whiskey but it seemed like it was his way not to drink in front of the kids.

No such rules for mum!

And what else?, satsumas, dates, turkish delight, crystalized ginger (or ginger in syrup), Thorntons Special Toffee and lots of other Christmas goodies. The nutcrackers would resurface and dangerous shards of brazil nut casings would fly like shrapnel about the house.

And the Christmas Cake.

In those days, Mum would always buy her cake from Marks and Spencers, but would buy the marzipan separate and make her own icing. It would always harden if it was left too long, however, in a house full of boys and men, Christmas Cake was an endangered species.

In true traditional TV style, I'll call this "end of part one"

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Record and Play

Do you remember a time when you would sit and watch a TV show and when it ended, that was it?

A good pair of examples, for the Bwitish amongst us,  would be the weekly "Top of the Pops" or the late night "Old Grey Whistle Test" hosted by the late, great, John Peel.

The show would start, and if you were late to the late show, no-one would wait and there would be no rewinding the tape to review what had already transpired. That was if you were lucky enough to have one of the first Titanic sized VCRs from the wayback years and also if you had the immense wad of cash for a spare tape that did not have your mothers "Rumpold of the Bailey" recorded.

If there was no VCR, the transient show would pass and could not be accessed on some mysterious interweb type arrangement, in the late 1970s, when a music show was gone, it was gone and all that would be left would be discussion or a scant review of the events in the next copy of the Melody Maker or the New Musical Express.

Yet, here we are many moons later, drowning in excess nostalgia (often at a price) and of course, for those who have long lost their videotapes, buying opportunities and repackaged versions of the stuff that we missed abound.

I listened to UmmaGumma for the last time a week or so ago. I say that because I believe that I don't think I can take those four sides of undirected noise once again, funny really as I never experienced the album in my formative years as I was one of the Dark Side of the Moon generation and never had the excess cash to back fill my library with previous offerings from the flavor of the day.

Luckily.

I digress, let me return to the original topic and that man John Peel.

In 1975, late in the night, John Peel instructed me over the airwaves to press "record and play" and it was not on the yet to be affordable VCR, it was on my Philips radio cassette unit. This late night radio show jockey had the pleasing habit of playing entire albums, and that night when he kindly told me he was about to put the needle down, the record he was playing was Ommadawn and forty-five minutes later my compact cassette was filled to the brim with Mike Oldfields latest creation that I played a hundred times in the following months.

They said that home taping would kill music.

I think not.



Saturday, February 25, 2012

A wall of memories

The photo below shows a fractional portion of memory items, I will quickly run through a few and maybe we will talk about them more at some later date.
Right at the top, Clogs we bought mum in Amsterdam, some clippers and a pair of mum's hairdressing scissors, Matchbox Models of Yesteryear No.Y9-1-11A Fowler Showman's Engine and the Beware of the Dog sign from the garden gate of "Korner" the house in Rhyl, next row down, the guy who jumped off the diving board from my childhood mouse trap game, a watch key and a Test + badge from my Switzerland trip when I was fourteen, a huge nappy pin and some loose change, my mum's brass stepladder that used to adorn part of the fireplace mantlepiece along with a lot of other brass, a padlock, a bottle opener and one of my dad's many AA (Automobile Association) keys.

All have some specific, good memories for the Taxi driver's son.

Next row down, a centre disc from our modern portable record player from 1967, with a 45 rpm disc push in piece, three cubes from a game of "Instant Insanity" bought during a holiday in Wales. A gillette razor from dad's bathroom cabinet, a Liverpool Silver Blades Ice skating rink and a Blacklers Grotto badge. A Raleigh Chopper, Toffee hammer, coins and an enameled pendant I made in Metalwork forty years ago. At the end, a Dinky Traffic Light from the Meccano company and a Youth Hostel YHA pin.

I could write a book on some of these things, such is the vastness of a series of memories.

The last row, real tiddley winks and dice bucket that probably slept in our clubhouse above the shop fifty years ago, a tiny spirit level and a small collection of Butlin's badges. Mum on her wedding day, the cocktail set that she would let me play with when I was four years old and waiting for my eye exam at St.Pauls eye hospital in Liverpool, a bunch of keys to long lost locks.

The last two items, a Lancashire Watch Company watch, the Weldon's and Prescot watch companies had quite the relationship and there to close it all, a Churchill Crown that my grandfather bought me in 1965.

About two square feet of a fraction of it all.

Monday, February 13, 2012

White Star Line

It's been a while since my last post on this blog, but I have been active on the others.

The web is indeed world wide as I recently heard from a reader from the UK and on the family tree blog, a reader from Indonesia, in fact, the latter was actually a second cousin of mine.

The news from Indonesia came after a week of sadness and reflection in January, my dad's sister. Margaret, died at the ripe old age of ninety-nine and three-quarters, amazing that she was born eleven days after the Titanic sank, an event that probably reverberated around her home town of Liverpool, the Titanic of course was registered in Liverpool along with several other White Star line ships.

In the week in 2004 when we cleared out mum and dad's house in Rhyl we found a couple of wooden coat hangers from Butlin's, one from my mum's childhood, with her maiden name written on it and a White Star Line emblazoned hanger. Arthur probably acquired it during his wood polishing days on the Cunard ships, although Dorothy also had her time associated with cruise ships, hey, I can make up a lot of stories about a coat hanger.

The family tree blog brought several new family members together, at a time when my interest has been raised once again, hopefully over the next few months, new stories from distant branches of the family will be included here and on the sister site.

weldonweb.blogspot.com