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Driving home for Advent

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Assuming everyone has been good this year, you should all be expecting Santa to visit.  If you’ve not been good, expect your chimney to suddenly develop large cracks in its masonry.

As a child, waking up in my Balham flat, I would eagerly look forward to what Christmas Day would bring (preferably in the form of presents). 

One year I remember receiving the Rupert annual.  I was never a fan of his column (obviously not written by him) nor of the Daily Express in general; they seemed to be obsessed with finding Martin Bormann (the Nazis’ answer to Reggie Perrin). 

I was quite disappointed – I had wanted the Supercar annual and it was on that Christmas morning I decided to invest in a decent pen and start an “improve your hand-writing” course.

Christmas lunch would be held one floor down in my flats at my Nan’s.  She was an excellent cook. Although, in later years, she would mistakenly place threepenny bits in the turkey, rather than the Christmas pudding.  Many a Christmas afternoon was spent at the emergency dentist. 

I was always allowed to have a glass of Pimm’s.  There was little alcohol in it; this was replaced with more fruit than you’d find on a Carmen Miranda hat.  

The evening was spent playing Newmarket, with many halfpennies up for grabs.   I would get very involved and still wake up screaming “Whose got the ace of spades?”. 

Hoping not to get the 2026 Rupert Annual – or his distasteful trousers – this Christmas.

Happy Advent.

Mind-blowing Mickey

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In the words of the 1981 song, we learned that Mickey was so fine and had mind-blowing qualities.   

A decade before I had regularly bought singles.  It wasn’t until “Mickey” was released that I was conscious of so many peoples’ names being used in the titles of songs.  The nearest I’d got to “Mickey” would have been “Michelle, my belle”.  This would have been fine (oh so fine) if I’d been living in France in 1965, when the single was brought out.  However, I don’t think Balham was twinned with any Gallic town during the ‘60s.

Paul Simon not only introduced many men’s names suggesting fifty ways to get out of a relationship, but also confused people by suggesting we call him Al.

Several songs have had suggestions for people: Rhonda was clearly a first-aider; Sally probably suffered from migraines; Eileen was obviously always late.   Bette Davis Eyes is something only an optician can cure.  Delilah was one of the few people in the Bible to have access to electricity (as, of course, did Roxanne) and John, she was only dancing.

We all know what to tell Laura and Mary, what have you done today to make you feel proud? 

I’m not a massive tennis fan, but nice to see Billie Jean getting recognition for her talents, as did Angie in EastEnders.

And what has Carol been up to now?

Not so chirpy, chirpy now

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“Where’s your mama gone?” was the first line of the song with the thought-provoking lyrics, Chirpy, chirpy, cheep, cheep (so good, they named it twice).

I’ve had some embarrassing moments during my sixty-eight years but having to go into Hurley’s (SW17’s answer to Harrods) on my mum’s strict instructions and buying the aforementioned record in 1971, was probably the nadir.  This wouldn’t be the last Balham High Road shop I felt I could never enter ever again.  (There was never a return after questioning the sell-by date on an iced bun at the Balham ABC cafe).

It was one of those moments when you say, “It’s not for me – honest” and you know that the shop assistant immediately thinks you’re related to Pinocchio.

It is a bittersweet song telling of the mother being a good singer (with a specialty with lyrics which repeat), but moving “far, far away”.  The listener can only assume this is a euphemism and “mama” is clearly inside, run off with the milkman or flown to Marseilles to join the French Foreign Legion.

The second verse deals with the father: “Where’s your papa gone?” (mum’s gone and dad’s clearly absent, so the subject of the song must have been a doubly unlucky awful child).

The lines of the song are inspired by the 1878 17th Century Civil War painting “When did you last see you father?”  

The lyrics mention the song was heard “last night”.  I can only assume the parents were behind with the rent and have legged it.  They clearly never took the budgie, as that’s still going strong: chirpy, chirpy, cheep, cheep, chirp!

Plastics & Rubber weakly

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My job, in advertising, for the past fifty-years, has been to identify which media my clients should spend their advertising money with.

My role would be to meet people who would sell me their wares with the hope that I would spend my clients’ money with them.  This would often involve leaving their newspaper or magazine with me.   Some were great:  Punch was always a welcome addition to my reading list; Woman’s Weekly (although “famed for its knitting”), less so (I’m more a crochet man myself); leaving a copy of Vogue was a complete waste of time for me – although it did solve the problem of a particularly wobbly dining table.

Because, like my dad before me, I specialised on the business-to-business aspect of my clients’ activities, I would get given some very odd (but relevant for their field) magazines.

Commercial Rabbit (if you’re vegetarian, stop reading here) was the most comedic name I ever came across (and put ads in).   It was aimed at people breeding rabbits commercially (the clue’s in the title), not bunnies who had an entrepreneurial streak.

Tunnels and Tunnelling (so good they named it twice) was one I thought was aimed at Great Escape fans – not, as it was, construction engineers.   Every month, there’d be a new pick glued onto the front cover.  It wasn’t quite the same feeling I got when Shoot! would produce its annual league ladder.

I was very diligent as a young lad in advertising and would often take work home.  Although, my train carriage became unnecessarily busy when I revealed the latest copy of Plastics & Rubber Weekly.

Painted ladies’ faces

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At 68, I finally have the chance to look like a tiger (or a cat) for an afternoon.

When I’d visit fairs and fetes as a kid, there would be no face painting, unless you wanted to look like a human candy floss or had scarlet fever.  

You could win a goldfish; not good if you got attached to it within the 24-hours it generally lived for.  The fetes I attended at my Balham and Tooting schools taught me a lot about death from a very early age.

At the fairs, you would see your fellow pupils’ dads.  Mums you’d see at the school gate every day, but you’d never see the dad.   Before the fetes were held, I always had the assumption most of my class’s fathers were inside – until the day of the fete – when they’d be taking charge on the tombola, hoopla or Aunt Sally – clearly a device left over from witch-hunting in medieval times.

I would spend several pennies trying to win a coconut – which was daft, as it would have been cheaper (and more expedient) to have bought a Bounty at the newsagents opposite the school.  Although, there was something primeval about smashing a coconut on the floor.  Can’t do that with a Bounty.

I now know why there was always a walk-in dentist next to the toffee apple stall.

Culture after-school club

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I was eleven, and starting secondary school in 1968, when I discovered that culture was something other than what my Nan had in her larder (she didn’t have a fridge in her Balham flat and nearly beat Alexander Fleming into discovering penicillin on an old slice of Mother’s Pride).

My mother did have books; invariably by Jean Plaidy.  For years, when my mother would talk about her books, I would half-listen and think Geoffrey Plantagenet was her driving instructor.

Having learned to play the violin at school (it got me off maths – to this day I’m not very numerate, but can play Baa, Baa, Black Sheep on any four-stringed instrument) I was invited to join the school orchestra.

We were to play the overture to Wagner’s Mastersingers of Nuremberg.  I’d enjoyed a few episodes of Hart to Hart, but didn’t know he’d written operas. 

Because I could sing, I was also in the school choir.  At a school concert once we had to sing Vaughan Williams’ Orpheus with his lute.  As we’d never learned about medieval instruments, as near-teenagers, we thought this was a euphemism.  I’m surprised my mother allowed me to sing it as I was never allowed to walk the streets with her with my hands in my pockets.

I don’t know much about lutes, but I know what I like.

Mustn’t grumble

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“White rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits” is something people say to ward off evil spirits; Chas ‘n’ Dave fans and anyone who was in Jefferson Airplane should they come round.

It is the less violent option to “Pinch, punch, first of the month”.  There is, of course, a suffix to this: “..and no return.”.   If this happened in any of the south London playgrounds where I was brought up, this would have introduced total carnage.  Although, having attended a grammar school, we’d have kept our caps on whilst fighting.

Luckily I went to a school where medieval superstitions weren’t encouraged.   Although, there was a black cat; a series of ladders erected by the prefects at playtime and umbrellas deliberately opened during geography lessons.  The Stevie Wonder album Talking Book was obviously banned.

We were never allowed to knock on wood as the school walls were unstable.

We weren’t allowed to cross our fingers as the maths teacher told us “if the wind changed, we’d stay like that”.

One of the reasons I did so badly during my O-levels was the constant need to hoover up salt the teachers had thrown over their shoulders.

I’d have given them the “evil eye”, but my eyesight was so bad.

Uniformity

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I’ve never worn protective equipment during my work; I’ve never even had a lanyard.  (I’d love to have had a multi-coloured ribbon hanging round my neck with a photograph which, if it was on my passport, I’d be refused entry to any plane, boat and probably train).

At school there were teachers whose subjects determined they should wear some form of protective uniform: the biology master had a white coat (with pockets full of amoebas); the woodwork master had a brown coat (with pockets of examples of wooden toast racks that were never leaving the woodwork room, such was their deformity) and the PE master had a red coat because he was the Devil incarnate; his coat pockets held Pandora’s Box.

My Nan had a polyester housecoat: her coat pockets contained several sprouts she’d cleverly swiped from my plate to avoid any potential Spring and Port Wine situations during Sunday dinners and two former pet mice and a three-year old Fishermen’s Friend.

Barbers had similar coats – much shorter and more purple.  Their pockets contained a million combs; a million pairs of scissors; a million dollops of Brylcreem and something for the weekend – probably a lanyard.

Listen with Auntie

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Are you sitting comfortably?  Once I get my hand out of Archie Andrews,  then I’ll begin.

Listen with Mother started 75-years ago this week.  We’re probably all of an age that we’re only sitting comfortably if we’ve a series of support cushions on our favourite chair.

Radio has been an ever-present in my life, except for a few weeks when I owned a Walkman.  I got bored with it as the only CD I had was “Reginald Dixon’s Greatest Hits”.   I’ve had a dread of the seaside ever since.

On the wall of our Balham flats were radios which played the Home, Light and Third programme.   The Third Programme rarely got played as none of my relatives were classical music fans.   They thought Brahms was something you got after too many Christmas snowballs; Chopin was something you could do on Balham High Road and Schubert was something you got in a Lucky Dip bag.

I would binge listen to any comedy on the radio.   It showed my possible career choices: rag ‘n’ bone man; archdeacon; Bluebottle. 

During the late ‘60s I desperately wanted to be called Julian and have a friend called Sandy.   Now, that would have been bold.

Very sad Sooty never made it on the radio.  Bye, bye everybody and hello Paderborn.

Cue queuing

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Although it’s mid-January as I write this, I remember how different Boxing Days were.

This was THE day sales started; the day you started thinking about your summer holiday (preferably without Cliff Richard and his bus); the day you wondered what it might be like to have servants to give presents to.

These days sales are ever present. There are so many different excuses: Black Friday; Cyber Monday; Ruby Tuesday (when rings are cheap); Saturday Night, Sunday Morning (for people seeking Alan Sillitoe memorabilia) and Monday, Monday (for Mamas and Papas fans).

Boxing Day would be the day people would queue outside shops overnight and wondered why they never had the strength to carry to bargain three-piece suite back home.

The bumper issues of both the Radio Times and TV Times would carry page after page of potential holiday destinations. 

There would be snow on the ground as the entire family pored over the double issues knowing that mentally they were in the warmth of the Shanklin sun as they decided upon the family’s holiday destination before a marathon game of Newmarket began.

On Boxing Day 1967, my family decided to go to Majorca; seven months later I discovered the meaning of the word gastro-enteritis.

Looking back, I’d have preferred to have spent fourteen-days in the queue outside MFI.   Although, it would have taken me a fortnight to have erected a one-man tent and got the Primus stove going.

Bon voyage and don’t drink the water.