Category: nostalgia

I was never destined to become a civil engineer with the toys I was given as a kid.

In my Balham flat, growing up in the 60s, there wasn’t a sniff of Meccano; although my mum was constantly hoovering up discarded pieces of an Airfix ME110 I’d scattered in a fit of pique to the four corners of my bedroom (mum was careful hoovering as she thought she might find a miniature Rudolf Hess, although may, in the sixties, have been more constructive looking for Martin Bormann!).

I only had one rectangular piece of Lego – with which I could pretend was a table, a sentry box or bench depending on which side I laid it.

So, my creative construction juices were never encouraged as a kid.   I did have a Willy Wombat glove puppet but, as anyone who’s ever watched the National Geographic TV channel will know, marsupials aren’t renowned for their construction skills (although very good at transmitting urgent messages).

So the much-needed bridge over the River Wandle was never going to materialise with me as the project manager.

I did, however, play with my Spirograph a lot, which might have been the cause of my myopia 😊

 

 

 

 

 

In the early 70s I discovered that Aramis wasn’t just a third of a band of musketeers, but was a brand of after shave available in Balham Boot’s and something to daubed on in the unlikely event a girl might talk to me. (I could have owned Estee Lauder and girls were unlikely to talk to me).

I was a massive fan of Aramis and Paco Rabane (having not studied 17^th Century Spanish literature in any great depth meant I never thought he might have been Don Quixote’s little helper).  These were my scents of choice as a teenager.  I tried Kouros (not one of the remaining 66.6% of musketeers) but always came out in a rash – not a good look unless the girl you fancied took an inordinate interest in dermatological problems.

As my taste in after shaves became increasingly more sophisticated, I was appalled one Christmas when my paternal grandmother gave me a bottle of Avon’s Windjammer.  If I’d have wanted anything to jam my wind, I’d have bought a packet of Carter’s Little Liver Pills.

Whilst my perennial search for the perfect scent continued, I often admired the girls’ perfume selection. I was fascinated by the elegance of the packaging of YSL’s Rive Gauche – arguably one of the best right back Paris St Germain have ever had.

Whilst the shop assistants in Balham Boot’s were quite persuasive, they had nothing on Valerie Leon!

Everywhere these days, a previously bare wall, has been covered in graffiti; usually with uninterpretable hieroglyphics people have tattooed on their upper arm for a bet assuming it’s Japanese.

I blame Banksy (the man with the spray can and mouse stencil, not the Stoke & England World Cup hero).

As a kid in the sixties I can only remember one piece of graffiti in my formative years. As you entered Wandsworth Common from the Balham end, displayed on the first wall, you saw Ban The Bomb.

When I was five, I could read, but not having lived through the second world war, assumed, having been subjected to lots of music as a child, that The Bomb were a group and this message had been daubed by fans of The Beatles; The Stones or The Swinging Blue Jeans.

As I grew older and realised that CND wasn’t a shortened form of the Irish group Clannad, it dawned on me which bomb they were talking about.

Shame it didn’t read Ban The Bombe as I’ve never been a fan of circular ice cream desserts.

Toffee apples, despite purporting to being part of your five-a-day, would not be a food (unless he or she’d been struck off by the BDA and you’d not been informed) your dentist would recommend consuming.

But because toffee apples tend to only be eaten on one specific day (like dates on Boxing Day), and unless you’ve an appointment on the 31st October, this warning will never be relayed to you.

It is odd that toffee apples tend to feature only on Halloween. Whilst studying Macbeth for English Lit O-level in 1973 I cannot recall, whenever the three witches appeared, that they were doing unspeakable things with apples – they tended to stick to frogs and newts.

Apple-bobbing would feature at many of the children’s parties I attended in the south London area as a kid, although, once parents realised this was much like water-boarding, it was quickly replaced with pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey; much safer – small child, sharp object, blinded – what could possibly go wrong?

For me, the novelty of toffee apples stopped the moment the last piece of toffee was eaten. I had no interest in the actual fruit. I look back and wonder, if I’d have known how much crowns cost, should I have opted for candy floss?  No, because that’s bad for your teeth.  Hang on a minute……

In September 1968 I beheld my first wooden vaulting horse.

It lived in the gym in the labyrinth under my Tooting secondary school – where no humans dared venture and probably housed a three-headed dog – there were suspicious teeth marks on the wall-bars.

This horse, at first sight, seemed the size of a Shetland pony. However, when we were told what we had to do on it and over it, suddenly it was the size of the one I’d imagined had been plonked outside Troy.

I’d watched, admiringly, the success of the Czechoslovakian gymnast, Vera Caslavska at that year’s Olympics, as she glided over the wooden horse as if she were being operated by strings. Much as I looked like Joe 90, I had no strings attached and certainly nothing which was going to help me over the horse.  I was, having watched the eponymous 1950 film, also surprised there weren’t sprinklings of discarded soil around the wooden horse.

My turn came to vault over the horse: I ran and promptly stopped like a runner in the Grand National who doesn’t fancy Becher’s Brook.   I couldn’t do it and subsequently found out during that academic year that I could neither climb a rope nor do anything vaguely precarious on wall-bars.

This inherent danger was greater than what I’d experienced at my Balham primary school when all you had to do during PE was run around in your pants pretending to be a tree.

At secondary school we were told that all the trees had got Dutch Elm Disease and so would we if we didn’t vault over a horse.

I guess I was more Ronnie than Olga Korbut

You’re probably not allowed to wear just pants these days.

With Brexit looming does this mean we’ll revert to using Imperial currency?   If so, how many Euros will you get for an old ten-bob note?

I shall look forward to shop windows displaying their clothes’ prices in guineas and going to a greengrocer where there are hand-written cards showing bananas are 1/6 for a pound 😊.

In 1971 I remember buying a set of the “new” decimal coins from a Post Office on Balham High Road.   (I’m assuming they were the real thing as the bloke running the Post Office was Polish and he could have been selling me a set of out-of-circulation Zlotys for all I knew).  They were in a Perspex box and remember thinking how any of those coins were going to fit in a gas meter which only took half-crowns!  (I bought several candles too, just in case).

If this money does return then I’m getting my half-full jar of threepenny bits (insert you own gag here) down from the loft, where it has lain dormant since the bank amnesty ended for pre-decimal coinage.   I shall also be curious to see how much a farthing gets me.

I think I may invest in some sheep too in case bartering comes back and will bird-feeding still only cost tuppence a bag?

In an effort to save the planet from becoming one big plastic bag, everyone nowadays seems to be carrying around a reusable cup.

This is not a new thing and is basically a modern-day thermos flask – only they’re no longer in tartan.

However, these relatively new containers are designed to carry one liquid, unlike the old thermoses, which would hold multiple liquids. They will contain only coffee, water or, if you’re currently reading any Jean-Paul Sartre, absinthe.

Thermos flasks had a different function, but with a built-in obsolescence. Thermos flasks were invariably solely used for picnics but, after several uses, regardless of the historic liquid inside, the contents would eventually taste like oxtail soup – regardless of whether it had ever contained oxtail soup or not.

In the 60s, as a young teenager, I’d often set off on an Orange Luxury coach trip from Balham High Road to a destination I would hate with picnic basket, containing a thermos and two parents.  The problem arose with the lack of cups.  As the youngest in the family, whilst orange squash was ok, drinking chicken soup from my hands was tricky.  They might have been able to do that sort of thing on Kung Fu, but I struggled at places like Hever Castle.  However, the vending machine within A&E at Pembury Hospital did do a nice Bovril.  Or was it Earl Grey tea?

As the hot weather persists, so the reward of a lolly after a sweltering commute becomes attractive.

Yesterday I bought a Fab.

I was, however, disappointed on two fronts: first, they don’t cost 6d anymore and nor, on the wrapper, does it feature Lady Penelope (the woman who invented the word and spelled it out every episode except the one where Alan takes Tin-Tin up the Round House – a scene subsequently deleted by censors).

For me, a lolly isn’t a lolly unless it features a Gerry & Sylvia Anderson puppet on the front.

As a kid growing up in south London in the sixties my lolly of choice was a Jubbly (I’d like to say Mivvi, but that was only available if you were posh and rich).

A Jubbly was three old pence, but each time you bought one you’d forgotten that the juice only lasted for about 5% of the devouring. 95% of the remaining time you were sucking on a pyramid of ice.  You might as well have visited a newsagent in Trondheim rather than one in Tooting!

Ice poles were better value and, if you were trained in sword swallowing, you’d appreciate 100% of the available juice.

These days there is far greater choice – especially since salted caramel was invented. The danger of these excessive options is, you open the freezer chest and, by the time you’ve scanned the contents, inspected the likely e-numbers and wondered if you really would like a Cola-flavoured Calipo, the freezer is on its way to defrosting.  If this happens you’re going to have to find another newsagent to buy your lottery ticket in.

I understand Linda Lovelace was a fan of ice poles (whoever she was).