Monday 14 December 2020

Christmas 1973

 


It is Christmas morning 1973 in a terraced house just outside Manchester.

It's a classic Christmas.

One of my favourites.

Merry Christmas Everybody is top of the charts and number one on my Christmas List is a Doll's House.

I wake up on Christmas morning and here it is in my living room.

Christmas wishes really do come true.

I didn't know at the time but my mum had bought it second hand from a toy sale held by the local church.

Each night in December, after work and when I was in bed, she stayed up late to clean and re-paint it.

In 1973 I am seven years old and in Mrs Williamson's class.

She smells strongly of BO.

A dour squat woman, she paces up and down the rows of desks and makes the class recite our times tables.

Suddenly she stops, smashes a ruler violently on a desk before firing  scattergun sums at unsuspecting souls.

She never actually hits anyone, but the threat of menace hangs in the air along with her BO.

I am glad there is no school for two weeks.

I can relax.


My brother got a fort, also repainted by mum and purchased from that same toy sale.


I always thought grandma was very old but she is just two years older than I am now in that photo.

It is cold in the terraced house I share with my mum and dad and brother.

There is no central heating, just those heaters attached to the walls so the red ladybird dressing gown is very welcome.

The gown was in my Christmas sack, but I am guessing Father Christmas picked it up from our local Ladybird stockist, Woolworth's in the precinct.

Later that month I would spend my Christmas money buying my first record from that same branch of Woolworth's - Little Jimmy Osmond's Long Haired Lover from Liverpool.


I would play it on the gramaphone you can see by the window.

And who knew that 12 years later I would actually meet my very own long haired lover from Liverpool but that's another story.

6 comments:

  1. Hahaha, I absolutely love those photos, gorgeous. The excited looks on your faces! I think walking sticks made people seem older back then. My grandparents had a whole collection of them. We had a ruler slapping teacher at school - Mr Trainer - but one day he startled himself by accidentally snapping one and splintering himself! Lulu xXx

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    1. Hi Lulu,
      Hoist by his own petard!!!!
      By the way my grandma isn't holding a walking stick - its my brother's hobby horse. It was a cowboy year for him!!!
      XXX

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    2. Oh my, I need some new glasses! I can see quite clearly now it is a hobby horse, not a walking stick! Silly me :0 xXx

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  2. I got a dollhouse around that age too - my mom made mine from scratch along with her best friend, who made one for her daughter too. Can you believe most of the furniture was made from empty cigarette packages covered with wallpaper??

    Very cool to see your old pics, Jane!

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    Replies
    1. Wow your mum is very clever - I love the love that went into those presents. X

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  3. Those photos are absolutely brilliant. Your Mum doing up that dolls house is just such a lovely story. I had one of those Ladybird dressing gowns, too - we also grew up in a house without central heating! xxx

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