Rimmer Shit (Childhood Memories)
Rimmer
Shit in Jan 2002; Sport, First Football Memories The Sound of Music, Earliest
Memory, Adverts, What’s on the Telly, Toys, Food, Cars, What I did on my
Holidays, Music, Pets, Pissing Contest, Mr Jones, First Day at School, The Play
Area, The Woods, Trespassers will be Prosecuted, The Pond, The River, The Pipe,
The Valley, Why Rimmer Shit?
Rimmer
Shit in Feb 2002: Games, Fancy Girls, Troy Tempest, Football Cards,
Stephen Taylor, Stupid Rules, Starting Sunday School, Monitors and Prefects,
Old Money, House Points, The Titanic Story, story!, Milk, Cubs and Scouts and
Crabs, Anthony, The Mystery House on the Hill, Valley Drive Community, Tony
Woolf’s Birthday, My Birthday, Throwing, Accidents will Happen, Au Pairs,
Claire Jones, The Cows of Valley Drive.
Rimmer
Shit in March 2002: Hymns, Smells, Fear, Alexandra Bastedo,
Superheroes, Blue Peter, Ladybird Books, Bubble Gum and Kicking your Chuddy,
Firearms, House Décor, Summer Time, The
Onion Man, Fashions and Trends, Bike, Trees, Haircuts, Dad, My Bedroom, Mum, St
Ives.
Rimmer
Shit in April 2002: Books, Politicians, Are You Coming out to Play?,
Homework, My Handwriting, F.A Cup Finals, Football Heroes, Flying Machines,
World War II, Gardening, Staying up Late, Boys Feats of Strength, Medicine,
Body Tricks, Parties, Nature Boy, God, Accountancy, What do you want to be when
you grow up?, Weird Contraptions, Famous Numbers from my Childhood, Follow the
Yellow Brick Road, Stupid Things to Do, Who’s Scary?, More Smells, Rhymes,
April Fools Day.
Rimmer
Shit in May 2002: I Double Dare Ya!, John Noakes, Paddling Pool,
Swimming, Spit Wash, Play-Doh, Toilet Training, Gravy and Custard, Kids’
Clothes, Watches, All Right, Meriton Rd Park, Cartoon Characters, School
Dinners, Horrible Food, Bank Account, Early Development, Sporting
Disappointment, The Rex Cinema, Pet Hates, Interlude, Art, The Golf Biscuit,
The Bells, Australia, The Queen.
Rimmer
Shit in June 2002: World Cup final, Rolf Harris, Struggling, Carpets,
How Green was My Valley?, Fishing in Jersey!, The Death of Twitcher, Valley
Sledging, Brazil, See Saw, The Sandpit, Chess, Building Bricks, Father Christmas,
Marta’s Arse, Picture Essay Question, The Garage Door, 70s Décor Car, 60s Décor
Kitchen, Anthony, come down and say hello, It’s a Knockout, Mum, I’m bored,
Belle Vue, Café Royale Berni Inn, Blackpool, Kick Anything, Kid Heroes.
Rimmer Shit in
July 2002: Writer’s
Block, The
Nit Nurse, The
Doctor, The
Dentist, Skippy.
Coming Soon; Top of the Pops, Conkers,
Minis, Joy of Childhood, Born with Breasts, Tree Surround, V-Necks, Wedding
Tackle, School Sports, House Teams
Friday 26th July 2002
There’s
just nothing I can think about to write on Rimmer Shit.
I’d
love to go back to The Valley though, take some pictures, The Pipe and The
River. I’d spend a whole day there
exploring my childhood.
Maybe
even knock on the door of my house and invite myself in.
Still
nothing has come to me recently with childhood memories. Amazing how this has dried up. Being in Perth and working hard, doesn’t
seem to have inspired any ideas. When I
go back, I think of the house and the valley, but I’ve written about most of
it. I keep tracing the same path into
the back garden, over the fence and down the valley. Along to the pipe and then
the river, I can picture it now so clearly, summers day, the smell, the
quietness, the green, the mystery.
Where does the pipe go to? Can
the river still be crossed? What’s on
the other side? The Pond. Nettles and Dock leaves.
Sunday 14th July 2002
Once in a blue
moon, a nurse would come to school and inspect your hair for nits.
Luckily I passed
the exam every time.
In fact I don’t
remember anyone ever having nits or lice.
Maybe she was so
good she killed them before they spread.
I’m scratching my
head now just thinking about it.
Thursday 11th July 2002
Doctors always
seemed so much nicer than Dentists on the whole.
Except their
stethoscopes were always cold.
They always
seemed to have warm comforting hands, but never looked you in the eye.
I never was that
ill as a kid.
Trips to the
doctors for the occasional illness, and the occasional visit from them.
Seemed to be Dr
Walsh the old Irish doctor.
Dr Holland the
hard “snap out of it” women doctor.
Or Dr Ainsworth
the young flash flirting with my Mum, doctor.
On the whole we
had a good set of doctors.
Usual boring waiting
room with old magazines with nothing to read.
And of course the
buzzer with a different colour for each doctor.
If you had a weak
heart, beware!
The buzzer was so
loud in the waiting room and receptionist speaker so loud that half the waiting
room left their seats when the buzzer went.
You tried to
anticipate it so you didn’t get a fright.
You knew that
when the doctor spoke to the receptionist on the intercom, within 15 seconds
there would be the main buzzer.
BUZZZZZZZZ
“Anthony
Goodson to Doctor Holland”
Cripes my heart
misses a beat even with that!
It was more an
electric jolt than a buzz.
Monday
8th July 2002
When you’re a kid, when does going to the dentist become hell on earth?
I can’t remember my first trip to the dentist.
I remember lots of fillings without injections.
I remember having teeth pulled out (with injections)
It’s that smell of the dentist that really gets me.
The only good bit about the dentist is swilling your mouth out afterwards
with that pink stuff.
Also I’ve always had sensitive teeth so the air gun and water gun always
hurt like hell.
Filling after filling after filling.
I have 4 generations of filling inside each other.
Why me?
And our dentist was my dad’s boyhood friend, which meant it was long trip
into the centre of Manchester.
Nowadays I just want them all ripped out and a pair of Donny Osmond’s
installed.
Actually I better be careful what I ask for!!
Dentists then never made any effort to be likeable, except one who my Mum
worked for, for a while.
He was joke after joke after joke.
He even picked my up on my feet raising in the chair before he’d even
touched me.
And I swear that once when he was extracting a tooth, he had to put his
knee on my chest to steady things.
No one believes that one but I’m sure it was true.
And as for gas, I only ever had that once, and it seemed quite fun.
Thursday July 4th 2002
Skippy
Skippy, Skippy,
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo,
Skippy Skippy,
Our friend ever true! (I thought it was “Our
friend and yours too!)
And so began my relationship with a television
kangaroo.
It’s not as though Skippy did anything much.
He stayed static, he bounced round a bit, he
clicked and he chewed stuff.
That was about it. But for some reason we loved watching Skippy, and Sonny.
Maybe it was the speed that Skippy could get
help, faster than Lassie I’ll bet.
It’s not just me that found it weird. Comedy sketches the world over focus on the
uselessness of a Kangaroo communications,
“Click Click Click, Click Click!”
“What’s that Skip, Sonny’s fallen down a
disused mineshaft and you want to show us where.
You bounce ahead Skippy and show us just where
Sonny is”
It certainly, like Rolf Harris, romanticised
Australia.
Maybe that’s why I live here now, Rolf Harris
and Skippy.