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/May 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.
World Cup final
Just watched
36 years ago
almost to the day, my mum sat me in front of our black and white TV to watch
England play West Germany in the 1966 World Cup final, and all I can remember
is me saying to Mum,
“Look Mummy,
there’s the Queen!”
That was it!
My World Cup
final 36 years ago.
Rolf Harris
There was is
something reassuring about Rolf Harris,
even now.
Kind of ironic
that I ended up living in
I seem to go back
so far with Rolf.
Koala Bears,
Didgeridoo, Wobble Boards, Two Little Boys (know all the words to that song),
his painting from nothing on his show, and as a guest on other shows.
Rolf Harris
annual, knowing that he was a swimming champion.
Such a great all
round multi talent. What a role model
for a kid.
Whistle, Sing,
Paint, Swim, Jokes, Stories, and of course the best of all Jake the Peg, with
his extra leg.
I never could
tell which one was the false one.
And only recently
I found out that my wife’s uncle Merv was at school with him!
And of course the
Stylophone.
Struggling
Why have I slowed
down about coming up with ideas for writing about my childhood?
I haven’t come on
to describing too much about the people in my childhood, and I can’t write too
much about that on-line!
But there’s
plenty of childhood things and curiosities and silly thoughts and perspectives
as a child.
It’s just that I
can’t think of any right now, and I haven’t enough webspace to put any more
photos up for the next few days.
I’m sure
something will come to mind as I write this.
This bit is just
as important to write about as the stories themselves sometimes.
Still nothing!
Carpets
The carpets in
our house were the weirdest I’ve ever come across.
They were neither
old style nor modern.
Difficult to
describe so perhaps a few photos will help (I’ll put them up soon!)
How Green was my Valley?
I look at this
photo and it evokes so many happy memories.
So much
possibility. With my sister in our
garden, and behind us The Valley of Possibility.
Blue Skies,
Sunshine, Red Roses.
The photo is
deceptive because the trees on the right of the photo are from the other side
of The Valley, so between our garden and the trees in the background was our
Valley and River. The picture is dated
December ’65, but I think it’s summer ’65 given that the roses are in full
bloom. You can even tell from the
shadows what time it was because the garden faced south, so it must have been
about 10-00!
That garden path
leading away behind us, says FUN.
Just follow the
path to end of the garden, down a short incline, climb over the fence taking
care not to get caught by the razor sharp blackberry bushes, and then into the
lush
Tom Jones sings
about the Green Green Grass of Home.
I know where he
means.
Fishing in Jersey !
Why are mothers
so embarrassing?
We were on
holiday in
Fine, I thought,
good luck to her, go shoot.
The problem is
she decided that a cute picture of us fishing would be very nice.
Of course her
brainwave was “Fishing in
Of course she
already decided that the more nude we were the more cute it would look.
“Anthony take
your trunks off.”
“No”
“Come on Anthony,
it’s just for one photo, it will look really cute.”
“No”
“It’s for fishing
in a jersey, you only have to show your bottom.”
“No”
“Show me your
bottom because you’re just fishing in a
“No”
“Well at least
take your trunks off”
“No”
And so it went
on. I don’t know how she managed to
convince us to do it.
Actually, looking
at the photo, I seem to have got away with it, with a big woolly cardigan, and
just for extra protection my hand seems to be covering my willy for extra
defiance.
Meanwhile my poor
sister’s bottom is there for all to see!
Admittedly it
does look cute now, but I’m now 41 and a father of 9 month old daughter and not
a 6-7 year old with pride and dignity!
Did the photo
win? I can’t remember.
According to my
Mum the photo didn’t win.
All that
suffering for nothing!
Click on the
photo for the competition size version.
The Death of Twitcher
Our first pet was
a rabbit called Twitcher.
Your porn star
name is your first pet and mother maiden name.
In that case I’d
be Twitcher Berger.
We kept the
rabbit in a hutch outside.
I have to say,
rabbits don’t seem to do much do they?
They jump into
straw and poo. That’s about it.
One day we were
having breakfast, and there was a knock at the door.
Our next door
neighbour had found Twitcher dead on their lawn.
It seemed at fox
had broken into the hutch, though I’m not quite sure how a fox can open a bolt,
cunning though foxes may be, and chased poor Twitcher around the garden.
End of Rabbit,
end of Twitcher, end of our first pet.
We stuck with
goldfishes won at fairgrounds for the next few years.
Valley Sledging
One of the most
exciting things of childhood was snow.
The most exciting
part of snow, was that when it had snowed enough, we could go and
sledge/toboggan.
Down the hill at
the back of our garden. Sometimes just a
few people, and other times what seemed like hundreds of people.
We initially had
a crappy wooden sledge. Jamie Marsden
had an orange plastic sledge.
Eventually Mum
and Dad bought us a red plastic sledge.
I just loved my
red plastic sledge, I used to stare at it in the garage, praying it would snow.
And when it did,
no matter what time of the day or night, I’d sneak into The Valley, up to the
top of the hill, and sledge down.
It was a couple
of hundred yards to the bottom which levelled of to another couple of hundred
yards.
Some people on
more advanced wooden toboggans could almost travel along the bottom of the
valley until it stopped at The River.
It was one of the
most exciting days of the year, the first fall of snow on to The Valley.
People starting
to gather, and then whoosh.
Unfortunately a
few years later, the people who owned the land in The Valley, fenced it into
sections with barbed wire, which restricted a full fun down on to The Valley
floor.
Curse Them.
The picture is of
me and my sister on our crappy heavy wooden sledge, pulled up by gravity at the
bottom of the hill.
Brazil
I always wanted
to go to
Just today I
don’t.
See Saw
Looking through
the old photos for inspiration and I saw one of me and my sister on our
see-saw.
Yes, we had a
real see-saw.
Bit useless when
you think about it because you needed a second person to play with it, we
usually needed to be kept an eye on when using it, and I was always heavier
than my sister.
I think we
enjoyed having our see-saw, but I don’t remember very well.
At some point I
got bored with our see-saw and tried to destroy as much of it as possible over
time.
Given it was made
largely of metal, not much of it got destroyed just the wooden red seat.
The Sandpit
When Mum and Dad
had the house built when my sister was born, they left the bottom of the garden
ungrassed, and asked the builders to put a sandpit in the garden for the us
kids.
So consequently
as small kids we had a sandpit to play in.
I don’t remember
it that well, and we had it filled in a few years later.
My sister did
break her collar-bone falling into The Sandpit!
Chess
My Dad taught me
to play chess.
I just took
straight to it.
It appealed to
the way my brain works. Spatial and
logical, but with a tangential twist.
I seemed to have
a gift for it.
After initially
getting suckered a few times, not by my Dad but by others, my chess ability
took off.
I was never that
good at remembering openings, I had more a natural flair for the game.
My Dad taught me
to “develop my pieces”, gave me the ideas of what was worth what on the chess
board and then some basic rules, of looking to castle fairly quickly on the
King’s side (usually).
My Dad was always
up for a game, win or lose, but my enthusiasm grew and wavered depending on
what else was distracting me.
I captained the
chess team at junior school, won in my section of an open competition, drew
with a
My one regret was not learning early enough the next level of the
game, and having someone to teach and coach me.
It was only later in my teens when BBC2 had the MasterGame and
Grandmasters commentated on their own game and thinking, that I really began to
see what was happening, long in advance.
It was a revelation, but came too late for me to really go on and do
something. I also think that at junior
school I had encouragement, and those around me realised how good I was, but
there was too much politics in senior school, where people who looked good
rather than were good, were encouraged, played up the team and captained the
team, though I did captain the team in the end. There was no real discussion or
love of the game, until for while a boy called Ken Hughes really showed me what
Chess was about.
There was something strange about silently facing your opponent
never quite sure if you were better than them, and making sure you didn’t make
any silly mistakes.
I’m sure it’s similar to poker.
Though I haven’t
played for years, if I lost everything else, I think the one thing I’d do is
play chess.
Building Bricks
Mum and Dad
bought us some building bricks.
These weren’t
you’re average little wooden block bricks.
They were
coloured cardboard which folded into bloody massive bricks.
You could build
your own house on a 1:1 scale, in fact the bricks were bigger than real bricks.
Don’t believe
me? Then take a look.
You could do so
many things with them. Build dens, try
those 3 block juggling tricks, throw the bricks at your sister, or hit her with
them.
Endless
possibility. I loved them. What a great toy.
Do you think they
exist nowadays?
They look a bit
dangerous now.
By the way, in
the background is a glass door. Yes, a
glass door.
The lower panes
are covered with sliding wood shields to stop us or the bricks falling through!
Father Christmas
Didn’t you find
Father Christmas just slightly scary?
Going up to sit
on some sweaty blokes knee, with a dodgy false white beard?
Never getting
anything you asked for from him.
Queuing for hours
and then being disappointed.
Ho Ho Ho! Click
the Picture
Given the choice
between Father Christmas and a Monkey; The Monkey wins hands down!
Marta’s Arse
Of all the things
that terrified me when I was a child, Marta’s arse was probably the most
terrifying.
Marta was our
Czechoslovakian Au Pair.
It’s the biggest and most terrifying arse I’ve ever
known, the reason being that when you’re a 7 year old child, that’s what you
see, Marta’s arse is at head height.
My, it was big.
She looked like a Bulgarian Shot Putter, except of
course she was Czechoslovakian. And how
did I know I was 7? Well, she was with
us in 1968 when the Soviets invaded
Here’s a picture of Marta, but without the arse, but
it does give you the idea of relative height!
Marta’s the one on the left! The weird Heidi looking girl is my sister in
her favourite Heidi outfit!
They both appear to be standing slightly away from the
wall. That’s as near to the wall as
Marta could get, with her arse.
Click on the photo for a full scale scare.
Actually, looking at the photo now, she looks quite
nice. Friendly.
Not when you’re a 7 year old kid and at half her
height!
Picture Essay Question
Looking for
inspiration today, and I realise that old pictures inspire me to write this
stuff.
I learnt from our
feared Geography teacher “Jed” Durnall to always choose the picture question,
because you can describe what you see (no imagination required I guess).
This proved
successful in my greatest academic achievement.
Getting a ‘C” in
English Language O-Level.
This might not
sound like a great achievement, but believe me, when you fail it the first time
and have to bounce back, it is. I can’t
remember what I got first time, D,E or unclassified. Unclassified means you are beyond the worst
of worst. I think that’s what I
got. My handwriting and spelling were
atrocious. I now realise I’m dyslexic,
but try telling that to The Joint Matriculation Board.
I was devastated
at the first attempt, which we took a year early, so at least it gave me time
to have 2 more cracks before full O-Levels.
So in November 1976, having failed in June ’76, I re-sat my English
O-Level.
And jackpot,
there was the picture essay question.
What appeared to be a large London Carnival crowd, I changed it into a Monaco Grand Prix crowd
and wrote and wrote and wrote, describing everything I could see. 2 months later, it did the trick. C grade. Thanks JED.
I have 2 very
talented friends, but academia was never their thing. The narrow education system let them
down. I know how it feels. Somehow I struggled through the education
system, in spite of my inabilities, 11 Plus, Entry Exams, O-Levels, A-Levels,
University. And every one of those
situations I had failure and had to bounce back.
Amazing isn’t
it. I was going to pick a childhood
picture today and write about it, but I’ve gone off on one and written a
picture essay question!
The Garage Door
Looking at that
yellow garage door below in the picture, reminds me that at times, my childhood
revolved around that door.
Firstly it was
the beacon/lighthouse that attracted us home.
When I think of
Always a welcome
sight coming round the corner, seeing it, and you knew you were finally home.
Safe.
My sporting
career always started against the garage door.
Football,
cricket, tennis, throwing, lacrosse.
Therefore it was
the start of my passion.
I think I’ve said
this before, but one of my dreams as a kid when I thought of my perfect house,
was to have a large, plain flat wall to play sport against, instead of the
ribbed frame of our yellow garage door which would send a ball in any
direction.
And to my
amazement, here in
No wonder they’re
good at tennis.
And what lay
behind the garage door?
In the early
years, a car.
In the latter years,
a mess.
70s Décor Car
Well if you
thought the kitchen had an interesting décor, check out the gold Ford Capri, my
Mum’s pink handbag, short white dress, and my Dad’s natty blue suit, and of
course tie and handkerchief, and the yellow garage door. The guy on the left in the light jacket is of
course American. A distant Uncle/Cousin.
60s Décor Kitchen
My Mum is just
looking through some old photos.
And our kitchen
was a site to behold.
Built in the
beginning of the sixties, white and pale blue, silver handles, frosted sliding
glass cupboards, and the best thing was a swing out table which folded back
into the drawers.
Oh, what the
hell, a picture paints a thousand words.
Click on the picture!
Please note: Our
kitchen was never this tidy or uncluttered, but my Mum must have done a special
clearing job for the photo.
And who’s in the
photo? My Auntie Yvonne, my Mum’s
sister. She adds to the 60s look don’t
you think?
Anthony come down and say hello
I can’t believe
that today I was told off by my Mum for not standing up when someone came into
the room.
I’m 41!
Does it ever end,
being told off by your Mum for not being polite enough?
It reminds me of
the hundreds of times as a kid, I’m
playing in my room, guests call round, and I have to come down and say hello.
They’re her
friends and relatives.
I’m not a
performing seal you know.
It really brought
it back to me today that Anthony isn’t polite enough and an embarrassment to
his Mum.
The shame I have
brought on the family over 41 years for not saying hello properly, but just
grunting.
I seem to recall
a family stand-off for 12 hours for not coming down to say hello to my
grandmother.
Shame on me.
And yet, when my
parents had guests round to play cards and gossip, then they didn’t want us to
come down and mingle.
“Say hello
Anthony and then it’s bedtime.”
My sister and I
used to then pretend to go to bed and then silently crawl down the stairs on
our bellies to “spy” on my parents and their guests, trying to listen to their
conversations but being to scaredy to get too far down the stairs to hear
anything.
It’s great isn’t
it. When they want you to be with guests
you don’t want to, and when they’re having a really good juicy gossip, playing
cards and having a whiskey they don’t want you around, when clearly these are
the types of guests to be around.
I’m 41 and I’m
rebelling. Finally!!
Mind you, I can’t
see myself nowadays pretending to go to
bed, and then crawling down the stairs to listen to my mother’s secret
conversations.
It’s a Knockout
Games without
frontiers. Jeux sans Frontier!
Just watched
I thought at
first of Man United beating Benfica in the 1968 European Cup Final at Wembley.
But come to think
of it, being a Friday night, it felt more like those rare occasions when a
British team won It’s a Knockout, with Eddie Waring commentating on the
marathon and Stuart Hall giggling away.
I can only remember
It always used to
be NL or WG. Same in football, but not
tonight.
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
as Stuart Hall would have said.
Mum, I’m bored
This was the most common utterance by me and my sister to Mum.
And you know what my Mum’s cruel answer was?
“Spit in the air and see if you can catch it.”
No wonder I’m such an emotionally damaged adult!!
We must have driven her mad with our claims of boredom, not knowing what
to do with ourselves, not able to always self occupy ourselves.
There were times where playing out, watching the telly, making something,
playing a game, eating, sleeping, just didn’t cut it.
We expected our Mum to come up with the miracle answer. Of course we rejected all her suggestions.
So “Spitting in the air and catching it” just seemed the final option.
I never did try her suggestion though!
Belle Vue
And of course the closer version of
A fun fair complex in the middle of urban
I have no idea about the history of Belle Vue and when it started but, it
was a quite large Fun Fair complex in
I seem to remember my sister trying to get tickets to The Osmonds for
Belle Vue.
I don’t know why, but Belle Vue closed down and was converted into a
housing estate, like many places.
Did it have zoo? I think it did,
but I’m not sure.
In fact I get the attractions of
It was
What about the black octopus ride?
Was that
Going to Belle Vue didn’t have the same excitement as going to
The one thing you could say about Belle Vue is that it wasn’t a beautiful
view.
Café Royale Berni Inn
One of the highlights of our childhood was to go to the
Café Royale in
Steak and Chips with mushrooms.
I seemed to remember the place in central
Amazing how things change so quickly.
Places like that are hardly considered up market and yet at the time for
us it was the biz.
In the end we brought our Café Royal cuisine home, whereby Mum bought us
lots of steaks, put them in the fridge or freezer, and if we wanted we could go
into the fridge and cook our own Berni Inn delight right in our very own home,
chips and mushrooms replaced with frozen peas and corn, or sprouts.
End of Berni Inn and The Café Royale.
Blackpool
I’m in
Very different places.
As kids,
We never stayed, just visited.
The pain was as great as the pleasure, in that it was a long drive for us
kids, especially before the motorways.
But what wonders once we got there.
The first game was who could spot
It required intense concentration, and oh the excitement of spotting it
first and then it acting as a beacon to approaching the town.
There were two reasons to go to
The
Just so exciting. The
It all seemed to start with the roller coaster ride and then things were
added each year.
For evening winter entertainment there were The Blackpool Illuminations
along The Golden Mile, on the beachfront.
Bulbs galore. Pictures in
bulbs. Bulbs over the road. Bulbs on lampposts. Flashing Bulbs.
As an adult looking back I wonder why it was so exciting. Big deal, some flashing bulbs. But as a kid there was nothing like it.
We begged Dad to keep driving up and down the Golden Mile to see them
again and again.
Of course there was the bad food to add to the great time. Fish and Chips, Candyfloss, Donuts, Waffles,
the more sugar the better.
I could go on and on about
We took a friend to
A Southern Softy. Never been Oop
North.
At the end of the day on our way back from
“Absolutely disgusting and repulsive!”
Yeh we agreed, that’s
He just didn’t get it.
Mind you, after University he moved to
Kick Anything
I’d kick or football dribble anything.
Stones, tin can, drink can, tennis football.
Goal!
I used to get through shoes in a matter of weeks and months, scuffed to
bits with my dribbling skills.
Balloons. That how I learnt
keep-me-up.
Kick your chewing gum and score like Georgie Best.
Jumpers for goalposts.
Lightweight plastic footballs.
Heavy plastic footballs.
Casey leather footballs with laces and a bladder in the middle to
replace.
And then modern leather/synthetic footballs with hexagonal panels and
needle valves to inflate.
A ball for every occasion.
And if no ball, then dribble a can or bottle or sweet wrapper, or conker.
Goal!
Kid Heroes
Other than John Noakes, who were my heroes as a kid?
Of course there were the sporting heroes.
Georgie Best, Bobby Charlton, Bobby Moore, Nobby Stiles, Johnny Giles,
Gordon Banks, Dave Hemery, Henry Cooper, Colin Bell, Basil D’Olivera, John
Edrich, John Snow, Peter Lever, Ray Illingworth, Barry Wood, Jack Simmons, Matt
Busby, Alf Ramsey.
TV. Newsreaders always seemed to give that steadiness, Robert Dougal etc.
Rolf Harris, Mike Yarwood, Morecambe and Wise, Jon Pertwee, Leslie
Crowther and Peter Glaze, John Alderton, Bob Monkhouse, Frank Bough, David
Coleman,
Strangely enough, I can’t think of any Rock heroes at the time. Of course The Beatles were big, but as a kid
you more noticed the crappy theme records like Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep
(Middle of the Road) or Two Little Boys (Rolf Harris).
There were other people who you were told were heroes but weren’t quite
sure why, like John F Kennedy, Ghandi, Field Marshal Montgomery, Winston
Churchill, Gary Sobers.