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
June/May 2002: 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, 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.
Coming Soon; Top of the Pops, Conkers
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
I just found this as an email sent to me
nearly a year ago.
Maybe it was this that inspired me to write my Rimmer Shit.
Close your eyes and go back in time....
Before the Internet or the Apple Mac...
Before semi-automatics, joyriders and crack....
Before SEGA or Super Nintendo...
Way back...
. I'm talking about Hide and Seek in the park.
. The corner shop.
. Hopscotch.
. Butterscotch.
. Skipping.
. Handstands.
. Football with an old can.
. Fingerbobs.
. Beano, Twinkle.
. Roly-Poly.
. Hula Hoops, jumping the stream,
. Building dams.
. The smell of the sun and fresh cut grass.
. Bazooka Joe bubble gum.
. An ice cream cone on a warm summer night from the van that
plays a tune
. Chocolate or vanilla or strawberry or maybe Neapolitan.
Wait...
. Watching Saturday morning cartoons.... Short commercials,
The Double
Deckers, RoadRunner, He-Man, Tiswas or Swapshop, and Why Don't You - or
staying up for Star Trek.
. When around the corner seemed far away and going into town
seemed like
going somewhere.
. Earwigs, wasps and bee stings.
. Sticky fingers.
. Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, and Zorro.
. Climbing trees.
. Building igloos out of snow banks.
. Walking to school, no matter what the weather.
. Running till you were out of breath, laughing so hard that
your
stomach hurt.
. Jumping on the bed. Pillow fights.
. Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down was cause
for giggles.
. Being tired from playing
.... Remember that?
. The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team.
. Water balloons were the ultimate weapon
. Football cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a
motorcycle.
I'm not finished just yet...
. Eating raw jelly. Orange squash ice pops.
. Remember when...
. There were two types of trainers - girls and boys, and
Dunlop Green
Flash - and the only time you wore them at school was for "gym".
. You knew everyone in your street - and so did your parents.
. It wasn't odd to have two or three "best"
friends.
. You didn't sleep a wink on Christmas Eve.
. When nobody owned a purebred dog.
. When 25p was decent pocket money.
. When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny.
. When nearly everyone's mum was at home when the kids got
there.
. It was magic when dad would "remove" his thumb.
. When it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to
dinner at
a real restaurant with your parents.
. When any parent could discipline any kid, or feed him or
use him to
carry groceries and nobody, not even the kid, thought a thing of it.
. When being sent to the head's office was nothing compared
to the fate
that awaited a misbehaving student at home.
. Basically, we were in fear for our lives but it wasn't
because of
drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs etc.
. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! -
And some of
us are still afraid of them!!
Didn't that feel good?
Just to go back and say, Yeah, I remember that!
Remember when....
. Decisions were made by going "Eeny-meeny-
miney-mo."
. "Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the
fastest.
. Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in
"Monopoly".
. The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was
germs.
. And the worst thing in your day was having to sit next to
one.
. It was unbelievable that British Bulldog wasn't an Olympic
event.
. Having a weapon in school, meant being caught with a
catapult.
. Nobody was prettier than Mum.
. Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better.
. Taking drugs meant orange-flavoured chewable aspirin.
. Ice cream was considered a basic food group
. Getting a foot of snow was a dream come true
. Older siblings were the worst tormentors, but also the
fiercest
protectors
. If you can remember most or all of these, then you have
LIVED.
Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from their "grown up"
life...
I DOUBLE-DARE YA!
There was something reassuring about John Noakes from Blue Peter.
One of us, game for a laugh, prepared to give it a go, enthusiastic.
And of course his dog Shep.
“Get down Shep!”
Laughed when things went wrong.
Hammed it up.
A real kids hero.
Does he still hold the record for the highest freefall parachute jump by
a civilian?
Of course one of the reasons John Noakes was so great, is that Peter
Purves was so dull.
Contrast.
Of course prior to learning to swim, there’s nothing like having your own swimming pool in your back garden.
Or should I say Paddling Pool.
An inflatable round thing that took ages to blow up and then ages to fill
up with freezing cold water from the garden hose.
And that plastic smell. Didn’t
seem to wash away with all that water, most of which spilt on to the garden
with the first jump.
In the end it seemed more fun to attach Dad’s sprinkler to the garden
hose and jump through that.
I think we used to force ourselves to laze in our Paddling Pool, just to
pretend we had a swimming pool.
I learnt to swim when I was about 7.
Galleon Swimming Pool. Instructor
called Ken.
Pull Froggy and Drive.
That’s what they yelled at us once we’d learnt keep our head in the
water, be pulled along by Ken, and then float on our own.
It’s all coming back to me.
Breast stroke consisted of, pulling your arms back, making a froggy and
driving your arms and legs straight, hence,
Pull Froggy and Drive.
I can still smell that chlorine smell and that near drowning experience.
And then one day they said stand on the edge of the swimming pool, lean
down and forward.
Splash! That was my first
dive. More a flop than a dive.
Actually, once I’d mastered breast stoke and because they’d taught us
from the start to have our heads and face in the water, it was easy to learn
the other strokes and do them properly.
I was good at breastroke but never really mastered crawl for any length
of time, and certainly not butterfly.
That was impossible.
Once I learnt to swim, I loved the water, and I could breastroke
forever. You couldn’t get me out of the
pool.
My Mum said that Ken was an olympic coach. I just couldn’t work out how he could be an
olympic coach if he hadn’t been an olympic swimmer.
Is there anything more disgusting than a spit wash from your mother?
I suppose it could have been a spit wash from someone else.
What is it about mothers that they thought we as kids liked them to spit
on a handkerchief and than rub some bit of grub off?
It was disgusting. I hated
it. Child cruelty.
Children today don’t know how lucky they are with Wet-Wipes and other wet
washy products.
I hope I never spit wash my young daughter.
It’s not as though whatever we had that needed spit washing was so urgent
as to need spit washing.
It’s not as though we don’t live in an age of running water.
Do think mothers, including mine, just did it to irritate us?
Isn’t Play-Doh
the most fantastic smelling, touching thing when you’re a kid.
The smell makes
me think of Christmas and getting loads of Chrissy presents.
Play-Doh. You could do anything with it and yet
nothing.
It was good for
nothing, except extruding into strange shapes, and throwing at your sister.
Nice colours.
Nice Tin to put
what remained of the stuff back in.
That smell.
Let’s face it,
its main competitor was plasticine which smelt like an old toilet.
Come to think of
it, plasticine looked like something lurking in an old toilet.
And then came
Play-Doh
Ahhh Play-Doh!
I took me along
time to get out of nappies.
Couldn’t see the
point. More playtime with the use of
nappies.
Same with the
toilet.
I can’t remember
how old I was, but the cry of “FINISHED” would fill the house, and my mum would
come running to finish the job I’d clearly started!
I seem to
remember being quite old before I was using the toilet from the beginning of
the process to the end!
And after that it
was pure bliss, because as a male, my heritage passed down from my father of
sitting on the toilet for hours reading the newspaper.
In my case, I
supplemented my reading with the Guinness Book of Records.
I missed two
essential foods from my School Dinner list the other day.
Gravy and
Custard.
According to my
Mum, after my first day at school, when she asked me what I had for lunch, I
replied,
“Gravy and
Custard”
That just about
sums up my school dinner experience for the next 13 years.
Gravy and
Custard.
Clothes to me as
a kid were functional, not fashion. If
they’re comfortable they’re good.
This was in
conflict with my Mum who wanted to ponce us up and photograph us in sailor
suits and posh stuff, all the time.
Cravattes and
Ties and Suits and Trousers and Brushed Hair.
“Get off Mum, I
want to go and play football”
And she always
thought that good lighting for photography was having the sun shining directly
in our eyes, so most of our family photos have me and my sister with a scowl
from staring into the sun and trying to smile.
I must say
though, that the photos of us in our poncy clothes, now look the best.
Mum knows best,
but when you’re a kid you just want to go out and play.
I write about
kid’s clothes, but I can hardly remember any of mine because I didn’t care.
A purple and
white tie/dye T-Shirt.
Marks and Spencer
vest and pants and socks.
Timpson shoes.
I must have worn
shorts or trousers but I can’t remember any.
V-Neck jumpers.
Woolly jumpers.
Aertex
T-Shirts. I can still remember the smell
(if it’s possible to remember a smell!)
Rugby Shirts came
later.
Cardigans. I’ve always quite liked a wool cardigan.
Slippers. (Just
needs a pipe to complete the old man look)
Navy. My Mum insisted I looked best in Navy.
Gloves that went
soggy in the wet.
Anoraks. Purple
Anoraks!
Gabardine
Coat. Duffle Coat.
Elasticated Ties.
It seemed a
continual fight between what clothes were nearest to me to get on and out, and
my Mum saying,
“Anthony, you
can’t wear that!”
Oh yes I can.
I don’t think
anything was exciting as receiving a watch for a present as a kid.
It’s not as
though you received one every year, and so when you did it was a big event.
Nowadays you can
get a watch for 5 dollars.
Then they were
expensive. Non of this digital stuff.
Wind up and watch
it go.
Watches are
almost disposable nowadays if you want to tell the time, though we’ve been
seduced into buying the design not the cost of telling the time.
It’s like trying
to explain to my auntie about disposal cameras.
“What? You throw the camera away?”
She can’t
comprehend that a camera is now thrown away because in her time a camera was a
precious expensive object of desire, just like a swiss watch.
My Mum used to
think it was cute that I said owright instead of ‘all right’, so she never
corrected me.
It was only when
I was 7 or 8 that I found out that there was no such word as owright.
Mothers can be
very embarrassing sometimes.
Meriton Rd Park,
was the local park where we went to play sometimes.
It was also the school
soccer pitch.
Tennis
courts. It’s the first thing you see
then you enter the park and no doubt the source of my love of tennis.
Putting Green.
Swings,
Roundabout, See-Saw, Rocking Horse type thing for several people to climb on
and fall off.
I loved the
swings. Still do. Sneak on a swing when no-one is looking.
And then fields
for sport.
And finally I’ve
as said before, a grouchy park keeper.
“Oi you, yes you,
get off your bikes!”
Just went to a
play centre for kids today with indoor play areas, and it reminded me of how
sparse but still somehow similar, the parks used to be and are now. None of this soft rubbery stuff to land
on. It used to be gravel in your knee or
don’t fall.
The stark choice.
Just put up
Winnie the Pooh characters in
It set me
thinking about who my favourite cartoon characters were.
I loved Tigger
and Eeyore, and a bit of Pooh but he’s a slow idiot.
Baloo the Bear
from The Jungle Book and Thomas O’Malley the Ally Cat from The Aristocats.
As a really young
kid, I loved the Seven Dwarfs, especially Dopey.
TV cartoon
characters? Shaggy and Scooby-Doo.
Top Cat, Bugs
Bunny, Spiderman, Sylvester, Deputy Dawg, Yogi Bear.
In fact I’d have
a combined compound cartoon character;
The bounce of
Tigger
The playfulness
of Baloo the Bear
The cunning of
Top Cat
The appetite of
Scooby Doo
The wit and
annoyance of Bugs Bunny
The stick and
swing of Spiderman
The underwater
breathing ability of Marine Boy
Talking of
food. School Dinners.
You could write a
whole book just on school dinners.
Maybe a few
questions I’ve been pondering.
Why were the
vegetables, especially the cabbage always colourless, bleached and soggy?
What was it with
school dinners that they always served the same food. Mince Meat, Semolina or Rice Pudding, Mashed
Potato, Liver?
Does something
chemically different happen to food when it’s mass produced?
Given that eating
is one of the most important things we do, why did the school canteens have the
most uncomfortable chairs/benches.
Why did the place
stink? If a restaurant smelt like a
school canteen, it would go out of business in a week.
Why did they
serve food that they knew many kids hated (Liver and Brussel Sprouts), and
offer no choice?
When you can have
fish fingers at home, why serve fish with bones in to children at school?
What type of
person becomes a school cook, and did they take pride in the stuff they served?
Were the special
cooking techniques handed down from generation to generation?
You wouldn’t
think it with my list of Horrible Food below, but actually I didn’t mind school
dinners, just like I don’t mind airline coffee (mind you, I don’t drink coffee
anymore).
I don’t think
there was a single meal at school that I ever had at home.
They must have
had some kind of secret and magical cooking techniques and implements to get
the dinners to be that consistent surprise.
Perhaps it was
mass stewing of everything. It would
have been impossible for my Mum to duplicate the taste and texture of school
dinners.
Not that I wanted
her to.
And then once in
a blue moon, the excitement was raised by the very rare serving of Arctic Roll!
Sponge with Ice
Cream in the middle. How did this treat
manage to get through the school dinner censorship of normal food?
And why only this
one. Was bribery involved with the
County Councils across the country just for Arctic Rolls?
In
It just seemed an
excuse for men to be entertained by waitresses dressed in school uniforms and
stockings.
If only we had
had that at school!
Just eating
sprouts tonight which I’ve always loved but other people hate.
Set me thinking
about what food I hated as a kid.
Carrots, Green
Beans, Lettuce (Before the invention of The Iceberg), Spicy Food, Marmite,
Bovril, Pickled Onions (but I loved Piccalilli), Stuffed Olives in a Jar (hated
the look of them), Liquorice All-Sorts (liked the look of them but they tasted
disgusting), HP Sauce, the ginger centred chocolate (the only one I’d leave in
the box of chocolates), all cheese except Dairylea and Laughing Cow. Semolina
without the Jammy bit, Wheatabix, Cornflakes (not sweet enough), Gooseberry or
Rhubarb unless it was in a crumble, Lemon Meringue (the lemon bit was too
sloppy and the meringue bit was to crunchy and hard.
I had a sweet
tooth.
Funnily enough I
had no problems with the food that some kids hate. Brussel Sprouts and Liver.
Of the foods I
hated as a kid, only Marmite, Bovril, HP Sauce, I still couldn’t eat.
I love Green
Beans now.
My first bank
account was with Williams and Glyn’s Bank.
Sounds made up
nowadays.
White bank with
white savings book.
I had so little
in the account it was hardly worth spending.
I had so little
in the account it hardly attracted any interest.
I lost interest
in my Williams and Glyn’s Bank account.
Easier to ask my
parents for hard cash.
I had more money
in my piggy bank, and more flexibility.
There was no
bribery for kids when I was young to join a bank.
Don’t know why my
Mum chose Williams and Glyn’s.
Don’t even know
why it is spelt Williams and Glyn’s with an apostrophe, but that’s what seems
to come up on Google.
My daughter has
just started crawling aged 7 months.
She’s also
started trying to hold herself up.
Made me think
about my early development.
Not sure when I
started crawling or walking.
Too young to
remember. I’ll have to ask my Mum.
However, I do
remember coming out of nappies.
You might think
I’d be too early to remember, but the reason was because I was quite late
coming out of nappies.
3½ years old.
Not because I was
a late developer, but because I’d worked out that if you came into the house
for a poo on the potty, it cut down on playtime.
Better to wear a
nappy, have a crap in it whilst I was outside playing, leaving more time to
play outside with Clare Jones.
Clever and Lazy,
even at such a young age.
Hence I remember
announcing to my Dad when he came home one night, that I’d finally seen the
error of my ways, and fallen in with the adult population. I don’t know what my Mum did to convince me.
No more pooey
nappies and less playtime.
The story of the
rest of my life.
Just watched Perth Glory lose to Olympic Sharks in the Aussie football
(soccer) final.
Made my think about what was my first sporting disappointment.
Let me think….
I think
I wanted
Not bitter disappointment though.
Bitter disappointment was
Yes that was the first real disappointment I think.
And it’s been
Even this year with United losing to Bayer Leverkussen.
In fact I proposed to my wife the day evening
Such a rare occurrence, hey, why not propose.
Our local cinema in Wilmslow was called The Rex.
Don’t know why.
I loved going to the cinema as a kid.
Whilst this wasn’t the golden age of cinema, and most time was spent
watching the telly, the cinema was fun.
Paying through the small window, getting the ticket which whizzed out of
the metal desk.
And then heaven; sweets, ice lolly, and drink choice.
How come there’s stuff at the cinema you would never dream of eating or
drinking anywhere else.
Kia Ora Orange juice. Ice Cream Tubs. Mivi Ice Lollies, FAB Ice Lollies,
Pack of Opal Fruits. Whole Box of
Maltesers.
In the good old days you had a B film, which was some crummy Disney thing
about a cat getting lost and finding it’s way home, or some patronising crap
about the wonders of
I can still hear that know it all narrator talking about visiting this
country and that country.
And then Intermission, fire curtain down, and more sweets and drinks,
usually an Ice Cream Tub from those strange carriers in the aisle.
Of course there’s also the funny local adverts where there’s a standard
film of an Indian Restaurant and they insert your local Indian Restaurant at
the end of the clip.
And then the main film and usually an Intermission in the middle of the
main film as well.
Even more sweets, drinks, and ice cream.
And finally The National Anthem at the end when you’re all supposed to
stand up at the end, and never sure if you’re brave enough to leave before the
anthem has finished playing.
When did they decide to do away with Intermissions and The National
Anthems?
The Rex closed down a few years ago.
I don’t know what they’ve done with the cinema space.
The front is converted into shops.
The Cinema is popular as ever but it’s moved to multi complexes.
What disappoints me is the whole experience hasn’t improved much.
The food and drink is just as uniquely crap as it ever was.
It’s just as boring as ever waiting for the film to start.
And most of the adverts are just as dull as those adverts for your local
Indian Restaurant.
The “future features” has replaced the B film, thank God.
The views are usually better of the screen, maybe because I’m taller!
Sambo the mongrel dog across the road jumped up and hit me in the
eye. I hated that dog.
Rocky the
My cousins in
Hector the small dachshund two doors down was cute and eccentric.
The old lady up the road had a white Scotty Dog. Nice.
A yappie Yorkshire terrier called Trixie I think.
I can’t think of any cats that lived near us. Jason the Blue Peter cat.
That’s it. Not a very big estate
pet collection is it?
Thought I’d just explain where I’m up to with Rimmer Shit.
The start of this was much easier than the other two pieces of writing.
But now, I’m really struggling to come up with a new subject each day.
I start in my childhood house and move outside to either the front of the
house or the back, and see if that prompts some new idea.
I walk down the road to school, I think of the people I knew, funny
thoughts, a kid’s view of things.
I go out of the back door and into The Valley, a rich source of
childhood.
Eventually something comes, but not today.
Tooth Fairies and other beliefs.
Father Christmas.
TV programme, or Food I ate.
Nothing yet………
Ahhh got it. Pet Hates. Just saw a dog on TV and a flashback to pets
that lived on the estate.
So tomorrow, Pet Hates.
And of course Cinema interludes and intermissions and the National Anthem
at the end of a film.
And going to the cinema, and what we had to eat at the cinema.
Ok, I’m back on track now with a few ideas!
Like my handwriting, I am the worst drawer and painter in the world.
Given that my handwriting still looks like a 6 year olds, my ability to
draw is just below that.
I don’t get it. What is it that
people see and then record on to paper?
I look and I see 3 dimensions.
I look down on the paper and I see a blank.
I’m not literal enough to draw what I see.
I’m sure I could learn to draw and paint with technique and training.
The consequence is that I have no artwork from my childhood of note.
Art was a creative disaster for me.
I can create in my head but I can’t get it out and express it in any
form of art that existed then.
All that is left now of my art, is my writing book from aged 6, and some
kind of multi coloured papier-mache creation that started out as a spider but
ended up as some kind of triceratops dinosaur.
I rarely completed any artwork, which I suppose was the trick for not
getting published or laughed at.
If it wasn’t complete and hardly started it couldn’t be critiqued by
fellow classmates or teacher.
Come to think of it my saving grace was paint by numbers!!
Here’s the drawing already done for you.
There’s the numbers. There’s the
paint. Now go fill it in.
Even the paint by numbers I struggled with because I’ve always been a bit
clumsy with drawing/painting to the edge of things.
I get impatient and splat, I’ve over shot the lines.
Like my handwriting, I’m trying to think where it all went wrong.
One minute I’m in nursery school splashing water paint on to paper just
like all the other 3-4 year olds.
The next minute I’m splashing water paint on to paper as a 6 or 7 or 10
or 13 or 17 or 25 or 40 year old!
Meanwhile, almost everyone else from the age of 6 is creating child
prodigy works of art.
And the difference is when most people say they are not very good at art,
they are largely being modest.
When I say I’m not very good at art, I’m bragging.
For me there was only one biscuit of choice as a child.
The supreme champion.
The Golf Biscuit.
Why?
A biscuit (biscuit sandwich with a chocolate layer) covered in plain
chocolate.
But the best bit was that you could bite off the plain chocolate all the
way round and then eat the biscuit.
As a kid it was like two treats in one. Always a good thing.
I loved them. I didn’t need more
than one of them in one sitting.
People often called them Club biscuits, but that was crap, Club was the
generic name, and it came with the advert phrase,
“If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit, join a club.”
And they were right, except the other biscuits in the Club range just
didn’t hack it.
It was the chunks of plain chocolate that did it.
White and Green paper wrapper with a golf ball on it.
Slide the biscuit out of the paper wrapper and unwrap the foil and then
you were in heaven.
The saddest thing is that years later, Jacobs, who manufactured the biscuit,
had a strike, and after the strike, the Golf Biscuit never returned.
They kept the Club biscuit brand going and made the whole biscuit say
“Club” in chocolate.
Still the thick chocolate, but they completely missed the point,
certainly for me,
It was the plain chocolate and the fact that you could bite the chocolate
off that the made the biscuit so popular.
Maybe The Golf Biscuit was just my obsession.
What does The Bells mean to you?
Church bells, schools bell, bell ringing, Quasimodo?
“The
Like a swarm of locust from
The Bells consisted of Auntie Sheila (who my Mum knew since they were
both children), Uncle Sol, who looked like Sacha Distel, and the 4 sons,
Stephen, Stuart, Adrian and Richard. It
was like a bomb had gone off in our house after they’d been there a while.
My home turf was being destroyed, sweet by sweet, biscuit by biscuit, toy
by toy.
4 Boys of roughly by own age playing rough. Well meaning but rough.
So whilst the Dads talked business and the Mothers talked clothes and
makeup, my sister and I were left unprotected to the rough and tumble play of
the
Mind you it sure was fun going to their house.
Mad funny chaos.
My favourite memory was a birthday party for one of the boys, which had a
birthday cake with Man Utd and
One of the kids pressed one of the players into the cake.
Another kid retaliated and within 30 secs all 22 players had been pressed
into the cake, and the cake destroyed.
And then of course a food fight ensued with about 20 kids all throwing
food at each other across the table.
It really seemed like a Keystone Cop custard pie fight.
The Bells moved to
I’m in
Sol Sheila Stuart and Richard.
It’s spooky to meet people who evoke such strong childhood memories.
My Auntie, Uncle and cousins moved to
Friends of my parent moved to
So I felt I had a connection with
After all, as kids we had Rolf Harris and Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.
This meant that
Koala Bears and other Marsupials.
Eucalyptus Trees. Cities and
Outback.
It seemed to have everything. Sun,
fruit, sea, sand, Outback.
Aborigines living in the outback with incredible powers to survive.
We had potential access to it with Auntie Sally living in
We thought about it, but we never came and visited.
Big trip for a family of 4, and later a big chunk of time for a working
twenty to thirty year old.
And the flag is real value for money.
You get the Union Jack and all the other blue stuff going on.
I can’t believe I’ve actually moved to
I owe it all to Rolf Harris.
When I think
about it, both my Mum and The Queen have been the most constant thing in my
life.
They’ve both been
there since my birth!
The Queen and I
both have something in common. Feb 6th.
It’s my birthday,
and her official birthday, the day she acceded to the throne the day her father
King George died.
It’s her Golden
Jubilee this year, and it’s amazing to think we were celebrating her Silver
Jubilee 25 years ago.
My how time
flies.
As a kid what did
I think of the Queen and the Royal Family.
They were
colourful and entertaining just like now!!
When I say
colourful I mean lots of colours and pageantry and marching soldiers.
That’s fun as a
kid. No so much as an adult. It’s more the scandal and gossip that
entertains me now.
Of course the
main sight of The Queen is on coinage.
I couldn’t get it
as a kid why there were so many royals on the coinage.
I couldn’t really
work out who the others were and why they hung around on my pennies, and
sixpences.
Of course seeing
the changing of the guards and Buckingham palace was most British kids’
ambition.
And I wanted to
test if you could do anything to a guard outside The Palace and they wouldn’t
flinch.
As I’ve said
before, my first memory of The Queen is my only memory of the World Cup in 1966
which is me saying aged 5,
“Look Mummy,
there’s The Queen.”
See, even when
I also remember
Charles being made Prince of Wales in some castle in
It seemed a big
do but again I wasn’t quite sure what being Prince of Wales meant, other than
next in line to the throne and being able to have lots of mistresses!!
I didn’t really
have a favourite royal, though Princess Anne was pretty cool having ridden in
the Olympics.
And of course,
you always wanted to get a Duke of Edinburgh award for having survived a near
death experience on some remote moor.