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.
Rimmer Shit in August 2002: Man United v
Sunderland, Holiday Luxury, Complaining Mothers, What was Gay?, Rude Words,
Southport, Mummy’s taking us to The Zoo tomorrow, Matey Bubble Bath, Still
Nothing, Writer’s Block still in August with this one.
Rimmer Shit in September 2002: Smell not
Voice, Your Dad, Cup Finals, First Sea Trip, First Sea Dip, Things you can’t
eat when you’re a grown-up, Before Reading, Balloons, Swings, America, Yom
Kippur, Leeds United, Marks and Spence Butter Pop-Corn, Tragedy, Comedy, Badedas,
Posh People, Tennis Heroes, The Green Green Grass of Home, Bullying, Teenage
Worship, Fathers Days.
Rimmer Shit in Oct 2002: Halloween, Conkers,
The Home Championship, Obsession and
Routine, Walking and Kissing, The Ice Cream Van, Goodies and Baddies, Our
Dining Room Table, Mom’s Apple Pie, Mini Rolls, Other Musical Instruments, The
Piano Player, New Toy, Man Utd Red, Balls, Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, Bath
Time, Nose Picking!, New Present Excitement, Alexandra Bastedo Part II, Good
Teachers, The day I grew up, Physics teachers let me down, Merry go Round,
Rimmer Shit in Nov
2002: Dark
Shadows, Life’s Simplest Pleasures,
Digging,
Waking up
early, Reading Material, House Teams, Drawing, Embarrass My Sister, Coincidences, What TV
didn’t we get?, Medication, TCP, Glitter,
My First
Toolkit, Dad’s Cupboard, Dad’s Toolbox, Fiddle and Fidget Toy of Choice, Childhood, Outdoor
Swimming Pools, When did I first hate Man City?, Cresta Run, The Chip Pan
Fire, Morecambe and Wise in Bed, Grow your own, Bonfire Night,
Penny for
the Guy?, TV
Hypnosis, Sparklers.
Saturday 30th November 2002
If you were under
your blanket or duvet then nothing could harm you.
As long at the
cupboards were shut you were ok at night.
As long as there
was some light from somewhere you were safe.
Hiding your head
under the pillow also helped and in the case of Dr Who, The Daleks can’t
exterminate you from behind a sofa or settee.
If your bedroom
door is left ajar at night you are safe.
If you can hear
your parents entertaining guests and the smell of smoke and alcohol drift up
from downstairs, nothing will harm you.
Climbing into
your parents’ bed is definitely the safest place to be.
Hugging teddy is
always great protection.
Nowadays I hug
another pillow, or the wife for protection!
Friday 29th November 2002
I just found this
quote just now. Now I know why I’m
writing about my early childhood memories.
“Keeping in touch with childhood memories
keeps us believing in life’s simplest pleasures
like a rainy afternoon, a swingset, and a
giant puddle to play in.”
- Chrissy Ogden
I watched
Georgia, aged 14 months playing today.
She’s learnt to
spin round, she’s copying someone on the TV lifting their leg, she squeals with
delight when tickled.
It reminds me of
the delight at finding a giant puddle with new wellington boots, and taking
such delight in splashing through the puddle, kicking the water.
Yes, the simplest
pleasures in life.
Thursday 28th November 2002
One of the thoughts
I was obsessed with as a kid, was what happens if you keep digging?
I guess many kids
wonder this.
How far can you
go?
What’s at the
centre?
Are there
dinosaurs down there?
Skeletons?
Can you get
through to Australia?
I once climbed
over the fence of our back garden, with my Dad’s spade, into The Valley, chose
a random spot, and started digging.
What was beneath
the green baize?
I didn’t get very
far, hit a few stones, got very excited and thought I’d discovered fossils.
I think they were
just stones, but I declared them as fossils!
That was the end
of my digging.
As adults we seem
to give up on what’s down under and just hope it mostly stays the way it is!
Wednesday 27th November 2002
Ever since I was a
very young kid, I’ve always woken up early.
I’ve never been
one for sleeping in.
It’s 5-30 in the
morning and everyone is asleep so what do you do?
I seemed to
remember from a very early age, going downstairs and switching the radiogram
on.
An all in one
radio, record player, speakers, cabinet thing on legs!
I’d switch it on
quietly and press the buttons and tune into stations which were printed on to
the glass facia of the radio tuner.
Very colourful
and some very weird names. What the hell
was Hilversum!
I’d lie there for
what seemed hours, listening and tuning.
After a while the
newspaper would plop through the door and I’d go and read it on the spot where
it landed in the hall.
By then hopefully
someone would be up and time for breakfast!
Tuesday 26th November 2002
What did I read
when I was a kid?
I wasn’t a great
fiction book reader. I seemed to get
through a few, but not that many.
Paddington. Secret Seven.
Plus a few others.
However, I loved
to read factual books and comics.
I loved my
Children’s Britannica Encyclopaedias.
Football
card/stamp collection books of course.
Sports Annuals.
Comic Annuals.
And of course comics. Beano, Dandy,
COR!, and a variety of others I can’t remember that well.
The Guinness Book
of Records.
I’d spend hours
either studying world records, or looking up facts and cross indexing facts in
my encyclopaedias.
I wish the
internet was around then!
Actually I don’t,
I never would have seen civilisation beyond my bedroom.
I would have been
addicted to the internet (as I am now) or playing computer games, which I don’t
so much now.
And
newspapers. I read newspapers from an
early age.
Sunday 24th November 2002
I always loved being
in House Teams.
I always seemed
to end up in the blue team.
The blue team at
Handforth C of E for sports day.
Kent House, which
was blue, at Greenbank school.
House team always
brought out the best in my competitive spirit, to kick the hell out of the
other 2 or 3 teams.
Looking for house
points in the classroom and on the field of play.
Even ended up
House Captain for one term, though I was threatened with the sack just for
giving Mrs Eastope the dinner lady some lip.
It was just like Branded with me as Chuck Connors.
“US ARMY CAPTAIN unjustly booted out for cowardice wanders through the
Wild West trying to prove his innocence. CHUCK CONNORS was Capt. Jason McCord,
with nothing but a torn, dirty uniform and half a sword to show for years of
selfless devotion to Uncle Sam. The opening sequence was ace: McCord stands in
a fort while the drums roll having his buttons, stripes and epaulettes ripped
off by a grim-faced general who then breaks our hero's sword over his knee.
Daft thing to do with a sharp blade. Then he's thrown out on his ear, rapidly
followed by the aforementioned sword-half and much muttering of "never
darken our doors..." etc. Meanwhile, a solemn voice (not Waylon Jennings,
but almost) sings:
All but one man died,
There at Bitter Creek,
And they say he ran away,
Branded, marked with the coward's chain,
What do you do when you're branded?
Well you fight for your name.
Branded, scorned is the one who ran,
What do you when you're branded?
And you know you're a man.
Thing was, he didn't actually run anywhere. He was knocked out by the Indians
who thought he was dead. Never let the story get in the way of a good rhyme
though
But instead I
cried in front of the headmaster and that seemed to do the trick.
I hung on to
power!
Picking the
teams. Oh the power. Developing team strategy with my lieutenants.
House teams are
just another way of dividing people up so you can hate the other minorities.
The prejudice of
hating another colour.
What is it about
us humans that we love to hate another colour?
Apparently
there’s a Leeds United supporter who so hates Man Utd that he offers for free
to repaint anything you have red and wish to change to another colour!
I get his point!
Saturday 23rd November 2002
I’ve never been
able to draw. I’m sure I could if I
practised.
I sat Georgia
aged 14 months, down at table full of crayons and paper at a playcentre today ,
and for the first time she drew.
Picked some
crayons up and scratched across the paper.
More concerned
with holding as many crayons as possible but there was real application.
It was so cute it
brought tears to my eyes.
One of the
reasons I didn’t want to have a son is so that I don’t try to live my dreams
through him.
But I’m going to
make damn sure Georgia is good at drawing because I’m not!!
It’s fascinating
with young kids to watch their right and left handedness.
I still can’t
tell with Georgia yet. I made sure she
had the choice of which hand to use and in fact used either hand to scribble.
Maybe she’s an
ambidextrous genius!!
Friday 22nd November 2002
Let’s embarrass
my sister.
Donny
Osmond. The Osmonds, Ashley Myers, Jackie Magazine, The Cathy and Clare
Page, Tippy Tumbles, Chewing Gum wallpaper (I Love You), Silky Banky, Happy
House, “It’s my Teddy Bear”, “I don’t want this second hand bike, I want a new
bike”, my first dance with Michael in Majorca.
These
are the coded words I’ve sent to my brother in law for reading out on my
sister’s 40th.
She’ll
know what I mean, but no-one else will.
Thursday 21st November 20002
And talking of
coincidences.
I did a search of
my post code on Google and came up with the next door neighbours who I’m one
day going to write about here.
Another
coincidence telling me what I should be writing about.
Wednesday 20th November 2002
I’m beginning to
realise that I had a deprived childhood.
As much as the TV
we did get, there seems to be some holes, with what we didn’t get.
As more and more
American TV shows celebrate more and more old TV shows, I keep wondering WHAT?
The Brady
Bunch. I’m quite sure we didn’t get the
Brady Bunch in the UK. TV Cream seems to think we did.
When?
Crossroads, I
don’t think came to the North West until later on. I seem to remember as a kid looking at the TV
listings and wondering what Crossroads was.
I soon found out.
What prompted
this was seeing a tribute to I Love Lucy.
It was never on TV when I was kid.
It may have been on in the 50s and early 60s but never repeated.
Of course we had
The Lucy Show and Here’s Lucy but none of the early stuff.
BBC was national
but ITV was regional and some of the regions, like Granada didn’t always show
what other regions had, like the early parts of Happy Days which we got much
later.
I don’t know what
else we missed out on because I don’t know!
Tuesday 19th November 2002
I guess
medication preferences were very much dependent on the taste and smell.
Fabric
Elastoplast smelt great so we love having plasters on as kids. I could them smell them.
The cream, I
can’t remember the name right now, not sorbolene, maybe savlon, but the ICI
white one didn’t have a smell so we didn’t mind that one.
TCP stank.
Benolyn for
coughs yes please.
Any syrup
medicines were ok as long as they didn’t taste bad.
Disprin,
dissolvable Aspirin was the medicine of choice from our parents.
A strange taste,
and a bit difficult to swallow the last mouthful.
Caladryl was the
weirdest. Thick pink lotion for itchy
spots and rashes. Never seemed to work
but took our minds off the itch whilst we had it applied and watched it dry.
Injections were
always feared but rarely hurt except of course at the dentist, and my hayfever
injection. I don’t know why but that
always ached like hell afterwards.
That’s the
medical update for today.
Monday 18th November 2002
And the worst
smelling most stinging thing you could have on your grazes was TCP.
That smell still
sends a chill down my spine as I remember my mum coming at me with the cotton
wool and TCP.
Mind you come to
think of it, the old “Anthony, I won’t hurt you with this needle I’m using to
dig out the splinter.” Never seemed to quite cut it.
Maybe I’ll say some
more at another time on medication.
Sunday 17th November 2002
Wasn’t glitter
one of the most exciting things as a child, especially with the run up to
Christmas.
Spraying glitter on
all artwork, spraying glitter on yourself and everyone else.
And it glittered.
Couldn’t wash it
all off so you had it on your hands for ages.
It’s so
Christmassy. To hell with Blue Peter
advent candles, the first sign of Christmas for me was glitter in the class for
artwork.
Green Glitter was
my favourite.
Of course Glitter
was further enhanced later on with the advent of Gary Glitter and The Glitter
Band.
They were very
glittery, though not so much recently!!
Event the word
Glitter sounds fun, though Gary Glitter has ruined the party a bit now.
Saturday 16th November 2002
So in order to
protect my parents’ tools, they fobbed me off with a toy toolkit.
I can’t remember
the items, except a screwdriver, which was exciting enough for me to start
unscrewing and screwing up every door handle in the house.
I’m sure the kit
didn’t have a hammer, because I still craved my Dad’s large hammer.
Oh the excitement
of screwing things.
I guess that was
a lesson for life!
Friday 15th November 2002
The first door on
entering my parent’s room was Dad’s cupboard.
A treasure cave.
All the
none-garage and clothes things were stored or hidden here.
Dad’s Toolbox
(see yesterdays writing), Dad’s locked desk, old calculating machines, a wire
recorder, old paperwork, old lamps, new lightbulbs, old bits of electrical wire
and plugs.
A smell of old
cardboard.
This was a
declared no-go area for us kids; so of course it was the place we’d go often to
inspect and play with what was in there.
The only thing I
never got access to was the locked desk.
I wonder what was in the locked desk?
The Christmas and
Birthday presents were often hidden in there.
Given that I know
this, it wasn’t a very good hiding place.
So much delight in
such a small narrow room/cupboard.
It was like a toy
store of grown-ups toys.
And finding the
large saw behind the desk one day was one of the highlights.
I just wanted to
go out and saw things; anything.
The problem for a
six or seven year old is there’s not much to find that you can really saw.
And besides the
saw was very big and difficult to use.
That didn’t stop
me trying.
Why did Dad have
such a store of items but hardly use them.
That’s grown ups
for you. They have all these things and
don’t play with them.
If they don’t’
play with them then give them to me.
Thursday 14th November 2002
Sitting in the
middle of Dad’s cupboard, in Dad’s bedroom, was Dad’s Toolbox.
When I say
Toolbox, it was a thick cardboard box with a hinged cardboard lid.
And inside were
sweet treasures I wasn’t supposed to touch, but somehow that big hammer and
screwdrivers had a magnetic attraction to me.
There was so much
in the box, you could spend your whole childhood testing out the items.
Not that my Dad
was in anyway DIY.
Which of course
left me to use and test the tools.
The only way my
parents could stop me was to buy me my own toolkit.
Now that’s
another story.
Wednesday 13th November 2002
Potty Putty,
Green Goo, Blue Tack, and bubble wrap came along later.
So what did we
fiddle with as kids?
Play-Doh. Plasticine was just too smelly.
Any others?
I’m trying to
think.
Sellotape.
Dad’s tape
measures, especially the retracting variety.
Balls and
Balloons.
I’ve always been a
fidget and I need an object to fidget with.
I can never sit
still, always rocking on my chair, always have.
I could never sit
on a sofa and watch telly, I had to be lying upside down, or leaning over a
footstool.
Of course…………
Elastic
Bands. The winner.
Stretch them,
knot them, flick them at your sister, put them round your head and let them
gradually pull all your hair on the top of your head.
Tuesday 12th November 2002
When childhood dies, its corpses are
called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell.
That is why we dread children, even if we
love them, they show us the state of our decay.
- Brian Wilson Aldiss (1925– ) English
author & science fiction novelist
Nobody writes if they have had a happy
childhood.
-
Joseph
Hergesheimer (1880–1954) American novelist
No wonder I
struggle to write!
But this is why
I’m writing….
Keeping in touch with childhood memories
keeps us believing in life’s simplest pleasures like a rainy afternoon, a
swingset, and a giant puddle to play in.
- Chrissy Ogden
Monday 11th November 2002
What is it about
outdoor swimming pools that they’re cold and seedy.
Castle Mill and
The Galleon were the two outdoor pools we went to.
Castle Mill near Style,
when we were very young. I think it now
sits in the middle of Runway 1 or 2 at Manchester Airport.
Closed down a
long time ago.
And then The
Galleon in Parrs Wood near Didsbury when we were learning to swim aged 7 or 8.
The sheer cold
and chorine smell still takes my breath away.
And somehow they
always seemed a bit run down, a bit 50s, a bit this should really be in Spain
but it isn’t, so suffer.
Very Lido, not
that we ever went to a Lido. Do you know
what a Lido is?
I seem to
remember people being packed in and very little room to move around.
Wet diving boards
with smelly mat covers.
I guess I was a
creature of home comforts, so I was fine with our paddling pool and garden
sprinkler.
Come to think of
it I did have plans for converting our Morning Room into a swimming pool.
I could see no
reason why the room in the middle of the ground floor couldn’t just be dug deep
and filled with water. Oh Please
Dad.
My Dad had
trouble explaining that it would be difficult in a standard detached house to just
dig and fill it with water.
He just said nice
idea but NO!
This gave us hope
as we made our plans and invited our guests to the planned opening.
I mean, it wasn’t
as if we used the room that much.
We’re talking a
standard 10 ft by 10 ft room!!
Kids can see no
limitations.
Sunday 10th November 2002
Actually, I’ve
never really hated Man City that much, there’s too many other teams before you
get on to them.
I’m trying to
think in view of them just beating Man Yoo 3-1, when I first started to not
like them.
In ’69 as I’ve
said before, Neil Young scored the winner in the F.A Cup final for Man City to
win the cup.
I liked them
then. Somehow I didn’t distinguish between
supporting Man United and quite liking Man City as well.
I went to the 3-3
draw at Maine Rd when Sammy McIlroy made his scoring debut.
I remember the
delight at Man Utd coming back to draw, so by then I really knew who I
supported.
So between ’69 and
’71 something happened!
I guess some of
their players were detestable.
Francis Lee, Mick
Doyle, Rodney Marsh. Enough said.
The rest of them
were likeable though. Colin Bell, Neil
Young, Mike Summerbee, Tony Book, Alan Oakes, Glyn Pardoe.
Not that I knew
them personally!
Saturday 9th November 2002
1971, on the way
to school. Mr Marsden is doing the
school run in his big white Vauxhall Cresta.
We’re picking
some other kids up on the other side of Handforth, the Battens.
It’s been snowing
a blizzard.
The Cresta takes
a run up the cresta run hill to get to the Battens house, and nearly makes it
to the top.
In fact it’s so
close to getting up the icy hill it’s on the brow and where the corner turns,
except the wheels are now spinning in the snow.
This is not a
problem.
What is the
problem whilst we sit there like a sitting duck is the blue Morris Marina that
Mr Marsden has identified skidding towards us!!
In fact it’s
skidding towards me!!
I’m sitting in
the back against the passenger door.
The blue Morris
Mariner is aimed at me like a slow motion bullet.
It’s a horrible
feeling to watch a car coming straight for you and there’s not much you can do.
And that’s how it
was, as they always say with accidents they seem to a happen in slow motion, and
this was very slow motion as the car skidded into the side of the Cresta.
BANG!!
Glass everywhere.
Shock.
But we were
ok. The Marina must have hit us at 5-10
mph.
More the shock of
the glass shattering us than anything else.
And of course a day
off school, so it was worth it in the end.
Friday 8th November 2002
My Mum went to a
cookery class.
The told her to
soak her potatoes in water, cut them into chips, soak them again in water, and
then drop them into a hot fryer to cook perfect chips.
So against her
better judgement she did.
I don’t know
which part of the instructions she misunderstood, but as soon as the wet
potatoes hit the oil, boom, the pan caught alight and sent flames zooming up to
the ceiling and set the cooker on fire.
It was only later that there was an advert on the telly telling you put
a wet cloth over the pan.
But with the fire
hitting the ceiling and the cooker smouldering she did the safe thing and
called the fire brigade.
How exciting, a
fire engine, firemen, and a crowd gathered outside our house to witness the
remaining embers of our cooker.
Of course just
like going to the doctor when you suddenly feel better, the fire had gone out
long before the fire brigade arrived.
That was probably
the most exciting accident we witnessed as kids.
Thursday 7th November 2002
Why does it seem
so strange now and yet so normal then that 2 adult men would be in bed
together.
There was no
question of them being gay (the word hadn’t been invented), but what were Eric
and Ernie doing in bed together with their pyjamas.
And more
interestingly, why did we accept it as the norm. Even then, 2 men would not be together in
their Jimjams.
It’s strange what
we accept as normal thirty years ago and now looks very weird.
When did 2 men
together in bed start to look weird.
What event
changed the innocence of it?
The show ran
until ’83 and only moved to ITV in ’79 so it wasn’t Punk that did it.
Wednesday 6th November 2002
I just read an
article about how do you get children to eat their vegetables.
How to Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables
11/6/02
Grow their own of
course. Brilliant.
And it reminds me
that at a similar age, our Mum took us to the bottom of the garden and helped
us plant radishes and carrots, whilst she attempted cauliflowers.
And it’s true; we
were committed to eating radishes and carrots, even though the one vegetable
I’ve always hated is carrot.
We'd tend the
garden, and watch with eagerness every day for some sign of life, and hey
presto, a few weeks later, something green started to poke through.
We were so
excited we wanted to pick them there and then.
When do you pick
a radish or a carrot?
I still can’t
believe it, you put some seeds in the soil and something completely different
comes out a few weeks later.
I’m not sure
about my Mum’s cauliflowers though.
Tuesday 5th November 2002
For me as a kid,
probably the most exciting night of the year.
November 5th,
Bonfire Night, Guy Fawkes Night, Firework Night.
Where do I start?
It’s all so
exciting.
The build up to
the building of the bonfire, in The Play Area or our back garden.
The pitch black
night, scary and exciting.
The sparklers,
the fireworks, the bonfire, the shear heat from the bonfire, the food, hot
backed potatoes, horrible sticky burnt toffee.
Visiting the
bonfire the day after to inspect the remaining embers.
I can’t get my
words out I’m so excited. So many things
happening in one night.
And the one night
of real community. The one night the estate and Valley Drive ever really
gathered together.
Of course the
sparklers I’ve already described.
The rockets. Catherine Wheels. Very loud bangs. The light and brightness of the fire. I’m attracted like a moth to a flame.
The build up for
me over the weeks was the thing.
Gathering wood and other things for the bonfire.
The amazing size
of the pile before it was set alight.
Being out for a dark night, with sparklers and my parents as protectors.
They were very
very cautious with us.
Oh and of course
the Blue Peter warning to keep your pets indoors for the night.
Why? Didn’t they want to take part in the
excitement as well? Not that we had any
pet at the time capable of being frightened by a firework or needing
protection.
And of course
that old conundrum of when do you return to a lit firework that hasn’t gone
off. 2 hours or the next day seemed to
be my parents’ example.
Somehow we never
had an accident or sparkler burn, though our bonfire did get out of control one
year and I can’t remember if we had to call the fire brigade.
I’ll ask my Mum.
Monday 4th November 2002
“Penny for the
Guy?”
Kids used to
build a Guy Fawkes, and then ask for pennies to buy fireworks or sweets.
I never really
got into the Guy building thing, couldn’t be bothered, except in our teens,
when I dressed up as a Guy, was wheeled round in wheelbarrow from house to
house collecting money, and when they gave us some money, I’d stand up to say
thank you and give the neighbours the shocks of the life!
The Guy then went
on the top of the bonfire on bonfire night.
We never really
understood when young who or what Guy Fawkes was.
Looking back,
burning an effigy of a catholic who allegedly tried to blow up the Houses of
Parliament does seem a bit archaic.
Sure demonise
him, but a whole bonfire night?
Sunday 3rd November 2002
My daughter is
just over 13 months old.
She’s already
hypnotised by what’s on the TV, especially her favourite videos.
Hi-5 is her very favourite. She
loves The Wiggles, also Thomas The Tank Engine, and bits of Sesame
Street.
Cripes, she’s
only 1 but already has that blank hypnotic look when watching her favourites.
We can’t break
the trance.
I’m sure I didn’t
start that young and we didn’t have video to keep repeating the same programme
for repetition and familiarity.
My earliest
favourites were Andy Pandy, Bill and
Ben, and The Wooden Tops (especially Spotty Dog).
But I was never
hypnotised so young. Maybe I was and I
can’t remember.
Friday 1st November 2002
There’s nothing
so exciting at this time of year as sparklers for bonfire night.
Of course we
weren’t allowed fireworks, so sparklers were the height of excitement.
Getting them lit
was the main problem, but once lit, they were so bright they burnt your retinas
out when you of course wrote your name in the night sky.
I managed never
to burn my hands by not picking up the wrong end of a sparkler. Don’t know how I managed that.
The lasted for
ages, and on to the next one and the next one and the next one, and that was
it, unless Mum had another pack.
And what a
strange smell. Only at that time of the
year.
Boy it take me
back, and bonfire night approaching as well.