A Present

 
Dad once bought me a present. That may seem a strange statement but presents, other than at birthdays and Christmas, were very unusual. Sending us to private school took a lot of Dad’s salary. Having money left over for an extra ounce of tobacco (for him) or an ice cream in Calderstones Park (for GB and I) was about the limit of the financial largesse for some years.


One time when Dad and I were going down Holt Road (I don’t recall why) we passed a sweet shop with a wagon in the window. I was about eight years old and I stopped to admire it . Totally out of the blue Dad asked if I would like it and almost without waiting for an answer he went in and bought it. Even at that age I knew money was tight and for ever afterwards that wagon was one of my favourite toys – not just because it fitted in so well with my cowboys and indians (no Native Americans in those days) – but because I appreciated the generosity of his purchase. (The one illustrated above looks just like the one Dad bought me except that the wagon body was brown not green.)

Sadly (in a way) because of the increased disposable income in the household nowadays my son has never had such an experience.
 

To the woods to pick Bluebells

My father was not a great drinker but he did like his occasional pint and a game of darts. Traditionally, Thursday night was his dart’s night and he and a friend would head out to one of the local pubs or the RNA Club and have a game of darts and a pint or two. When I was tiny, if Dad was going out and I didn’t know where I would ask. The answer, on a Thursday night would be ‘Off to the woods to pick Bluebells’. Even at that age I knew I was being given the brush off but what a super way of doing it! Definitely beats ‘Mind your own business you nosy child!’

The Doughnut Shop

 
When I was about nine there was a shop down some steps on the opposite side of the main road (Bowring Park Road, Liverpool) at end of our road. I cannot recall what it was before that time or afterwards (though GB may remember) but for a brief, heavenly period it was a The Doughnut Shop.

It contained a couple of deep-fat fryers like a chip shop and sold only doughnuts. You went in and they cooked the doughnuts to order in the space of moments. Sprinkled with sugar, the hot doughnuts were a real delight to a young boy, fresh from a day’s schooling.

The original doughnut is said to have been a solid sphere of deep-fried dough with no hole in the middle. Allegedly first thought of in Germany, the idea was taken to America by the Dutch settlers. In the early 19th Century Washington Irvine described a Dutch table in New Amsterdam as being set with “an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog’s fat, and called dough nuts or oly keks.” (In Scouse Oly Keks would mean marble trousers but I assume that is an irrelevancy!)


Spherical doughnuts often have jam in the centre while the Doughnut Shop used to have various alternatives for the ring-shaped ones. My favourite was the one sprinkled with caster sugar but they also had ones with a sugar glaze; a pink icing coating; icing and hundreds and thousands; and, I think, a chocolate coating...
 

Sufferin’ Taters

Does every family have its unique sayings? Dad, who never, ever swore at home used to say ‘Sufferin’ taters’ with great regularity. It was a way of sort of bemoaning his fate or expressing misery. Needless to say he was ragged about it on occasion. I have never heard it anywhere else and as a phrase it doesn’t Google so I assume it was unique to Dad. Heaven knows where he got it from.

I wonder what phrase will my children recall me regularly using.

Matchbox Series - Those were the days

 

When we were little GB had mainly Dinky cars and I had mainly Matchbox Series. Appropriate really – Dinky being bigger and older than Matchbox...

I used to play ‘The Archers’ with them. Each character in The Archers had a car that I thought suited their personality.

I can recall the following:-

John Tregoran had a triumph sports car (the TR4?)


Jack Woolley had a bluey silver Rolls Royce Silver Cloud.


Someone else who was basically an offcomer (can’t recall his name) had a Citreon but I’m sure mine wasn’t yellow. I'm sure it was white or cream.


Carol whatever her name was – the girl that all the menfolk were chasing – had an older Triumph MGTD sports car. I think this indicated that I thought she was better matched with John Tregoran than with Jack Woolley who didn't really 'belong'.


Sometimes I’d let her have a big pink Ford Zodiac convertible but I wasn’t really very fond of that.

Tom Forrest, the gamekeeper, had a Landrover.


Dan Archer had a Morris Minor – unless I needed Walter Gabriel, in which case he had it.


Nelson Gabriel had a flashy Vauxhall Cresta.


Phil Archer had a Wolseley and Jack had a Ford Anglia.


My other cars were scattered around the village (made of Airfix houses which I had bought as kits and put together). The only building I can recall properly is the pub of which I was quite proud because it had been hard to do.

(Photos of most of the cars are by kind permission of Marco. )
(A timeline for The Archers can be found at timeline.)