It’s surprising how Rita and I differ in what we remember about our childhood. On one occasion recently she said that we didn’t get many toys at Christmas, and yet my memory is the very opposite of that. And then I wondered - perhaps I’m remembering one particular Christmas when Santa Claus was more generous.

Among my prized possessions was a small battery-operated cinematograph (we didn’t have electricity in the tenement). There were two or three zoo films, each lasting about 2 minutes - one was called Brown Bears and another was about snakes. I also had a cartoon in which a funny character used the heads of others as stepping stones; this film was a loop and so went on for ever. My shows were not all that successful for it would have needed much more power to brighten the screen.

I had a small Hornby train set consisting of track, engine, carriages and a signal, and a few years earlier I was the proud owner of a big red wooden engine, probably about 2 ft in length.

Of course we had games - dominoes, quoits and bagatelle. I’m puzzled about the bagatelle, for all the holes through which the little balls might fall had the names of German towns. The only name I can recall was Magdeburg. Was this game inspired in some way by the First World War?

There wasn’t a great variety of outdoor games. A few I mentioned last week. For girls there were skipping rope games and peever (beds), and for boys football and cowboys and Indians. Everyone might join in for statues, or I-Spy - we called it High-Spy. Usually we all got on well together, and it was very rarely that there was a fall-out.

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When I was at secondary school, I was given an old set of golf clubs that had been my aunt’s. Nowadays golfers go round with bags crammed with clubs of every kind, but I had four only - a driver, an iron (for the fairway), a mashie (for the rough and bunkers) and a putter. I used to golf on Saturday mornings, but, as I didn’t have a locker in the clubhouse, I found it exhausting carrying my clubs to and from the course as well as doing 18 holes.

Some time later Rita was given a golf club (I don’t know where it came from), and so she joined me on Saturday mornings with her one club. In those days she kept a diary and was very methodical in recording her daily activities. I can remember seeing what she had written about her golf and it was something like this -

Saturday 8th - went to golf

Saturday 15th - went to golf, broke club

Saturday 22nd - went to golf, broke club

Saturday 29th - didn’t go to golf

That was end of golf for Rita and it wasn‘t too long before I too had given up. 

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When I was born, most men smoked either cigarettes or the pipe. At that time a packet of 20 cigarettes cost one shilling which would be 5p today, and the Wild Woodbine available in 20s, 10s and 5s were even cheaper. I understand that today Woodbine cost £6.22 for 20.

I believe my father smoked cigarettes at one time, but it was always a pipe in our day. After he retired he replaced that addiction with another one - polo mints!

Jean and I enjoyed our fags for many years and it was quite a victory when we conquered the habit - she by will-power alone, me with the help of a hypnosis tape.
 

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