Like all children I loved Christmas. In the 1960s, unlike today, Christmas only began in Advent, which is the run-up to Christmas Day and lasts between three and four weeks. In our house, the crib was the first of the decorations to be displayed, but from a possibly imperfect memory, this didn’t happen until mid-December, sometimes even as late as Christmas Eve. I loved our decorations, even though they were very simple and brought out year after year. It was perhaps because they were brought out each year that they held such special memories for me. The decorations were simply chains of coloured paper hanging from the light fitting in the centre to each corner of the living room with balloons at the end. Christmas cards were strung over the fireplace and in later years, we had shiny metallic foil decorations which were so intricate and delicate and Mum used tinsel to decorate a large cactus that she owned. I don’t ever remember having a Christmas tree, although I may be mistaken. I now realise that one reason that my memory is doubtful is that there are no photographs of the Christmases of my childhood. The basic camera the family owned did not have a flash facility – flashcubes for cheap ‘instamatic’ cameras were only invented in 1965 – and so the only photographs taken were outdoors during the summer months.
As well as the Christmas decorations not going up until later, they also never lasted until 12th night; they were always taken down straight after New Year. I believe the compressed duration of the Christmas season in those days (1½ – 2 weeks maximum) added to its thrill. Nowadays, Christmas starts around Hallowe’en and carries on for about ten weeks – a fifth of the entire year! – with sleigh bells jangling all that time.
Christmas music was a big industry in the 1970s and most of the pop groups vied to get the Christmas Number 1 single. That’s all gone now, of course, since singles are no more, and I don’t even know if the pop charts are a thing these days. But in my teenage years, every year brought a new batch of Christmas music, and amazingly, many of these are still being played each year. Just think of what’s still on the radio throughout December every year:
Of course, many people still write Christmas songs, but now they only reach our consciousness once every few years rather than several per year. In the list above, I’ve deliberately excluded six Christmas songs which were in the charts in those years but are now rarely played.
One of the men who sang at my 60th birthday party also sings in a band called Don Powell’s Occasional Flames. There are three people in this band who never play live but so far they’ve produced two albums and several singles. I’m not sure how they originally got together but the group comprises Les Glover, who sang at my party, Paul Cookson, a performance poet, and obviously Don Powell, who you may remember as the drummer from Slade. Les and Paul grew up listening to Slade (much like I did), and several of their songs have a characteristic Slade sound, albeit without Noddy Holder’s distinctive voice. Their songs are lightweight, very witty and many of them possess that typical drum beat reminiscent of the 1970s. As a way of gaining recognition (and earning money), a couple of years ago the group produced a Christmas single called “It isn’t really Christmas until Noddy starts to sing” which didn’t really get anywhere in the charts, but I think is a terrific song which deserves more airtime. Listen to it here.
At primary school, we always had a Jumble Sale which was probably in late November, and I remember it being great fun to be in school in the dark. Whatever the date, I now associate this event with the onset of Christmas. This was when I might be able to find a toy that I had wanted at a previous Christmas and never got. It was also where I would find toys that looked remarkably like those I used to have but I mysteriously lost during the summer. I’m sure that sometimes I came home with the same toys that Mum had sent to the jumble sale the previous week.
Clearly the big Christmas event at school was always the nativity play. The favoured children would be designated as Mary (with a doll) or Joseph (with a toy sheep) and would take centre stage. A consolation prize was to be cast as one of the Three Kings with a paper crown and accessorised with either a gold box or a chest. Other children would dress up as angels with silvery wings or shepherds wearing tea towels on their heads. I never made the big time in these productions, but I do have a photograph of me in 1965 dressed as a shepherd. There was often a narrator who would be an older girl (usually a girl) from the top year who had a good, clear reading voice.
An aside. For many years I held the belief that the angel Gabriel was feminine. I’d never given this much thought, but I suspect the reason was that it was always the girls in the school nativity play who became angels, never the boys. It seemed a fair division of labour that girls were angels and boys were shepherds. I’d never met anyone called Gabriel (I still haven’t actually) and I’d just assumed that it was a girl’s name.
The church crib was always erected just a few days before Christmas, and when I was old enough, probably about ten, it was my job to get the figures down from where they were stored above the confessional in church. I’d climb up a ladder and creep into a small cupboard and carefully pass down to Dad the plaster forms of Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, kings and assorted farm animals. These were individually wrapped in white cloths tied with cord at the top and it was magical to see the unveiling each year. The figures were large, about two feet tall, but were very light, unlike the crib structure itself which was extremely heavy. The wooden crib was stored in a low building halfway up the graveyard and each section needed to be wheeled down on a flat truck before being erected in the church. It was beautifully made. I must return to St Chad’s to see if they still use the same one, but I doubt they do. After 2nd mass on the first Sunday after the feast of the Epiphany (6th January), the crib would be dismantled and the figures replaced to their dark cupboard for another year.
Christmas morning started for me at a reasonable time – I was never one to get up stupidly early – when I would open my presents from Father Christmas. These were found in a pillowcase downstairs near the fire rather than a stocking by the bed which I thought was very cunning: a pillow case? clearly Mum knew how to play the system! After presents we would attend mass at 10:15 which perhaps lasted longer than a normal Sunday service, but there was no choir practice afterwards. We’d be home by maybe 11:30 and then I’d play with my presents until dinner time. We ate Christmas dinner at one o’clock and afterwards we’d open the presents we’d received from each other. These were always kept separate from the gifts from Father Christmas, which was a tradition that I followed with my own children. We all had to be quiet at three o’ clock while we watched the Queen and afterwards, we’d watch TV for the rest of the afternoon before we had tea at about 6pm. I really don’t know how Mum managed to do all that cooking, or even why it was deemed necessary to have tea – surely a large dinner with pudding and cake should have kept us going a bit longer?
The presents I remember most clearly are matchbox cars which I always requested (and received) most years. In later years, these were supplemented by a plastic race track called ‘Superfast’ along which the cars would roll. I spent many happy hours playing with these gifts.
Lego was also ubiquitous, even though the bricks were just simple generic ones, not the very specialised kits that later became available. One book I received in 1971 which proved great value was the Guinness Book of Records. I don’t know what it cost, but I read it constantly and must have memorised a surprising number of the records because I can still record them today. I still have the book.
One year, I received a game called Mousetrap which was widely advertised on TV in the run-up to Christmas. The TV advert always showed the final part of the game which worked like a Heath Robinson invention. When a crank was turned, it set off a chain of events which ultimately caused a cage to descend and (hopefully) catch an opposing player’s mouse. When I unwrapped this game on Christmas day, the first thing I did was to try to assemble all the parts. Unknown to me at the time, it was actually a board game, and the players each had to assemble a specific part of the mechanism in a particular way as their mice moved around the board. In this way, the mechanism was assembled slowly and in the correct order, but when I was scrabbling to build it, in my haste and excitement, I managed to break a couple of the brittle plastic parts and it never really worked properly afterwards.
In 1970, I received a wonderful toy that was a bit too sophisticated for me. Mamod was a company that produced miniature steam models. Sadly, it closed down in August 2024, but I owned a Mamod Steam Roller as an eleven-year-old. I suppose I was perhaps rather young, and certainly wasn’t patient enough because this machine always annoyed me. I was too young to appreciate the remarkable engineering in it, and not intelligent enough to understand the mechanics of how it operated. When I decided to play with it, I would put some water in the machine, light some methylated spirit (meths) beneath the boiler and wait. And wait. It would take many minutes for the water to reach sufficient temperature to produce steam, and by then the fuel had run out and I’d be messing around trying refill the fuel tank with more meths during which time the steam pressure fell away. I think I’d perhaps get the machine moving for a couple of feet before this happened which was all very frustrating. Later models used a solid fuel which could be replenished much more easily, but my machine only used meths which was quite dangerous. I remember setting fire to the kitchen floor once. I’d spilled some burning spirit on the floor and as meths burns with a very pale blue flame I never noticed it until the lino on the floor began to discolour. Ironically, one of the reasons Mamod closed was because the solid fuel has now been banned by the government since it can be used by terrorists. I never used the machine for 30-odd years until I sold it in 2011.
Another gift I received (in 1972) was a Huret speedometer for my bike. This was a mechanical device which was operated via a steel square-ended bowden cable. One end of the cable fitted into a drive mechanism that clamped on the front wheel, but fitting this required very strong arms to force out the forks on the bike. (I know a better way of fitting that now, but at age 13, I didn’t have the mechanical nous). On this Christmas day, I sensibly decided to admire the speedometer in its box, but on Boxing Day, I spent ages struggling and hurting myself trying to fit it to my bike. When I had finally got it in place, I must have done something wrong because not long afterwards, the end of the square cable became rounded off and the drive to the speedometer head was interrupted. I know now (but didn’t then) that you can’t shorten a hardened steel cable with a hacksaw or a pair of tin snips. I can’t remember just how, but I eventually got the thing to work again, and the device recorded over 1,000 miles during its short life. Because it also recorded speed (however inaccurately), it was thrilling to me as a 13-year-old to ride at 40mph!
Huret speedometer showing bowden cable.
I was also given, I think in the same year, (along with hundreds of other kids) a Stylophone, which was a small electronic musical device which widely advertised by the (later disgraced and now deceased) Rolf Harris. Several of my friends also received this gift, including my first proper girlfriend. Bernadette Billington was a year older than me and her mum worked alongside my mum at the school. I suspect that they devised a plan for me, in a controlled environment, to have some female company, and we often used to call round to each other’s houses to make music together. We both also owned recorders, and I could play the clarinet (of a fashion) and since our family also had a Magnus Chord organ, I can only imagine the cacophony that must have emerged. I guess that as long as some ‘music’ was heard, our mums could deduce that we weren’t getting up to anything that we shouldn’t.
I remember that we also had a few trips out together to the cinema as well as going on walks along the canal walking our dogs. The relationship (such as it was) lasted for perhaps a year, but I can’t remember how it ended.