Sunday, Bloody Sunday... (Childhood Memories)

Member Name: nikkisly

Product:	Childhood Memories
Date:	25/09/02 (821 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Aaaaah, memories...

Disadvantages: My goodness, I feel old...

When I was a child, I lived for Saturdays. Saturday, you see, was horse riding day and, like many other little girls, I was pony mad.

Every Saturday, I'd spend the whole day at my local Riding School, mucking out stables, grooming horses and cleaning tack in the hope of being 'paid' with a free ride. One Summer, it occurred to the owner of the Riding School that she could get some free publicity by organising a musical ride to be performed at fetes and shows There were eight of us 'regulars' and we were put through our paces for hours, wheeling, turning and circling, walking, trotting and cantering, all to the theme of Monty Python's Flying Circus - in the days before Monty Python was even thought of, of course.

Came the big day of our first public performance. Our horses were groomed to perfection and we were all kitted out in new sweaters, four scarlet and four royal blue. Nervously, we filed into the show ring and the band struck up the familiar tune, at which point, eight horses scattered to all corners of the showground leaving eight little girls in heaps on the floor. We had always practised with a tape recorder, you see, and a real band played at about ten times the volume, much to the chagrin of our poor ponies.

Sundays were torture. If Saturdays were horse riding, then Sundays were Sanitary Towels. My father used to own a pharmacy and opened his shop on Sunday mornings. From the age of about six, I was expected to work for my pocket money and, until I graduated to wearing a smart blue nylon overall and actually serving behind the counter when I was about ten years old, my job was to wrap the Sanitary Towels.

In those days, these shameful feminine objects were always sold discretely wrapped in brown paper. Some poor fool had to spend hours each week wrapping them in neat little parcels - and I was that poor fool!

After Sanitary Towels came Sunday lunch in a restaurant followed by something
edifying and educational such as a trip round a stately home or the dreaded Antiques Fair. ("Don't touch ANYTHING, Nicola!"). One such trip involved being taken to see the first ever Motorway.

Still, Sundays were all worthwhile when I got my pocket money. Ten shillings - or 50p as it is nowadays - bought me four books from the 'Dragon' series. (Red, Blue or Green Dragon, depending on the age of the reader.) Our local bookshop was an old-fashioned, proper bookshop and I was taken there every Friday after school to spend my pocket money. I could never get enough books and I have vivid memories of midnight sorties on the high cupboard in the spare bedroom where my Christmas presents were always kept. I would subject all the presents to a thorough poking and any books would be carefully slipped out of their wrapping paper and devoured beneath the bedclothes, to be stealthily rewrapped the following night under cover of darkness. I became very good at feigning surprise and delight on Christmas morning.

Yet that skill let me down one particular Christmas. I had been begging my parents for a pony all year and, come Christmas morning, I was told that my present was too big to come into the house so had been left in the garage by Santa. I could hardly contain my excitement as I rushed outside, still in my pyjamas, to find - a bloody bicycle!

Summer holidays when the sun shone every day for six weeks and I could lie in the garden and read, read, read. Christmases when it always snowed. 'Show-jumping' on Spacehoppers, the fairies that I just knew lived in the mouse hole underneath the holly tree. Fishing with my father, begging to be allowed to hold the rod for "...just a moment, pleeeeeease, Dad!". And, when he finally did relinquish his hold on the rod to answer a call of nature, I hooked our only catch of the day - a massive pike.

Manchester Tart - a pastry base, spread thick with jam and topped w
ith
cold custard. Fish and chips wrapped in real newspaper. Pork tomato sausages. School dinners. Being woken up in the middle of the night to watch men walking on the moon. Being chosen as the best French speaker at school to give a guided tour to a party of visiting dignitaries - and proudly announcing in French "This is the urinal!" when we got to the swimming pool. My first ever sight of colour television - Whacky Races and Blue Peter. How many people made that advent candle? And just who did shoot J.R?

National Health glasses with sticking plaster covering one eye. Mumps, measles and chicken pox. My father panicking and alerting the police when I wasn't waiting at the school gates one afternoon, completely forgetting that he had left me at home that morning covered in spots. Foot and Mouth the first time round. Spangles, Love Hearts, Tiffin and Sherbet Dabs. The first ever packet of flavoured crisps (Salt and Vinegar - "Ooooh, they taste just like chips, don't they, Mum?").

Flower Power and mini skirts. Hippies and Swinging Sixties and living just up the road from Scott Mackenzie of "If you're going to San Francisco" fame. My first boyfriend and the blue plastic engagement ring he gave me in the playground, promising to love me forever - David R. where are you now?

Granny and Grandad T. ("Hello, my little treasure"). Granny H who turned yellow and died when I was very young and Grandad H who played 78's on his wind up gramophone for me to dance to and grew hyacinth bulbs in jam jars on the windowsill.

Avon 'Pretty Peach' perfume, the bottle topped with a realistic plastic peach - just the thing for a little girl trying to be a grown-up. And my favourite outfit - cow-dung coloured corduroy trousers with a matching jacket worn with a fetching blue mini-jumper and enormous rocker platform shoes.

Yet my happiest memory involved a pony called Chocolate.
Cantering along on a bright summer's day with the sun on my face and the wind in my hair, I remember being struck by the thought that I was never, ever going to be this happy again - and so far, I haven't.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to polish my zimmer frame...

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