Recommended Posts

BK, there's no easy response to that...... it must be a particularly difficult time of year for you xx

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Replies 222
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Posts

To all Nottstalgians in cold climes please spare a thought for those firefighters in Australia that will be working on Christmas Day and throughout the festive season in an effort to control bushfires

upload foto online

Jill   I just cannot recall those decorations at Berridge, but that just must be my memory. In fact I cannot recall Christmas at all there!    I do recall Christmas at Bobbers Mill

Helping mum put up the trimmings (having to put them back up after the budgie had a fight with them) and the ancient Christmas tree. Getting up at dawn to open presents, eating turkey for what seemed like weeks, my mums Christmas pudding, mince pies and Christmas cake. Playing board games and cards and the “big” film on tv. Being stuffed with chocolate from selection boxes and malteser boxes. Happy memories.

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

Sitting with my brother on the floor in front of the black and white tv, watching Billy Smart’s Circus,  sitting room lights off and just the glow of the fire, Mum and Dad fast asleep in their armchairs.  

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites

When my eldest boy was about 3 years of age we were waiting for him to fall asleep it was Christmas Eve and we had to get Santa's presents in his room. We had brought some toy with bells on it (can't remember what the toy was) any way thinking that he was asleep we started going up stairs, the bells were making the bell sound, mummy, mummy my boy shouted, I went into his room " whats up "I ask, "I have just heard the bells on Santa's sledge he must be on his way "said my son. I still thinks to this day Santa was on his way.   

I won't tell him will you?

  • Like 1
  • Upvote 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

I can remember getting a Billy J Kramer LP (can you remember them?) one Christmas. Didn’t mind his first record Do You Want To Know A Secret, but I was a Rolling Stones fan so it didn’t get played that much. Saw him live once, he used to stick his tongue out when he was singing quite off putting. 
I can vaguely remember getting a “pop star” annual can’t remember its name. My nana used to give us a half crown piece (12 and a half pence in new money I think) and she once gave me a bowl of hyacinths which was a bit confusing for a teenager!

Link to post
Share on other sites

My sister and I always had annuals at Christmas. When I was very small, it would be the Teddy Bear Annual or Rupert Bear, or Sooty! I still collect bears! Later on, it was Bunty or something similar.

 

There was a rule in our house that we didn't disturb our parents before daybreak on Christmas Day. Santa always left two presents on the landing which we were allowed to open when we woke up...usually the early hours! These presents were always annuals or books of some kind which my sister and I took back to bed and read until mum and dad stirred.  It worked very well.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I remember in my younger days going through of phase of putting up decorations in my bedroom.

 

You could buy a pack of strips of adhesive paper, fold them and glue them into a circle, and then join them all together to form a kind of daisy chain. Then string them up across the ceiling.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I remember those too, CT.

 

Anyone remember those rolls of thick, narrow tinfoil, in various colours from red, gold to silver, with circular holes punched out of them?  We had them at Berridge every Christmas to decorate the classrooms. They were actually the waste product left over from milk bottle tops, in the days when we had proper glass bottles which were recycled and not the current plastic versions.  The narrow strips were razor sharp where the holes had been punched out and they gave them to infants to make Christmas decorations with. There was blood everywhere. Elf n safety would have a hissy fit!

Link to post
Share on other sites

Paper chains are alive and well apparently. My wife was in the village church this afternoon showing young kids how to make them whilst awaiting the arrival of Father Christmas to switch on the Christmas tree lights in the glebe field. Obviously I was not there as I dislike both children and Christmas! :biggrin:

Link to post
Share on other sites

Before we moved house (downsized), every year when we put the decorations up every garland, or bell, fairy or lantern had to go in the same place or the kids would take great delight in making us change them until they were exactly the same as the last twenty years.

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Jill

 

I just cannot recall those decorations at Berridge, but that just must be my memory. In fact I cannot recall Christmas at all there! 

 

I do recall Christmas at Bobbers Mill Road, and it breaks my heart to think of it now. How my hard working parents provided me with so much on so little. I know how much joy they got out of seeing me on Christmas morning. When my Dad was dying he said that. My childhood Christmases were full of delight, joy and love. My parents hardly drank at all, but when I was old enough, about 10, they gave me a glass of babycham at the dinner. Never Turkey, but chicken. I didnt eat the meat as I didnt like it, which upset my Dad, but I have never liked meat and have been vegetarian for decades. 

 

The process on Christmas Day was to wake up and open the presents. My father liked to treat my mother, and I recall her delight on many many Christmases. It is why I treat my wife well now. After that it was to go and visit my grandmother on Birkin Avenue, where the family would gather, then back to home, but with my father having a pint in the Clock. In the evening, we would visit a friends house, on Bobbers Mill Road, just the other side of Darley Road, where the phone box used to be, and we would watch Morecambe and Wise because they had a better telly, and play Newmarket until we were tired. One year I won the newmarket and bought a quite expensive Airfix model from Skills (The one on Alfreton Road)  the next day they opened. I recall walking there with my dad and paying for it in pennies. The owner was delighted and did not charge full price, just what I had. 

 

I have a little tradition, and that is to have a present from my parents with me on Christmas Day no matter where I am. I took my Action Man to Moscow with me one year, although I was 53! I also recall night shift in the police in Worksop on a cold wet Christmas Day. ( An incredibly boring shift) I was given a transistor radio as a gift some years earlier and I took it with me that day. That was in the days when there was no radio overnight. I remember the first song to be played when the radio station opened up, 5am I think, was Some Day I will Fly away, Randy Crawford. I recall it clearly, in an alley next to Woodcock travel agency, in the rain, and wondering when I would fly away. 

  • Like 6
Link to post
Share on other sites

You are a little younger than I, M.D. and it's possible that those rolls of lethal tinfoil had been removed by the time you were in the infants. They really were razor sharp!

 

As to childhood Christmases at Bobbers Mill...yes, I understand your feelings perfectly. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Thinking of Christmas at Berridge, I recall two nativity plays while I was in the infants. Must have been 1962 and 1963. In the first one, I was The Virgin Mary with a piece of blue fabric which kept slipping off my head and holding someone's doll, wrapped in a cot blanket. I complained about the doll...didn't like dolls...and asked if I could bring my teddy bear instead. I was refused on the grounds that Jesus wasn't a bear. Well, he wasn't a flaxen- haired doll either, in the interests of historical accuracy!

 

The second occasion, I was an angel with a lot to say! In those far off days, there were no pre- manufactured angel wings decorating supermarkets throughout the land. You had to make your own. I recall my mother and elder sister battling with wire, white crepe paper and silver tinsel, in an effort to fashion a set of wings for me to wear. The result wasn't too brilliant! My Archangel Gabriel looked as though he'd flown through a tornado. I also sported a silver halo. That slipped years ago!

 

I also recall doing my ballet solo to music from The Nutcracker...The Sugar Plum Fairy...wearing a light pink party dress, pink Brettles socks and pink satin ballet shoes. 

 

Each class had a party for which parents provided the food. This occurred every Christmas, right through my time at Berridge. 

 

I don't remember any performances in the Juniors.

 

M.D. do you recall Nurse Heaton, the midwife who lived on Bobbers Mill Road? She would have lived close to the friends you visited on Christmas Day, not far from the phone box and post box.

Link to post
Share on other sites
12 hours ago, mercurydancer said:

and we would watch Morecambe and Wise because they had a better telly, and play Newmarket until we were tired.

 

I remember playing Newmarket at my grandparents place on Grimston Road; obviously a big thing in that area !

 

However, I don't remember anything about exactly how the game went.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I recall playing Newmarket at my grannies in Rempstone over Christmas. I think I've mentioned previously on here that I have total amnesia as to how to play card games and I think this game may have been the start of that. 

 

I've just consulted Mr Google on how to play the game and I was astonished how complicated it appears to be. Expecting a five or six year old to comprehend it strikes me as impossible but, somehow, I managed it.

 

Edit: I think that may have been the start of my aversion to gambling as well.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Newmarket

you have a King, Queen, Jack, and Ace in the middle of the table you also have two cups. these cards are fro another pack and the two cups are one is for a run and the other is for the finish.

First you decide what amount  you want to gamble ex 30p  3 x10p    you each place 10p on a picture then 10p goes into the run and the last 10p goes into the finish,

The dealer deals all cards to say 4 players and the person next to the dealer goes first, they put down there lowest red or black card, ex   red 2 hearts,  the person who has the 3 of hearts goes next and so and so on until all the hearts are gone then the player who finished hearts starts again with his lowest black card and so on and so on,

if you get a run or one of the picture;s out you take the money what is there. If you finish first you take the money in the finish pot. Hope this explaines the game of Newmarket.

  • Upvote 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Reading Jill’s post about the school nativity play has reminded me of my one and only starring role on a stage.  I was Angel Gabriel in Ashwell Street Infants School Nativity play at Christmas 1957.  We performed at St George’s Church in Netherfield and  I clearly remember standing on a big wooden box behind Joseph and Mary (who was holding a doll)   Dressed in a white sheet with a ring of tinsel on my head, arms outstretched and shouting out “Fear not, I bring you good news of great joy .......”    I’ve never been confident enough to do anything on the stage since then :(

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...