About now would be the time that we’d be putting the finishing touches to our Christmas lists when I was little.
And every Christmas the same 2 items would appear at the end of the list…and every birthday too come to think of it…
The items were the catch-all equivalents of the “and anyone who knows me” line that people often use when they’re asked, on the telly, if there’s anyone to whom they’d like to say hello.
We’d put all of the things that we really wanted on our Christmas list…
Atari console… no hope! I'll just keep playing Pong!
Racing bike… in my dreams…I'll have to save up for my Puch Alpine 5 speed... (and I did... cost me £62.50 in 1977... took me about 2 years to save up for that!)
Scalextric… maybe I can save up for that one too… mind you I couldn't ever get the cars to stay on the track... could anyone?
For the "saving up" items, I’ll need those old favourite, "featured at the bottom of every birthday/Christmas/anything-else list ever" options…
1) Money…
You can’t go wrong with money…
Except if someone sent you the curved ball of a Postal Order… I still can’t, for the life of me, work out what those we’re really about…
Oh… or a cheque. That was damp squib too… and involved so much delay… wait for banks to open, wait for parents to go to the bank so that we could hand over this funny piece of paper, wait 3 days (aka a lifetime for a 9 year old) for the thing to "clear" and then get my little bank book updated with a different number (balance)… yawn!
Not much fun there... so cheques weren't exactly greeted with glee but they still counted as money... but only just!
Second, and these were definitely below money but quite how far below remained to be seen…
2) Tokens
Tokens had a definite hierarchy too…
WH Smiths were the best tokens by far. Our Smiths was probably the biggest, most interesting shop in our local town. I’d spend many an hour browsing, choosing & changing my mind before eventually taking the plunge. So much of the enjoyment was in the choosing.
WH Smiths' tokens were valuable currency but from then on things went downhill rapidly…
John Menzies… our closest one was like a small, rubbisher version of Smiths.
Boots… it’s a flipping chemists (and not much else back then!) What does a 9 year old want with a token for a chemists? I’d just end up buying bottles of Matey bubblebath and/or coloured soap in the shape of boats and submarines. At least it made baths more fun… for a while.
Timothy Whites... think Boots but worse... ugh! People who gave Timothy Whites gift tokens clearly didn't like children... or couldn't see the world through a 9 year old's eyes. Sadists.
So… on Christmas day I’d be handed the envelope from Uncle Dick and Auntie Jennie. I’d open it tentatively.
“Please be money… please be money… please be money”…
Nope… it was a token.
This might just be salvageable... so which type of token is it?
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
I could have had so much fun in Smiths picking and choosing... but they chose to deprive me of that completely with…
the nightmare token as far as I was concerned.
A book token.
“The gift that keeps on giving” the sales spiel said.
Not for me when I was 9!
Book tokens meant no spending hours of choosing in Smiths. If I'd wanted a flipping book I could have used my non-existent Smiths token to buy one, couldn't I?
And you couldn't use book tokens to save up for the big things like bikes either... Humph!
Why would they do that?
Even as I write this now, decades later, I’m reliving the sinking feeling.
Was it just me? Or can you think of worse?13 Comments To "The Gift That Keeps On Disappointing!"
Nostalgic Meanderings
The 1970s and 80s in the UK weren't just about the flamboyant flares and shimmering disco balls. It was an era defined by a certain ethos – one of mak...
This chunky wonder was the closest any of us ever got to a Star Wars adventure, the joystick akin to a real spaceship's controls...
Oh, the allure of the Fray Bentos pie! My mind tinkers back to the carefree 1980s, and I'm instantly whisked up in a nostalgic whirlwind of ...
Ah, the Magic Robot – the board game that was the epitome of a '70s childhood, or more like a jumble sale staple and the subject of many sna...
Ah, the good old days of the '70s and '80s, when British ingenuity was at its peak, and we could solve almost any car-related problem with a bit of el...
Ah, vinyl car seats - the "luxury" of the 70s and 80s. They were the true test of one's mettle on a hot summer's day. Picture this: a quintessentially...
Journey back with me, if you will, to an era when television was our magic portal to the fantastic and the extraordinary. Let us revisit a time when t...
Ah, the good old days when life was simpler, and the only thing you had to worry about was whether your scratch and sniff sticker collection was up ...
Get ready to unleash your inner child as we delve into a mysteriously nostalgic realm of mischief, motorcycles, and mesmerizing bears - can you guess ...
Are you a fan of the outrageous Hanna-Barbera cartoon 'Wacky Races'? If so, it's no surprise – since its debut in 1968, this classic show has captur...
What is the link between the fab 1960s weirdness that is "The Banana Splits" and the scary 1976 horror classic "The Omen"? Read this to find out! P...
A couple of weeks ago we made the annual trip to the garden centre to pick our Christmas tree. I had measured the height, floor to ceiling, in ou...
Only 19 sleeps to Christmas (as I write this)... It was a regular December memory that I recall from my childhood so it definitely qualifies for ...
This is when it started to get serious... Christmas really was coming. The first sign was the appearance of the advent calendars... Not tha...
Remember Evel Knievel? He was huge when I was little. Definitely larger than life... He had 2 claims to fame from what I can remember. Jum...
A while back I wrote about the bands from back in the day which are still doing their thing... Human League, The Cure etc. If you missed it you ...
I'm nervous... I came up with an idea last week and I'm not sure whether it will go down a storm... or die a horrible death through lack of inter...
Back in the day... I think it must have been the 80s... there was possibly one of the strangest things to be broadcast on the radio... and i...
Hello I went to Wembley last Saturday to watch the League 1 playoff final (football!) where my beloved Wycombe Wanderers were playing Sun...
Hello David McKee sadly died about a month ago. He was 87, which is a good innings in anybody's book. You're probably thinking... who? ...
Almost 50 years later this still sends shivers down my spine... and not in a good way. It's in the same category as scraping fingers down the bla...
As you can probably guess, it's not a bad job to be the person behind the virtual counter in an online sweetshop. Aside from being surrounded by ...
As Vic Reeves would have said... "You wouldn't let it lie...". Brace yourself for a nostalgic rant... Don't you find it depressing how many re...
I took William, our 13 year old, shopping the other day to buy a new pair of trainers. The old ones had lasted about 3 months until h...
As I look out of the window here the sky is grey and it's raining. Back in the day, before there was 24 hour a day entertainment for children (on...
Back at the end of the 70s a new, how did they come up with that idea, programme appeared on BBC2. I can remember if it was on Sunday afternoo...
As I'm doing mundane stuff around the house and in the garden I spend a whole load of my time trying to think of obscure nuggets of things that I reme...
How many of these childhood Christmas memories can you remember?
Remember Stickle Bricks? Take a trip down toy memory lane...
Do you agree with my controversial list of the worst biscuits ever? ... from an 8 year old's perspective anyway...
How many of these can you remember? Have I left out your favourite?
How many of these memories remind you of birthday parties when you were little?
Iconic foods you thought had long since disappeared... or have they???
It was one of the staple puddings of school dinners at our junior school. In the queue I would repeat to myself internally... "Please don't let ...
I say that these are the most nostalgic snacks ever. Or am I wrong? You decide...
Remember when the coolest cats wore orange foam headphones?
Did did you do this too on Sunday afternoons?
They wrote well. They leaked horribly. But what else were they really good for?
They were unscratchable... and you could smear them with butter and jam, pour coffee over them... wipe'em down and then pay them. Because Tomorrow'...
Do you remember tribbles? Or this song from 1987 that was number 1 for two weeks?
There's one item from my childhood that stands head and shoulders above all others as being completely and horribly unfit for purpose.
What's brown and not very sticky?
Bird goes up, bird goes down, bird goes up, bird goes down...
How many Saturday morning tv programmes can you remember from over the years? Here's a load of them to rekindle some memories. How many can y...
Memories of going back to school after the long summer hols...
Remember buying cereal just for the fab toy inside the box?
Do you remember this from when we used to watch television programmes at school?
Was he really married to a former lap dancer?
A pedal down childhood bikes memory lane!
Remember this from the 1970s? It's orange juice... but not as we know it!
Loads of memories of the most nostalgia-inducing ice lollies from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Which was your favourite?
Back in the 70’s there was a British toy company called Palitoy. Ring any bells? They made my sister’s favourite doll at the time Penny Puppywalker...
Did you get the 1990’s music reference in the title? See more here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF2ayWcJfxo When I say hmmm I don’t mean it in ...
What happened each December, about now, that got us so excited?
Remember Tim? We phoned him up and he always told us the same thing. What am I on about?
What's missing today which was abundant when we were little?
How times have changed... thank goodness.
The battle of "new and improved" vs "classic original recipe".
Enter the code in the box below: