Ten

Do not adjust your computer peoples for what we have here is almost a deadringer for me at ten with the right shaped face, hair and so on as I ought to remember 10 as by this point we'd moved to a school that was very much 20th century, with more land so we did stuff.

The uniform needless to say is wrong needing a red sweater and the socks were meant to be white  but it's so close my head has gone back in that year!  Stuff we did include basic gardening and plant growing which was nice considering we were in the countryside, we had some science kit and even a proper school library now.Naturally we played Rounders still.

Oh goody gumdrops, there's a book we read with a very important moral  plus a good heart and isn't Mary looking so pretty in that dress? It was always a favourite of mine by the Authoress Frances H. Burnett, who was born in England but moved to the United States of America at 16 years of age and recently I re-read it. I vividly recall at 10 our class reading Emil and the Detectives as our teacher would read it aloud and we'd follow him.

Of course in this era, there was another kind of reading we did and I'd bet $5CAD I had and read this annual back in the day as a number of you probably did as well.
Great things about ten included being able to watch and understand more complex movies, having a bit more personal freedom as well could playout by ourselves so long as we we back on time for supper, being able to play more board games (no Playstation or X box then) and the music of which I listened to included stuff by Queen, Mud, lots of Motown and Phillysoul, Slade and the Tartan Terrors (aka The Rollers) that we talked about at recess.

Chilling little style

Well Sammy's moved so while Ik is down I thought I'd get this weeks entry written up.
One of things I recall thinking about heaps was about everything that would happen after the last period of afternoon school finished. When I went to day school it was kind of easy in that you'd pair off with a few friends and call in at the neighbourhood store to fix some candy to share while you talked about the day and what you thought of Master x's lesson.

At boarding school we had it back in the dorm but because tea was early it was frowned on as it 'spoilt your tea' so you'd leave them for later or weekends.
I have always loved lollipops still walk around the sidewalks  licking them that speaks volumes about me I guess.
Actually I have a pinafore dress not a million miles like that of the girl on picture and used to read while sucking on a lollipop so perhaps one way to visualize me is think of that girl at least in spirit if not in dress. The only thing that matters is having fun reading and sucking your lollipops.

Link:Lollipops

Guilty secrets.

We might begin by saying according to Google, I have now 14 followers of this blog and it is going to circulated a bit more widely with a short introductory message.
For most of this week I've been reading a mixture of Enid Blyton's Secrets series with the first two stories in their 1960's paperback editions as modern editions haven't so much edited as partially re-written the first chapters that are essential to understand why 4 children would runway in this period from their guardians.

Guilty secret time:

Okay, the eagle eyed will spot a modern no-no on the front cover of this, one of the original three story collections in the Amelia Jane stories.
Amelia is a home made ragdoll who lives in the toybox with the other twos of the children who own them with a teddy bear, sailor boy, wooden mouse and a clown as well as a 'golly' a black faced doll if you grew up in the 70's or before you may well have had in your toybox.
I have fond memories of my toy box I can assure you with dolls teddy bears and even a golly (eek).
Amelia being home made hasn't been what we'd call socialized and so is gets very bored doing incredibly naughty damaging things, playing with matches, being very rude and spiteful, just like many young children, something that no doubt makes it very easy to identify with.In some respects it's almost a moral tract showing action and consequence through the adult narration.
The other toys do with the help of the brownies (another no-no in modern editions) restore order. Amelia has to stand in the corner  and is smacked, just rather like I was at that age for doing pretty much the same things cos like any kid I was capable of 'naughty'.
'Golly' is a no-no too but anyone who has read these stories know he's a really sweet but strong character who will stand up for himself and isn't afraid to take the lead on bring Amelia back under control.
I guess the 'Golly' problem lies with parts of his depiction having prominent eyes and red lips being too close for some to 'blacked up' white actors who some see as promoting a negative stereotype of black people although Enid Blyton sure doesn't in her stories and in the UK at least 'Golly' or 'Gollywogg' was never frequently used as a racial insult.
Given I at least have been called a 'muppet several times before now and no one has insisted on removing that word from public tv and literature, shouldn't we judge a book by it's content and only take offence when a character is being portrayed in an offensive way?

Bonfire night edition

Seeing we are approaching Guy Fawkes Night, one tradition in many ways dying out is of boys and girls making a replica of Guy to which we hawk around our local streets shouting "Penny for the Guy" at any adults.
We did for two reason, one we loved making something connected with our history and the other was it helped eek out our pocket money as we approached christmas.
We always had a bonfire with fireworks at school where we were handed out  sparklers to wave making shapes and words.

The Adventurous Four

I don't know about you but adventure stories have always had an appeal and two wonderful books in the series The Adventurous Four set off the Scottish West coast where four children with the oldest Andy aged 14 who's acquired already a good knowledge of the sea, islands and sealife is  helping his Dad,  encounter Nazi's thieves and gunrunners.
The series is very much set in Wartime arguably more so than any other of Enid Blyton's work and sees them taken prisoner by the Nazi's resolving to show them what Scots are made of.

These are my copies in the Deans Rewards series from 1973 where as with a few other series such as the Famous Five, the skirts and shorts worn by the children in the original  covers are replaced with Jeans although we all know children during the War never had Jeans!

Blue Peter

 There's a fair chance some of you may well remember having these annuals during your childhood as avid viewers of the BBC TV Blue Peter program. It may surprise you to know I also have a number that are co-related to the period I was (officially) a child having not just information about what was shown during that 12 month period, but also on the news of the day such as with this edition information about the US space carrier, Skylab and some good illustrated bits about British History.

It all helps to jog my memory back to the year and what mattered to me as a child during it such as the arts and crafts which at all the schools I attended we did.

As far as I'm aware that's John Noakes a Northern English presenter during most of the 1970's with Shep, the Boarder collie to the left of him.

Wombling Free!

Well none of us of a certain age can forget the Wombles, ecological warriors and cute cuddly creatures from the 1970's and as a child i look forward to watching every episode.

Here's a link to the online Museum:

Tidy Bag - The Online Wombles Museum

This also has links to various currently available merchandise.
There is a lovely two DVD box set in recycled cardboard featuring all 60 original episodes in order which I recently purchased.

Oh boy!

There were many things we read at high school, some by ourselves and some we shared and discussed at length.

These magazines were shared every week between us, having features on pop stars, usually hunky boys and well as stars of tv and the movie theatre.

The members of Duran Duran were something we sure discussed back then, I can assure you!

We also liked Sting

They also had features on fashion, making out and boys! In the pre-internet age apart from siblings it was the best place to find out stuff from.

Photo romance stories also featured and we talked about the issues they raised between each other.