A Christmas Long-Gone

I would have liked to have done a Christmas post from the ‘Good old days’, but I never took any photos at Christmas and neither did the family. All photographs at that time, needed good light and none were ever taken indoors without ‘flash’. The early box-cameras that we all owned had no settings, like ‘shutter speed ’ or ’aperture’. Although I do remember once seeing a box camera with a slider that could be pulled out to provide two different sized holes (apertures) behind the lens.

None of these early cameras would work in poor light, which is why we all had to traipse outside into the garden to get our pictures taken. It wasn’t until Dad bought his Zeiss that he had the capability of plugging in a flash. Of course in those days we could only use (expensive) flash bulbs and not the electronic flash of today. I first started using flash with bulbs, around 1964 for all the indoor party photos at the Youth club.

The only Christmassy bit we have is a cinefilm my Mother took on her 8mm movie camera. My brother has had it converted to a VHS tape and I am planning to convert it yet again, this time to a DVD.

Over Christmas much of the blogs and online news feeds seemed to close down for two days, so I found myself watching old films on YouTube. There is a very good channel - BFI Films, which always come up with some real gems. I found this one of Christmas 1941 filmed during the War and it was of course a very special one for me. It was over the Christmas holiday that I was conceived, as Dad was home on leave and I was to be born the following September. 

Some of the filming must have been done down here in Buckinghamshire, as I recognise several of the churches shown.

I spotted the church at Turville because of the windmill on the hill, and the church at Fingest is one of only two churches with the unusual ‘twin’ gabled roof on the tower.

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The church at Fingest, Buckinghamshire. 

The Church of St Bartholomew, Fingest.

This famous church sits at the centre of a historic village.

The massive western Norman tower was built early in the 12th century 

and has unusual twin gables - 

it is believed that only one other similar construction exists in the country.

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The church at Turville, Buckinghamshire.

The Church of St Mary, Turville.

The first known church building dates from the 12th century, 

the oldest part being the nave. Rebuilding of the church in 1340 included the present tower and an enlargement of the chancel.  The tower is squat in comparison to its massive proportions and is topped with brick. 

(Note the famous windmill on the skyline.)

All Dressed Up.

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Do you remember when ‘Fancy dress’ parties were all the rage? 

They don’t seem to be quite as popular these days - but perhaps I’m not now ‘moving in the right circles’? 

We were always having them at our Youth club way back in Bournville around 1964 and they were extremely popular in my early days at Taplow (1968-74).  

I have quite a few pictures of the former, as I was taking all the photographs, but at Taplow, the pictures for the club magazine were always taken by the BTR photographer, Bob Wilson. Unfortunately, I haven’t kept copies of the old magazines, but during a recent web search, found out that they are all archived away up in Aylesbury reference Library. I guess one day I might make a pilgrimage up there, but I can’t say I like Aylesbury as a place to spend an afternoon.

However, this dressing up lark would appear to run in the family, as I discovered from digging deep into the boxes of Dad’s old negatives.  The oldest were from the summer of 1937, and were taken on the back lawn at Linden Road by, I guess, Nan. (as she never appeared in any of the pictures.)

The first one off, is of Dad and Stan (with a fox stole) 

looking a right pair of pansies! 

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Stan and Dad as
'Gert & Daisy'

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I can remember that old fox fur thingie of Nan’s, because as children, we used to play games with it! And I can remember it always had that smell of lavender and menthol about it, I expect from old moth-balls in her wardrobe.

I notice that both of them were sporting well stuffed brassieres!  I do hope they weren’t wearing ladies knickers as well - were they?

Here’s the answer.

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Ladies don’t sit like that Dad!

And now Mom has joined in wearing a pair of Dad’s trousers and Uncle Stans hat and blazer.

Here’s a better picture of my ‘mum & dad’ to be!

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Mr & Mrs Johns (to be)

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I like that Walking-cane that Mom is holding. I wonder what happened to that?

Enough of all this I think. Lets move on twelve years or so.

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This, believe it or not, is me! 

It was taken over at Manor Farm park during a boy-scout ‘do’ to celebrate the Festival of Britain in 1951.

We were divided up into four groups to represent England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Dressed up in silly costumes and required to do a country dance representing the respective country. 

Not really what I had in mind when I joined the scouts. I’d have been happier building a rope bridge across the Woodbrook stream.

Next from the box came picture of my younger brother Colin, dressed to ‘kill’.

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"Oh, they're tough, mighty tough in the West,

And your trigger must be quicker than the rest

When there's rootin' and a-tootin'

I'm the guy that does the shootin'

'Coz they're tough, mighty tough in the West"

This was taken in the back garden at Thackeray Road, around 1953 at a guess.

Playing at Cowboys was all the rage in those days and if I remember rightly the only problem we had, was that we could never find anyone who wanted to be an Red Indian!

It was around that time that we had our first telly. It was bought just in time for ‘grown-ups’ to watch the Coronation. We did, but it was cowboy films we enjoyed most. I remember on Saturdays, at around 5 o’clock there was a variety show called "Whirligig", and after we had cleaned our shoes and tidied our bedrooms,
we were allowed to enjoy this one hour of fun.

I can recall a few of the characters like Mr. Turnip, (see right-hand side), but the ones we remembered best were Hank the Cowboy,
Minnie Ha-Ha and zee bad bandit, Mexican Pete.

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"I'm Mexican Pete, zee bad bandit

Zee bad bandit I always 'ave bin

I tie Senor Hank to zee railroad

An' zat is zee end of 'im !" 

The creator of Hank was Francis Coudrill and believe it or not there is a connection here with Linden Road.

A few houses up on the same side as Nan’s, 

was the home of Mr. & Mrs. Coudrill, Francis’s parents.

Whether or not Francis ever lived there, I don’t know. He was certainly a science master at a school in Birmingham for a time, but he lived here in Bucks (Beaconsfield) when making his television programs.

Another popular cowboy at the time was Tex Ritter, and I have here in my collection, an LP of ‘Songs of the Golden West’.

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As I mentioned earlier, our youth club in Bournville was very keen on fancy dress parties and I have managed to keep all the pictures that I took back then. I’ll just put up one here to show that even in 1964, brother Colin went dressed as a cowboy.  

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Bournville Friends Youth Club - 1964

Given time, I can put a name to nearly all those.

Colin is hiding away at the back again!

Here’s a try at a close up.

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As far as I know Colin never managed to get his ‘leg-over’,

 - a horse that is!

Neither did he master the art of using a lasso or firing a ‘six-shooter’.

He did however manage to get ‘into the saddle’ of his vintage Triumph 

and he was never more at home, than when kitted out ‘in his leathers’.

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All dressed up and ready to go!

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