1977 heralded the Queen's Silver Jubilee Celebrations bringing with it street parties, triangular sandwiches, games and bunting - lots of bunting. It was a special time, not because we were ardent royalists but rather that there was a celebratory coming together of the community. A sense of unity manifested in outdoor parties with sack races, tug-of-war, three-legged and human wheelbarrow races followed by lots of food and drink on paper plates and cups. My memories of these celebrations are helped greatly by the cine-film footage kept by my dad that captures some of the action. The film has such an air of innocence, from a time long ago when I was oblivious to Politics, bigotry, family breakdown, poverty, war and all manner of ugly things that sooner or later invade your consciousness. Probably the edgiest thing I was aware of at that point was punk rock, my eldest cousin being a dedicated punk who remains inspired by the music even now. My own passion for music had begun to develop, influenced by the wide range of music enjoyed by members of our family and covering a diverse spectrum from the Sex Pistols to Tammy Wynette. Uncle John played Gladys Knight, Kenny Rogers and Dionne Warwick, my mam and dad had records by Gene Pitney, The Everly Brothers, Billy Joel, Harry Nilsson, ELO and Abba as well as country music, compilation LPs by KTel and opera (Puccini, Tchaikovsky, Ravel), my Uncle Colin introduced me to Kate Bush while my grandparents enjoyed Mario Lanza records on a creaky old gramophone. These eclectic sounds accompanied numerous birthday parties, New Year parties, Sunday mornings and holidays across the UK to Devon, Cornwall, the ever-rainy Lake District, Blackpool, Scarborough and Torquay. A rite of passage was to sit in a smoky car with the family looking out at a grey coastline while eating smelly hard-boiled eggs as the rain teamed down outside on a Bank Holiday. Then a James Bond film at the cinema - my favourite being The Spy Who Loved Me.
Alongside dance classes, school, playing the recorder, shopping trips, Silver Jubilees, Saturday morning TV and trips to see the grandparents, the remainder of our time was spent on a variety of activities such as Cub-Scouts, Brownies, swimming lessons, Judo classes, riding bikes, visiting old Aunts and a lot of reading. Any time I wasn't moving to, from or at any of the above mentioned activities I was found with my head in a book. This helped me as a rather shy person to avoid conversations and escape into imaginary worlds where solving mysteries at boarding school with midnight suppers, eccentric teachers and enduring friendships kept me fully engaged. Reading was one of the less dangerous pastimes available - a lot of kids managed to knock out their teeth accidentally and I was no exception, losing my front teeth after bouncing on the bed and falling forwards on to a protruding precipice. Trips to the dentist were horrendous, the cavernous and spooky converted house with a chair that resembled Old Sparky from American horror films, it's threatening-looking attachment that terrified children. I was generally a very healthy child but ended up in A&E a few times, once when I split my lip trying to hide under a bed with a metal bedstead and again while bouncing on a Space-hopper I bounced head-first off a kerb. I've still got a dark jagged mark on my forehead from that incident like Harry Potter's scar. The most random incident was when I managed to get a ring stuck up my nose that had to be removed with the aid of a set of long tweezers - I shudder to think of the stories those tweezers could tell of jewellery removals.
Some of the games we played in the schoolyard had elements of danger and certain injury, with clackers and conkers causing many a bruised knuckle and a lengthy elaborate song with actions that started "The Farmer's In His Den, The Farmer's In His Den, Ee-aye the Alley-oh, The Farmer's In His Den" and ended with a poor victim nominated as the dog who got battered around while we sang "We all pat the dog!". Many games were accompanied by rhymes and rituals that made them seem quite Pagan - I loved to play "Two-ballie" chanting "Mrs Toffee Apple Ball went to see a water fall" and "Drink a pint of milk a day M-I-L-K", hopscotch, cats-cradle for our hands and a larger version for our feet with loads of elastic bands joined together that we girls made complex patterns with, sometimes painfully pinging the hairs on our legs. Stick in the Mud, Tuggy on High and British Bulldogs could be quite vicious - even thinking about it now is enough to make me want a lie-down. As if all of this was not exciting enough, we also began to look outwards towards the rest of the world as holidays abroad became more accessible. The Carry On films captured it beautifully in Carry On Abroad where they travel to the Spanish resort of Elsbels. Our first foray into foreign travel was laid on by a local entrepreneur who took us by bus to a campsite in the South of France where we referred to the beach as "Canny Plodge" (Canet Plage). Here I had my first youthful holiday crush on a dark haired Lothario from Yorkshire way. I was so ridiculously shy that I thought the best approach was to studiously ignore him while my heart palpitated at the very sight of him. I repeated this approach most of the way through my teenage years until I discovered the benefits of alcohol to the socially awkward at which point my confidence improved greatly. I headed home from Canny Plodge with a sunburnt back, a dented heart and a large Spanish toy donkey from a short trip over the border. The donkey ended up on the Bonfire the following 5th November - turns out it was highly flammable with the head loosely attached with a long lethal piece of wire (being from a time before EU regulations restricted the sale of such toys). I was fortunately distracted from the pain of seeing my beloved toy destroyed by the smell of singed turnip lanterns, Catherine Wheels and screaming Rockets all around us.
And so as the 1970's came to an end the world was beginning to open up ... I was the grand old age of 9 heading into a new decade of decadence, feminism, capitalism, foreign food (Spaghetti Bolognese! Lasagna! Garlic Bread!), timeshares and New Romantics. The 1980's would be a time of change, the loss of innocence, the Falklands War, the Miner's Strike, padded shoulders, tipped hair, Australian soap operas, fragranced erasers, Rubik's cubes, computers and much much more. We certainly weren't in Kansas anymore Toto.
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