Saturday 3 September 2016

Sundays In 1971 And A Banned Picture

     I have recently been looking through old diaries from when I was a child. I was always stopping and starting keeping diaries but they only ever lasted for a few months. One of the diaries I found was from 1971 when I was nearly 11. I talked a lot about my favourite TV shows, Follyfoot was my big favourite at the time but what really struck me was how Sunday's bored me to tears. I think maybe my Mum must have had an idea that we should spend the time as a family as I never seemed to go out and play with my friends on a Sunday.
    We would go to church in the morning which seemed to take up the whole morning then the highlight of the day was chicken and bread sauce for Sunday lunch. The afternoon was spent watching a film on TV which I remember always seemed to be an old black and white war film, then after sandwiches for tea my Mum would do the ironing whilst listening to Sing Something Simple and I would panic and wish I hadn't left my homework until the last minute. I'm sure you can get the picture as to why I found them rather dull. However the highlight of the occasional Sunday seemed to be window shopping! Does anyone else remember this as pastime. We would drive to somewhere like Guildford or even Oxford Street, incredibly in those days with virtually no cars on the road we would drive from Ashtead to the West End in 40 minutes and look in the windows of closed shops. The streets would be deserted except for a few other people indulging in window shopping! My Mum and Dad would spend ages looking in windows whilst my sister and I tried to drag them on to somewhere more interesting.
   I can remember one window shopping incident very clearly. There was a little shop in Guildford which was full of antiques and collectables. Even in those days I loved those kind of shops. My Dad and I laughed and laughed at a picture of dogs weeing on a wall we thought it was so funny. Then about a week later he turned up at home with it. My Mum was horrified and refused to allow it in the house so he took it to his office. When he retired he brought it home, but my Mum still refused to put it up so he gave it to me as he remembered I laughed so much at it as a child.


   For 20 years we have taken it from home to home and it always takes it place above the toilet. I think these signed etchings are quite collectable but I would never part with it. Oh and finally for anyone else who is old enough to remember it and loved the programme Follyfoot here is a trip down Memory Lane.

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