I've been full of cold this week and feeling ill reminded me of being ill as a kid back in the Sixties. I can remember drinking gallons and gallons of fizzy golden Lucozade, which even came wrapped in orange cellophane to make it even more medicinal! Did it really make us better?
Whether I was on the settee under blankets or in bed under more blankets, Mum always fussed round me like a matron. Fluffing my pillow, tucking in my sheet, checking my temperature! I loved it really and my personal level of nursing care has never quite been the same!
Being ill also meant toys. I can remember getting a Hot Wheels redline Silhouette during one particularly nasty bout of childitus, probably the Plague' Like most kids I seemed to get everything and anything. I loved that car and drew it and its redline pals in a graph paper pad, which I can still feel now. They were great drawings for a plague victim but Alas, long gone.
The best prezzie I got was for having appendicitis. In fact, said organ nearly burst I was that ill. Almost a gonner! After the pesky thing was safely removed and I was laid up in hospital, there was only one thing my worried folks could do. Yes, buy me a toy! Not just any toy mind, but a Zeroid! The brown one with the cool blue case cum trailer. I was made up and that Zeroid aided my recovery better than any doctor ever could!
What are your memories of illness and toys readers?
I can't remember what was wrong with me, but Mum bought me a corgi MGB GT hatchback in red. One of the few non-sf toys I still have.
ReplyDeleteGet well soon Woodsy!
ReplyDeleteI remember getting two Matchbox hovercraft diecasts while laid up by a bad ear infection.
ReplyDeleteWoodsy, sorry to hear you're under the weather! Hope ya get well soon. As for me, I didn't get toys when ill - just more medicine. My memories of illness are hearing Mom calling the evil Dr. Kleis on the telephone who would then come to the house armed with a syringe equipped with 1/4"dia blunt needle. We lived on the 2nd floor of a 2-story flat and I would run to the basement and hide. My present for getting sick? - a shot in the bloody arse!!
ReplyDeleteFor some strange reason,my first teeth refused to come out and my secondary teeth grew in behind them.After looking like a shark-boy for a few weeks, I had the first teeth surgically removed.The surgery only took about a half hour,but I was put under anesthesia,leaving me very confused and upset when I woke up.On the way home, my dad stopped at Kiddie City and bought me an enormous GI Joe adventure set.It was the one with the mummy's tomb and the six wheeler with a winch for excavation.As soon as I was feeling better, It was off to the sandbox for me and Joe,for the first of many adventures.Yes,toys are the best medicine!
ReplyDeleteEd - Bloody Arse? Fine bit of American there well done!!
ReplyDeleteMy brother went to hospital with appendicitis and got oodles of presents...some from his god-mother in Californ-eye-ay (red vinyl suitcase full of mini tootsie toys I think?). Then he went to hospital to loose his tonsils...more bloody toys...me? Sodding too healthy clearly!!!!
Hugh