Ghosts of Christmas Past

 Memories are like ghosts. Ghostly. 

Wispy. Fuzzy.

I have such a memory of one Christmas in the late Sixties or early Seventies, when the family was still healthy and intact.

School was out for the holidays and a peaceful aura had settled over the house in the week before the Big Day.

My patents' life was probably frantic, but I didn't notice. The biggest thing for me was not being at school and the prospect of loads of new stuff on Christmas Day! Priorities!

My memory proper is about watching telly.

 We had a lounge - me and my older brothers called it the boys room - with a half-size snooker table, stereogram and a black and white TV. 

There were drawing books and pens around - we all loved drawing - and ragged copies of Creepy and Eerie at the side of the armchair.

There will have been a Radio Times or TV Times somewhere too, and maybe I had looked up what I ended up watching that day.

I was on the carpet in front of the gas fire,  my belly with my chin propped up in my hands. Not fantastically comfortable but kids seem to like it. 

The Christmas tree was up and lit with fairy lights. It may well have been morning but I have to ask whether anything was on TV in the morning back then? 

The film, black and white on a black and white telly, started Arthur Askey, who was causing mayhem at a railway station. At some point a spectral train flies through the station and all hell breaks loose. I can just recall the ghostly steam rising from the loco as it charged by.

I think the film was called The Ghost Train.

It's a rare and semi-solid childhood memory, where most of the parts are there and one I treasure for it's simplicity, as the brilliant home it was in, where I grew up, was only part of my life a few years more after it.

Do you have murky Xmas recollections readers. 

S i l v e s t e r 1 9 8 3

Clearing out my Wife's parents' apartment has been a sobering and often sombre experience this past month.

I've personally known them since 1979, that's most of my adult life till they passed away. It's humbling to be the custodians of their entire life's purchases, belongings, heirlooms and clothes. There was and is so much of it.

Occasionally in all the shifting and sifting I stumbled on evidence of my own small part in their lives.

One such piece was this old games compendium. 

At first glance I didn't notice anything ...

but on closer inspection ....

There's my name and the year written by my Father in Law at the time. I was 22 and living in Germany with his daughter round the Corner from where they lived.  It was New Years Eve, Silvester, 1983 and we must have been playing board games as a family.

I was touched seeing it, a small something of me from my Father in Law so long ago.

I was there. Where were you readers?

SHADY TV CHARACTERS STAGGERING DOWN MEMORY LANE

Can you add to these half-baked fuzzy memories of mine concerning old TV characters, pop groups, authors and shows readers? Remember, no googling!

Ian Ogilvy - superb young British actor who starred in Witchfinder General and The Sorcerers. I wouldn't be surprised if he was in some Sci Fi too like UFO.

Zola Bud - South African runner who didn't wear any shoes. No idea why.

Harry O - I watched this slow detective show with my old Dad in the late Seventies on late night TV. Was it the Fugitive David Janssen? We fell asleep and the whistle at the end of the night would wake us up. What was it called that whistle?

Sam Peckinpah - Italian spaghetti-Western director who's on-screen bloodbath peaked with The Wild Bunch. I wasn't allowed to watch it on telly.

Pebble Mill at One - was it just in the North this mid-day topical magazine. My Mum may have liked it. She liked the guy called Hall who turned out to be nasty I seem to recall.

Gordon Honeycombe - bald-headed newscaster who had a great voice. Wrote some books including a strange horror novel.

Sailor - a pop group who's peak was Girls Girls Girls. Anything else?

Barry Blue - a pop singer. Can't recall anything he sang.

Blackfoot Sue - pop group who sang Standing in the Road. No idea what else.

The Green Goddess - Eighties TV fitness instructress [is that a word?]. Was she before Mr. Motivator?

Reginald Bosinquet - not sure if that's right but another of those iconic posh 60's news readers.

Harry Worth - used to laugh at this comic's TV show where he raised his arm and leg in a shop window corner. But what else? Wore a pork pie hat.

Dick Emery - funny guy who's tag line was "Oo, you are awful, but I like you!" He liked drag outfits. can't remember anything else.

Dickie Henderson - was he a song and dance man like Dean Martin but British? Also wore a pork pie hat. Did he have a TV show?

Marty Feldman - goggle-eyed comic who's golden moment was in Mel Brook's Young Frankenstein. I think he did much more before that though.

Diana Dors - the British Marylin Monroe. Did she become a superstar?

All our Yesterdays/ World at War - mammoth black and white TV series about WWII. Were they the same show?

Wicker's World - was Alan Wicker reporting on American life from America?

Valerie Singleton - my secret puppy love. Yours?

Maddie Prior - was she the lead singer of Blue Mink?

Tingha and Tucker - glove bears but no idea what they did.

The Pogles - can't recall a thing except maybe they lived in a wood.

Len Deighton - spy author. Never read any.

John Le Carre - Smiley's people. My Dad loved his books. Never read any.

Dick Francis - horse novels. Never read any.

Pam, Ayers - Cornish poetess who was on the telly. can't remember any poems. Maybe the Flit Gun.

Chaka Khan - afro-haired songstress who lead Rufus. I saw them first on the Old Grey Whistle Test.

The Art Attack guy from Liverpool - some people say he's Banksy.

Tony Hart and the lady artist who did the Gallery - geniuses, the Picassos of our youth.

Hatty Jaques - very funny lady. Was she is Sykes?

A TV comedy about garden gnomes?

Norman Wisdom - superstar comic of the Fifties and Sixties. Can't recall anything else except his infectious laugh!

Butterflies - family comedy with a redheaded Mum and a droopy faced Dad. Catchy theme tune but no other memory.

Derek Nimmo - was he a monk in a comedy? Odd voice.

More to come when I think of them!

REMEMBERING OLD CELEBRITIES WITHOUT GOOGLING

Here are a few names from the past that I have wrestled from the ether of my farthest and foggiest brain crannies. 

I haven't looked them up at all so what I've put is the very scant info I remember about them, which could very well be wrong! I'm sure you remember more readers! Please let us know, but no googling if you can help it!

Paddy Clark [or is it Hopkirk?]: Monte Carlo rally driver, famous for his mini. I think I had a Dinky die-cast version of it.

Charlie Drake: one of the original Sixties comedians. He had a small breathy voice and wispy hair. I remember him in a TV show called The Worker.

Peter Gordino: a handsome dancer who my Mum fancied. A feature of Saturday night variety shows. He may have been in UFO?

Kathy Kirby/ Sandy Shore: I get these two lady singers mixed up and can say virtually nothing else.

Nana Moskuri: Greek or Czech lady singer famous in the Sixties and Seventies. She had her own TV show and long black hair. She wore glasses too.

Freddy Laker: airline magnate. May have had a famous plane, Skybus?

Annie Nightingale: the prog rockers' totty. I was in love with Annie when she presented the Old Grey Whistle Test, her raspy voice entranced me!

Dennis Gifford: comics expert. He may have been on the telly. I get him mixed up with the guy that presented It'll Be Alright on the Night, who's name I forget!

Ben Guerin: may have got the name wrong. Israeli General who wore an eyepatch. On the news in the Sixties and early Seventies.

Tom Conti/ Barry McGuigan - two British boxers often in the public eye. Conto was on the cover of Band on the Run I think.

Powers Boothe: he was a tough guy soldier in Southern Comfort. He resurfaced in the Avengers much older. Someone else looks like him too.

Lucilla Ball: explosive American comedienne. Starred in TV's I Love Lucy.

Millicent Martin: I get her mixed up with Lucille Ball.

Rowan and Martin: American comics and presenters of TV's Laugh-In, which I watched with my folks on Saturday night.

Pearl and Dean: the makers of cinema adverts, who's ads showed throughout the Sixties and Seventies. The theme tune was memorable.

Olga Korbet/ Nelly Kim: Rumanian gymnasts who scored perfect 10's at the Olympics.

Lena Zavaroni: Greek? singing teenager, who took the world by storm. With what I don't know.

Geoffrey Wheeler: nothing but the name!

That's it for now. Anything you can add readers, without googling?

NOT SO TOTAL RECALL AT ALL

I recently commented that I have a memory like a sieve.

From the vast ocean of childhood the things I recall the best is the flotsam floating on top: the toys, books, records and ornaments.

Entire TV shows have forsaken me and I have no recollection of them at all. Is this a common problem in your late fifties or should I be worried? Whats it like for you?

There are however low murmurs in the deep trenches of my memory, veiled echoes of other things from childhood. Some of these are TV programmes, where I can just about hear a distant theme tune or half-glimpse an blurred opening or sketchy scene.

Dipping into this shadowy pool of ghosts I can feel the following stirring, which you may yourselves recall far better than me:

Belle and Sebastian is just such a glimmer. I recall it was in black and white and featured a very cute kid and a large dog. The lad may have been wearing a turtle neck sweater. It was Swiss or Belgian. Maybe even alpine. I remember that the title music was hauntingly gorgeous but have no inkling of it now. Do you remember this 1960's show?

Similarly haunting was the theme tune to Robinson Crusoe, which I can actually still hum. I can still see the monochrome Robinson running through the surf and taking gull eggs from the cliffs. Not sure how he ate them. Presumably raw. The rest of the show has been washed away I'm afraid. Do you remember it?

Its both pleasing and frustrating in equal measure to only recall snippets of TV from the Sixties. OK, I can google anything these days and re-live the whole thing but I'm trying to swirl the sediment and see what rises first.

Do you suffer from patchy recall of childhood TV?