There are two secret drawers* I can think of from my youth.
The first was a small drawer at the foot of an old fashioned bakelite corded telephone. You know the ones, we grew up with them in the Sixties. Huge clunky black units with a big silver dial. They rang like police panda cars. At the bottom was a small thin drawer with a slender front grip. It slid out when pulled it.
I've no idea what should have gone in there but I loved to slip in a small Action Man map or a Haunted House Wanda the Wicked card, my calling card back then!
What on earth was that drawer for? It was too small for take-away menus and I'm not even sure that there were any in Nineteen Sixties Lancashire! Fish and chips was it and you had to personally go to the chippy for those!
What did you place in that telephone drawer readers?
Writing about this has reminded me of another secret drawer, although I'm not sure I knew about it as a young 'un. Its the sliding tray at the base of a toaster, which comes out in order to clean off all the million crumbs piling up from lots of pieces of toast. These days I take the tray outside and clean it off in the garden for the birds, which for some odd reason is strangely satisfying. Like the bottom of a bird cage I doubt there is any other use for the crumb tray!
The other secret drawer I did know about as a nipper and used regularly was the front number plate of the JR21 Fab 1 toy car. This number plate ejected outwards to reveal a small oblong recess behind it. This was ideal for shoving notes in about 1. your fave girls at skool 2. what you'd like to do to your big brothers next time there was a bedroom war and 3. the names of your top pop stars like Marc Bolan, David Bowie and Slade.
Do you know what I'm talking about readers? What did you do with the Fab1 drawer?
Are there any other clandestine drawers and recesses from your youth?
* imagine if Marvel had called their classic comics Secret Drawers rather than Secret Wars! ha ha.
