Today I added another annual ring to my gnarled trunk making a new total somewhere just over half a century. Yes, this English oak is slowly getting older - and debatably wiser. I find it hard to believe that more than fifty years have passed since I came into this world but I was lucky enough to pop out in the 1960's.
OK there were downsides for children during that decade: freezing school shorts, terrifying 'magic' gas at the dentists, grainy black and white TV and the humiliating school nit nurse, but these were a small price to pay for the countless upsides: comics, Instant Whip, the Space Race, Marine Boy, Action Man, tank tops, parallels, Spangles, Survival, Thunderbirds, Shoot, TV21, Creepy, Eerie and Project SWORD to name but a few Sixties childhood gems.
I remember it all with immense fondness and thank my late parents for making it extra special. It was their gift to me and eventually, half a century later, it made its way into the world in the form of a blog in the hope of reaching out to kindred spirits with similar 'gifts'.
So, readers, I raise my glass to you all on my birthday and wish the very best of Christmases just like the ones we used to know.
Signing off as my Mum and Dad did on their Xmas cards to each other,
B.O.A,
Woodsy
My parents on deck chairs, somewhere, circa 1971
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