Shropshire Star

Phil Gillam: Christmas memories present and correct (well, mostly)

The Shrewsbury Christmas I carry around in my heart is perhaps not so much bound up in my childhood, although the ’season to be jolly’ back then most definitely featured plenty of great times for the young Gillams.

Published
Some of Phil’s favourite Christmas presents from years gone by

Indeed, those days were filled with bright, crisp, chilly mornings; atmospheric cold, dark nights; the singing of carols; lovely old films on television starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, or James Steward and Donna Reed, or Maureen O’Hara and John Payne.

And festive gifts from those early years were thrilling and imbued with magic.

My 1966 Corgi Batmobile which I had when I was nine, and Captain Scarlet’s Spectrum Patrol Vehicle (made by Dinky Toys) which I had the following year, are, to this day, among my most teasured possessions. (Both can be seen in the accompanying photograph).

But those childhood Christmases are now a bit of a snowy, blustery blur to me … Dad always trying to find a way to sneak off to the pub, pleasant aromas from the kitchen, our sister helping Mum get everything sorted, ancient Buster Keaton movies on the telly, having to go down the cellar to get more coal for the fire, selection boxes full of chocolate goodies.

Oh, yeah. Anybody remember, by the way, those chocolate smoking kits that had a box of matches, cigars, cigarettes, a cigarette lighter - all made of chocolate - obviously preparing children for a healthy, tobacco-filled adulthood? Mmmmmmm.

But as the Welsh Bard, Dylan Thomas, put it, one Christmas was so much like another. He wrote: "I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six."

Quite right.

Which is why, I suppose, it is really the Christmases of my early teenage years that resonate most strongly: they are much more clearly remembered and yet far enough away to evoke powerful nostalgia.

We lived in a damp, draughty, (but I always think ‘homely') Victorian house in North Street, Castlefields, a snowball's throw from All Saints Church.

I was fourteen in 1971, and I think the programmes on the television and the music in the chart back then result in that year conjuring up Christmas for me like no other.

I swear we watched all these on BBC 1 on Christmas Eve … 10am: Laurel and Hardy. 10.20am: White Christmas (1954). 12.15pm: The Night The Animals Talked (cartoon).

It says a lot about how television was in those days that so many old films and old programmes were shown to fill up the schedules. I’m not even sure that we could get BBC 2 in 1971.

So you’d only have two stations from which to choose, and newly-made programmes were not that plentiful in those days.

Hence, following an old Tom and Jerry and then an old Mary, Mungo and Midge, BBC 1’s Christmas Eve offerings continued with another old film: Mr Hobbs Takes A Vacation.

In the evening we were treated to the Cliff Richard show, a ghost story for Christmas, and Midnight Mass from Manchester.

The Christmas 1971 pop chart looked like this. Number 10: Gipsies, Tramps and Thieves by Cher. Number 9: Soley Soley by Middle of the Road. Number 8: No Matter How I Try by Gilbert O’Sullivan. And already, for those of us of a certain age, the memories come flooding back.

John Kongos had Tokoloshe Man at number seven, and one of my all-time favourites, Softly Whispering I Love You by Congregation was at number six.

Another solid gold classic, Theme from Shaft by Isaac Hayes, was at number 5, then the New Seekers, then Cilla Black.

The utterly wonderful Jeepster by T.Rex was held at number two by the Christmas number one that year, the also utterly wonderful (in its own way) Ernie, the Fastest Milkman in the West, by Benny Hill.

That was 1971. This is 2017.

Happy Christmas everyone!