"What was it like in the olden days?"
So asks TJ, as he sits doing his homework.
I wasn't sure what he was working on, so I figured that I'd better ask for more information before I regailed him with my knowledge of Tudor England or the Industrial Revolution - I am sure he will find both topics thrilling. So I asked which period of history he was looking at.
'I mean when you were young?"
I looked back at him - "You mean in the 1980's?"
'Is that the same time as 'Call the Midwife?'
So my youngest son now thinks I was born just after the war and lived in a poverty stricken East End.
I can see why he would be interested though. Recently we have been clearing out my mum's house, getting it ready to put on the market and, naturally, whilst going through the loft I found all the 'stuff' that I had left there over the years - forty years of accumulated sentimental tat that I was happy to leave at my mum's as long as I didn't have to fill up my own attic with it. My mum often asked me when I was gonig to clear it all out and I always promised I would... eventually.
So eventually finally happened and we have made two trips, so far, with car loads of afore-mentioned 'tat'. Much of which has consisted of old photos, school books and records - lots and lots of records.
It was going through the hundreds of singles and LP's that I became nostalgic for my lost youth, showing the boys cover after cover. I can't claim to be 'cool' - I havent found lost copies of Bowie or the Beatles, no, my collection is of trashy 80's pop - a collection of Madonna 'shaped' picture discs, Five Star albums and A-Ha - my favourites at the time were Bucks Fizz (I'm sure my parents knew I was gay long before I did!). But as I pulled out each record, I remembered my dad yelling at me to turn it down, or my mum comparing everything to the music of her youth, the Swinging 60's. Or my running down Blackpool sea front desparately trying to get an autograph from one of the afore-mentioned Fizzers on their UK tour. (I managed to get Bobby G's - I still have it in a photo album - that I also bored, I mean enthralled, the boys with.)
Each of those records brought back a treasured memory - even if we don't have a record player at the moment (you may note I said 'at the moment' - plans are afoot!), I'm not sure if I'll still be as fond when I play them all again.
But then I thought about what our children would have to treasure - a download? an internet game? an app? - who knows?
I do know I wouldn't change my childhood for anything - I had a great time. I only hope I can give my own children, who have had such a tough start to their lives, something that they can treasure, if only memories.
And if that means acknowledging that I lived in some ancient pre-historic time then so be it.
But one thing is certain...
I'm not swapping my ABBA stand up, gatefold sleeve of 'Winner Takes it All' for anything!
So asks TJ, as he sits doing his homework.
I wasn't sure what he was working on, so I figured that I'd better ask for more information before I regailed him with my knowledge of Tudor England or the Industrial Revolution - I am sure he will find both topics thrilling. So I asked which period of history he was looking at.
'I mean when you were young?"
I looked back at him - "You mean in the 1980's?"
'Is that the same time as 'Call the Midwife?'
So my youngest son now thinks I was born just after the war and lived in a poverty stricken East End.
I can see why he would be interested though. Recently we have been clearing out my mum's house, getting it ready to put on the market and, naturally, whilst going through the loft I found all the 'stuff' that I had left there over the years - forty years of accumulated sentimental tat that I was happy to leave at my mum's as long as I didn't have to fill up my own attic with it. My mum often asked me when I was gonig to clear it all out and I always promised I would... eventually.
So eventually finally happened and we have made two trips, so far, with car loads of afore-mentioned 'tat'. Much of which has consisted of old photos, school books and records - lots and lots of records.
It was going through the hundreds of singles and LP's that I became nostalgic for my lost youth, showing the boys cover after cover. I can't claim to be 'cool' - I havent found lost copies of Bowie or the Beatles, no, my collection is of trashy 80's pop - a collection of Madonna 'shaped' picture discs, Five Star albums and A-Ha - my favourites at the time were Bucks Fizz (I'm sure my parents knew I was gay long before I did!). But as I pulled out each record, I remembered my dad yelling at me to turn it down, or my mum comparing everything to the music of her youth, the Swinging 60's. Or my running down Blackpool sea front desparately trying to get an autograph from one of the afore-mentioned Fizzers on their UK tour. (I managed to get Bobby G's - I still have it in a photo album - that I also bored, I mean enthralled, the boys with.)
Each of those records brought back a treasured memory - even if we don't have a record player at the moment (you may note I said 'at the moment' - plans are afoot!), I'm not sure if I'll still be as fond when I play them all again.
But then I thought about what our children would have to treasure - a download? an internet game? an app? - who knows?
I do know I wouldn't change my childhood for anything - I had a great time. I only hope I can give my own children, who have had such a tough start to their lives, something that they can treasure, if only memories.
And if that means acknowledging that I lived in some ancient pre-historic time then so be it.
But one thing is certain...
I'm not swapping my ABBA stand up, gatefold sleeve of 'Winner Takes it All' for anything!
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