Childhood stuff #12 - the pulldown

When I was a kid, we had a big wall unit that seemed to take up the entire living room. It looked something like this –

You can see the edge of our actual wall unit on the left of this photo (yes, that's me in the lovely dress) -

No one seems to have these nowadays, I don’t know, maybe living rooms are getting smaller, or people have just found some other place to store their tat. And our wall unit contained nothing but tat. As far as I can remember, our wall unit generally contained the following –

Old photo albums, containing pictures of the corner of someone’s head at Butlins

Rolls of unused wallpaper

Unused tinsel and various other Christmas decorations

My mother’s collection of scary pot dolls, which would all stare at you, no matter where you were in the room

All the different types of drinks glasses my family owned, which never got used and which were always a bit dusty

Videotapes – we displayed our videos quite proudly in the wall unit. And yes, we did have these –

But storing the real treasure in this cavalcade of crap was the pulldown. The equivalent nowadays would probably be the ‘bits n pieces’ drawer in your kitchen, where you banish old wires, old rolls of film (if you’re in the 1990s), and all the other stuff you can’t bear to look at on a daily basis, yet you can’t bear to let it go.

As a child, I loved jumping up onto the settee so I could reach the pulldown in the wall unit behind it. It seemed to my childish brain that every time I looked in it, it would contain some new wonder to behold, and maybe something I could play with!

These were the things regularly found in our pulldown –

Old pictures, which were so bad they never even made it into the albums, and which would inevitably slither out onto the settee upon opening the pulldown

My dad’s clip on ties, which he sometimes wore to work

Lost pieces of board games

My dad’s Psion organiser

Old Legos I’d lost

Piles of mine and my sisters’ schoolwork

A tub full of old watches and coins

These days, instead of the pulldown, we have a crap drawer and a crap cupboard, since one small space can’t contain all the tat we possess.

 Here is the crap cupboard –

And here is the crap drawer -

As you can see, these two carry on the tradition admirably, but they lose points because I no longer have an excuse to jump on the settee.

Childhood stuff #11 - the original youtube

When I say to people "Do you remember poster art?" they say "but art on posters is around now, silly!" Then they look at me.
When I say "Do you remember poster tubes?" they say "what, the things you get from the post office to send posters in?" Then they look at me.
When I say "Do you remember poster art tubes?" they just look at me.

Short version - no one ever remembers poster art tubes except me. But they were rife during the 80s and 90s, a winning combination of art, colouring in, and, erm, tube.  After a while, even I started to think I might have imagined the whole thing, UNTIL LAST WEEK! Because I found this in a charity shop -

As you can see, or maybe not, this one is "from Katy Nelson", not that that really matters. 

Recognise these? Or are you more like my idiot friends? I do hope not, because I hate most of my friends.

Poster art tubes were a very simple idea - a cardboard tube containing a few rolled up colouring pages, and some wax crayons. Normally only three or four wax crayons, and never in the colours you need. For example, there was never a black one or a purple one, which meant you could never colour in someone who had a bruise. If you ever needed to.

But every kid I knew loved them, and any trip to the market/shops/seaside/anywhere resulted in acquiring a new one. They were generally themed around the film, TV and music fads of the day, so when I used to get them they were things like Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles and Thundercats. Nowadays they would probably be things like Justin Bieber and stabbing.

This Barbie tube is surprisingly good quality which made me suspicious, so I checked the year and it's from 2002. I had no idea they were making these that recently, but it does explain the marginally better quality of the contents. I'm surprised it doesn't have a rolled up laptop in it.

Speaking of the contents, first we have the colouring pages -

Please excuse the corners being held down with whatever I had to hand

I'm only showing one of the four because let's face it, they're all pictures of Barbie. A3 size, with lots of little details for you to get to work on with your wax crayons. Speaking of which -

SIX CRAYONS! Holy hell I've hit the jackpot! Still no black or purple, but not a bad choice of colours. And at least there's a pink one, which is kind of necessary for Barbie colouring.

Now I've got my hands on a poster tube again, I'm not exactly sure what to do with it. I could colour in the pages and stick them on my wall like you're supposed to, but I'm running out of wall space thanks to the cardboard Halloween decorations I won in an arcade in Scarborough. Do not judge me.

Also - I wonder if the makers of Pringles got the idea from poster art tubes? I wonder if they were pioneering enough to realise that everything is more fun when it comes in a tube? They probably were.

Childhood stuff # 10 - Lionel

Everyone has a teddy bear or an equivalent stuffed best friend - one toy you've had ever since you can remember, and who will stay with you until you die, aged 40, in a bizarre scrabble related accident. Your teddy will probably be buried with you. I imagine it will have its own group of teddy mourners, all dressed in knitted top hats and tails, all crying knitted tears.

This is my partner in crime, his name is Lionel -

Lionel is my best friend in the whole world. He's seen me through ten house moves, school (both attending and bunking off), university, jobs both good and bad, and any number of failed relationships. To some people he is a sad looking mouse, but those people are wrong/stupid. He is a bear, albeit a very angry, disappointed looking bear. 

Lionel is named after light entertainer and all round 1980s staple Lionel Blair, who I was obsessed with as a toddler. I was also obsessed with Leslie Crowther and Tosh from The Bill, for some godforsaken reason. Children are weird.

So. A disgruntled looking bear/mouse, knitted from insanely scratchy wool. I wonder what made the 3 year old me take to him so readily and with such gusto? God knows really, but I'm glad I did, because he's certainly stuck it out. Whereas millions of Beanie Babies, Care Bears and Mickey Mouses (Mickey Mice?) will undoubtedly have fallen long ago, Lionel is badass. He sits, to this day, looking like a knitted Ena Sharples, disapproving of everything. Just like me. That's why I love him.

Childhood stuff # 9 - Mad Dog McCree

Once again this is going to be about something I used to do in Ingoldmells. In the fabled BJ's amusements once stood a game so awesome you frequently died just from playing it. Cause of death – being shot by a ropey old actor in a cowboy outfit -

Mad Dog McCree was a live action shooting game, released by American Laser Games in 1990. Essentially, it was a movie you interacted with. This interaction came in the form of killing loads of people (or getting killed if you were me).

Here is a clip of one of the aforementioned ropey old actors -

Your character, I can assume, is something like Sid James' 'Rumpo Kid' in Carry on Cowboy. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to shoot the fuck out of any and all bad guys you encounter, while attempting to miss women and children. Because there are no female baddies ever.

What was great about Mad Dog McCree was that it was live action – real film as opposed to shooting at pixels. The baddies you shot had real bodies and real personalities, and probably wives and kids at home. Thus, the power of the universe was in your hands, and it was you who got to decide whether these poor saps lived or died. This, of course, only applies if you are actually good at this game. If you're me you'll just get shot straight away. 

Childhood stuff #8 - Tele Bingo

I have writers' block today. I've been occupied with work/website related stuff, and in my spare time have been busy being far too hot.

When I was a kid (hang on, why do all my posts begin with me sounding like an old dear in a care home?) Now I've forgotten what I was going to sodding write.

When I was a kid, a hefty amount of my time was spent crossing numbers off a little plastic board -

This glamour encrusted spectacle was known as Tele Bingo, or Telly Bingo (which I think sounds like a dodgy used car salesman) or Colour Bingo. I was nearly an expert at this game, sometimes only being too slow to miss four or five numbers in an entire game. The Tele Bingo we frequented most was here, at BJ's amusement centre in Ingoldmells, sadly closed now -

Tele Bingo was ace because it only cost 10 or 20p a game, and you could win tokens which were saved up and exchanged for prizes. And everyone knows how much I love tokens.

It was pretty much a standard game of bingo. The numbers were called out, and also displayed on little television screens throughout the room. Each set of 20 numbers was given a corresponding colour (on the left was red, in case you were wondering). When your number was called, you crossed it off. This, I guess, is why kids were allowed, even welcomed - no messing about with bingo markers.

If you got a horizontal, vertical or diagonal line, or the four corners, you won. Sorry, let me rephrase that - YOU WON! 

Sometimes you had to press the 'claim' button when you won, and sometimes it was automatic, all done by computers and magic and shit. I much preferred the automatic versions - manual claiming could be damn tricky - you had to realise you'd won quickly enough. If you didn't, and you missed your win, the world was not big enough to hold your sorrow.

Mostly this was a 'me and my mum' activity, although my dad sometimes played too. However, even at casual seaside bingo the unwritten bingo rule applies - men are looked at a bit strange if they dare enter.

Childhood stuff # 7 - Snap Snap

This guy -

Otherwise known as the very devil himself. As a child I was absolutely terrified of Max Headroom, or 'Snap Snap' as I called him. I have no idea why I called him Snap Snap, but the name does suit him. Look at him, with his angular head and stripes. Urgh. For a lot of years I used to have to hide behind the settee when he came on TV, which was sadly quite often, because Bobby Davro did a Max Headroom sketch on his impressions show, which my parents loved.

I can sort of watch Max Headroom now, but he's still sort of creepy. Worse than that, he's not very funny. And that is unforgivable.