After the last post & at the risk of turning this blog into a rather morbid & depressing obituary column, I feel I do have to mark the passing of two icons that I have grown up with.
Firstly, farewell Woolworths, the final shops closed their doors for the last time over the New Year. Founded in America in 1878 it became one of the first shops to have its goods on shelves available for selection by the customer, rather than behind the counter to be gathered by the shop keeper. The first British shop opened in Liverpool in 1909. This first store seems to have been a kind of forerunner to the modern `Poundland' type chains, with all items priced at sixpence.
It marked over a century of service by being named in the Guiness Book of World Records as the largest department store chain in the world in 1979.
It has been a shop that I would wander through at least once on most weeks during a lunch break, either in search of a specific item (anything from cotton, shoe insoles, light bulbs, seeds or curtain hooks to DVD's or mobile phones) or just to see whether there were any special offers that would induce me to an impulse buy.
Unfortunately, it was unable to make it a century in Britain & the next generation of kids will need to get their pick`n'mix elsewhere :o(
The final few weeks really were rather undignified, with hoards of customers stripping the stores of any stock & taking advantage of the closing down sales. During the final week, even the fixtures & fittings were up for grabs whilst in at least one branch, staff sold the red T-shirts off in aid of the staff leaving party.
I must compliment all staff on their own dignified behaviour during this period. Being told you are losing your job must be difficult to take at the best of times but to happen over the Christmas / New Year holiday period must be doubley depressing. Despite this, all the staff in the 3 local branches I have visited in past weeks were unfailingly polite & cheery & I take my hat off to them & wish them all well in the future.
The second sad passing I was sorry to hear of was that of Oliver Postgate who died aged 83 on 8th December.
Together with puppeteer Peter Firmin, he produced some wonderful childrens programmes which provided a constant backdrop to my own early years. Series such as the Clangers, Bagpuss, Noggin the Nog, Pogles Wood & Ivor the Engine have a uniquely innocent home made British feel to them. Filmed in stop motion photography, the puppets & scenery were hand made by Postgate, Firmin & their families. The Clangers for example were knitted & dressed by Firmin's wife & the sets constructed & filmed in a barn next to Firmin's house.
These programmes remain vivid within my own memories - the `Marvellous, mechanical Mouse Organ...', the mice making chocolate biscuits from butter beans in the toy mill, their weekly `We will fix it' song, the pompous proffessor Yaffle (...just a carved wooden bookend in the shape of a woodpecker), the Soup Dragon & the Iron Chicken, Idris the dragon in Ivor's boiler, Nogbad the bad & too many more to mention. Postgate himself voiced many of the characters & his honeyed tones are also a firm childhood memory. I have recently passed videos of the Clangers to my sister to show to my young Nephew (coincidently also an Oliver). I hope he will be as facinated & enthralled by the tales from the Little Blue Planet in Space as I was in the early 70's.
The world enters 2009 a poorer place.
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2 comments:
It sounds silly, but I still can't believe it myself that Woolworth's has gone... it's a big like saying "Stop the World, Woolworth's wants to get off!", if you see what I mean... :-(
I meant to mention Oliver Postgate myself, you know. Truly sad news...
Just the way those shows were narrated; the tone, inflection et all... magical then, and still now.
I'm not ashamed to admit that even now, hearing the last few lines of a Bagpuss episode still makes me cry... it's just the last line, accompanied by the black and white imagery that sends me "over";
"Bagpuss gave a big yawn, and settled down to sleep.
And of course when Bagpuss goes to sleep, all his friends go to sleep too.
The mice were ornaments on the mouse-organ.
Gabriel and Madeleine were just dolls.
And Professor Yaffle was a carved wooden bookend in the shape of a woodpecker.
Even Bagpuss himself once he was asleep was just an old, saggy cloth cat.
Baggy, and a bit loose at the seams.
But Emily loved him."
I'll be honest, I considered putting the closing words of Bagpuss at the end of the post but they just made me too emotional, they get me every time! Glad its not just me then!
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