THE ROOM WHERE TIME STANDS STILL...

It will doubtless come as no surprise to most people who know me that I like to have the familiar around me.  Whether it be pictures on the wall, ornaments, furniture, toys, etc., I derive a certain comfort from being surrounded by things I grew up with from childhood to adulthood, and although I sometimes think I'm a slave to them and should perhaps learn to let go, I know that I never could and never shall.  I realise that I'd miss them if they were gone, and then I'd probably spend a small fortune and a lot of time I don't really have in trying to reacquire or replace them with exact replicas.

Earlier this evening as I reclined on my bed with a cuppa char, my eye fell upon a picture of Fireball XL5, culled from an Annual and put up on my bedroom wall sometime around the mid-to-late '70s.  Or at least the original was, but two or three years back I made duplicates of most of the pictures, posters, pin-ups, and pages that had faded, browned, rippled, and mottled over time and replaced the originals by means of my trusty scanner and printer, along with the application of a bit of computer technology to enhance and make them look fresh and new.

The paper those pictures once adorned may be new, but the images on them are ones from of old, familiar 'friends' from my youth that I'd miss if they weren't there whenever I care to cast my gaze over them and remember earlier, better times.  It does sometimes bother me that they aren't the originals, but they were well-past their best and made my room look like a forgotten tomb on which time had taken its tiring toll.  Now that they're bright and clean and new again (and colourful), my room doesn't seem like a repository of relics, but rather a brand-new edifice at the start of its existence, not near the end of it.

It's daft I know, but sometimes I like to pretend that it's my first full day in this room back in 1972, which makes me feel like I only just flitted from my previous house the day before.  In that way, it creates the illusion (even if only for a short time) that my life up to that point is as fresh and as recent as only a day earlier, and that I'm not as old as I sometimes feel - or my mirror often testifies I am.  When I look at something from the '70s it's as if I'm back there again, and as I've said before many a time, it's the closest thing to time travel that any of us will ever experience outside of photos or home videos, or revisiting places from our youth (if they still exist).

So am I just completely bonkers, or do any of you fellow Mellows ever feel the same?  Do you surround yourself with the familiar, either in a physical way or just by entering the evergreen land of memory?  Do tell, if you'd be so good. 

The GHOST Who 'TALKS'...

Actual drawing size 57mm high

I've just spent the last 20 minutes or so 'conversing' with an old friend.  He died 11 years ago (which I only found out about in September of last year), but between the end of 1977 and 1980, we kept in touch by letter after he joined the Navy.  So did I employ a happy medium?  (Guffaw!)  No, I recently rediscovered his letters in a box and had a read through them, and it was good to 'reconnect' with the friend I'd liked and found amusing, before he became almost another person (at least in regard to me) and I eventually cut all ties with him.  (Regular readers of my other blog will perhaps remember me recounting the events.)

As I read his letters and cards, his 'voice' ran through them, and it was as if time had rolled back and his missives were recent communications, not nearly 50 years old.  To read references that only I would know was a poignant reminder of our youth, and I found myself dwelling on events and circumstances that I hadn't thought of in a long time.

For example, he mentions 'cows passing over' (raining) when he was on a training exercise, and my mind returned to the time a passing car drove through a muddy puddle and thoroughly drenched us with its contents.  I remarked that we looked as though a herd of cows had passed over us and 'dropped their load' (though the latter part wasn't the precise phrase used).  Over the years, whenever we recalled the event (which happened when we were primary school kids), we always referred to it as 'The Day The Cows Passed Over'.

He also humorously calls himself 'a bear of very little brain', adding 'Tiddely Pom', which was a direct reference to the time I'd bought a Winnie The Pooh book and brought a poem containing the phrase to his attention.  When we were out that night, we kept repeating the full poem (short as it was) and couldn't help laughing at the sheer silliness of it.  (Ah, the exuberance of youth.)  This had happened only around a couple or so years before he joined the Navy, and with that curious paradox of time, seemed fairly recent and also ages ago at the same moment.

He also scribbles the phrase 'Biffo The Bear Is An Easter Egg With Legs' in the top margin of a letter, which recalls the time we were on our way home after visiting a friend* and saw a father write the phrase (backwards from our point of view) in the condensation on his kid's bedroom window.  I assumed he remembered the circumstances, but was surprised when he asked me on one of his visits back to Scotland just where it came from.  I explained its origin, but he had no memory of the event.  "Then why did you write it in your letter?" I asked.  "Because you did in yours, and I found it funny" was his reply.

Another random thing he wrote on one letter, unconnected to its contents, was 'Rubber Buttons'.  This referred back to a conversation we'd had as young teens, about the so-called 'short trousers' we wore as kids.  Back then, short trousers ended just above (or touching) the knees and were higher-waisted.  Their flies had far too many buttons (seemingly made of a dense rubber) which were difficult and time-consuming to undo, resulting in having to hoist up a trouser leg to have a wee, as it took too long to open the fly.  When you were desperate, trying to undo the buttons was like moving in slow-motion, so long did it take (or appear to).

What's more, short trousers were thicker back then (as well as longer), and when you rolled up a leg, it resulted in something resembling a concertina that was spring-loaded, threatening to unfold over the 'little chap' and getting soaked in pee in the process (both trousers and said 'little chap').  Oh, the hardships, trials and tribulations we had to suffer in the '60s.    

There was so much more; references to people we knew, jobs I'd had, places we'd frequented, etc.  I'm glad I never threw his letters out as they allowed me a brief return into the past, and my demised youth that yet calls to me on occasion, but tauntingly teases me by remaining just beyond my firm and tangible grasp.  The rough pencil sketch at the top of this post is a quick drawing I did of him one night (I think) in the flat of a mutual friend (*same one as alluded to above), which said friend had in his possession for a good while until I reclaimed it from him.  It's been back in my ownership for decades now, from before I eventually realised my childhood pal had 'grown up' into a person I no longer liked or found amusing and let him follow his own path.

It was good to revisit him from a time before this though, even if it was all-too-brief.  As is life, sadly.  It's a shame I never made copies of my own letters before I sent them, just so I could read his correspondence in context, but it simply never occurred to me to do so way back then.

Any similar stories, fellow Mellows?  If so, let's hear them.

THIS SURE TAKES SOME LICKIN'...

It was back in the late '60s, in Room 7 of my primary school one day, that I espied the magnifying glass.  It was in the hands of one of my classmates who was using it for the purpose for which it was designed.  (No surprise there, really - what else is a magnifying glass for?)  I was fascinated - it was such a small magnifying glass, and I immediately wanted one for myself.  "Where did you get it?" I enquired of him.  "I got it as part of a free stamp collecting kit I sent away for" was his response.  That was the magic word for me - "free".  I had seen the ad for such stamp kits in the comics I bought, but had never paid them too much attention before.  I decided there and then that I would send away for such a kit the first chance I got.  Nothing would deter me, my mind was made up.  I wanted a mini-magnifying glass of my very own and, by thunder, I'd have one.

Close to 30 odd years later, when I eventually got around to sending for it (quite a few years ago now), it could well have been from the very same stamp dealer as my long-ago classmate had acquired his - D. J. Hanson Ltd., Eastrington, Goole, East Yorks, England, DN14 7QG - who advertised extensively in British comics of the time (and was still going strong until he passed away in 2015).

The much-coveted magnifying glass wasn't exactly the same as the one I remembered, but it was good enough for me.  I felt the satisfaction that comes from finally fulfilling some long-held purpose or ambition that should have been accomplished years before.  In fact, I wish I could sit in that classroom now, at my old desk, and employ my magnifying glass in the way I would've done back when I was a kid.  No, not to read tiny print in one of my school books, but to capture an errant sunbeam and direct it towards a patch of skin on someone's bare thigh (short trousers in my day, remember) and wait to see them jump.

Sadistic little bleeder, eh?

I do sort of collect stamps actually, but on an extremely limited scale: Christmas stamps, TV, movie, and comic characters, etc.  I couldn't fill a whole album, but I've got enough to keep me occupied for an hour or so, on cold, rainy nights when the wind is howling outside my window, bearing aloft familiar childhood voices and visions from so very long ago.

  

Typical stamp ad from the 1960s