Sunday, 22 March 2020

Stupid Things I Remember about Growing Up (Part 2 - Doctor Who, a Golliwog, Stuart Hall)

My cuddly toy collection reflected the one in 'Play School'.  Almost.  I had a Big Ted, a Little Ted and a Golliwog.  My bedroom in Flat 29, Bridge House was downstairs.  Upstairs was a long rectangular lounge, the caramel brown settee in the middle, dividing it in half, creating an area for a dining room table.  That also meant that it was easy to hide behind the sofa during Doctor Who.  Everyone talks about hiding behind the sofa during Doctor Who, but I imagine most people had theirs pushed against a wall, so really I was one of the few who lived up to that urban myth.  And Doctor Who was really fucking scary.  The earliest I can remember was one story with dinosaurs, when Jon Pertwee was in the role and also his final episodes before regenerating into Tom Baker, in which spiders jumped on people's backs.  Pretty scary.  Then I can remember everything about Tom Baker, from his first storyline with the giant Robot onwards.  I became obsessed and played it constantly, going into a wardrobe and pretending it was my TARDIS, collecting the cards that came free with Weetabix at that time.  And I had my earliest crush, on Sarah Jane Smith.

Of course, none of the above has changed even to this day.  Except the Golliwog,  I don't have a Golliwog anymore.  And the teddies.  I grew out of teddies after the head fell off Little Ted when I was seven.  But everything about Doctor Who.... that's the same.

I can't picture much more about the inside of number 29, Bridge House.  We had a gold fish, which Dad must have won from the Bank Holiday Fair on Hampstead Heath.  I fed it once and most of the tub of fish food fell into the bowl.  The poor fucker ate himself to death.

We once had an evening visiting our neighbours, whose flat I can't picture now nor then, as it was thick with cigarette smoke that evening.  But we played the board game version of 'It's a Knockout'.  I loved that TV show.  Who would have thought Stuart Hall was a nonce?  You could have knocked me down with a large foam hammer into the water.

There was another neighbour a floor or two below, a boy about my age, called Rodney.  My mum reckons he was a spiteful little bastard, but I don't remember that.  I just remember his huge jar of sherbert lollipops.  Mum warned me not to eat too many as they would give me diarrhoea.  Once, I ate too many and had diarrhoea.  I was round Rodney's flat at the time and created carnage in his toilet.  More carnage than I could cope with, so I shouted to him to go and get my mum, quick.  Mum came with Aunty Sharon, which made the whole thing even more embarrassing.  I stayed away from sherbert lollies for a good while after that.  Weeks probably.

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