A Child's Christmas in Wales

Dylan Thomas began his wonderful little book with the above title

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.

All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find.

I have been trying to recapture my childhood Christmases. There is some confusion in my mind but as best I can remember each Christmas between 1965 when I was 6 and 1972 when I was 13 I had a main present from my parents and the order was as follows

1965 Johnny Seven

1966 Trik-Trak

1967 Microscope

1968 Chemistry set

1969 Bicycle

1970 Telescope

1971 Electronics kit

1972 Cassette recorder

The first two need some explanation. The Johnny Seven (and I write the day after the death of Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK47) was a child's gun that had seven components. It shot plastic white bullets, had a rifle action trigger, made a machine gun noise, had a grenade launcher and had a detachable handgun. I can't quite remember the other two (anti-tank rocket and armour piercing shell). It was big thing for a six year old (perhaps I was seven) and I remember that it was useless for lugging round in a game of war. In the end I just used to use the detachable handgun.
As for Trik-Trak see the video above which will show you both how exciting it seemed (especially after the effort involved in setting up Scalextric) and how basic it actually was. I think I was slightly disappointed even on the day I received it. The "scenery" was never used (except, oh yes, a cardboard tunnel - useless). I remember reading on the massive box that it was made in Northern Ireland.
You can see what a sucker I was for advertising. If I was little today I'd be recommending a Wonga loan to my parents.

Christmas 1963

The first Christmas I think I can remember at all was Christmas 1963. I was only four. My dad was 34 and my mother was 29. My sister was not then born. I am fairly sure of the year as I only lived in two houses as a kid and this was in the first of the two. The actual memory is of grey venetian blinds and being in the main living room downstairs with my dad and of visitors calling. I know that my dad got me a Scalextric because he described very vividly having looked through the window and seen Father Christmas from the back with a bike in his sack for Janice Price, the girl next door, having already delivered the Scalextric to us. Although I cannot remember getting the Scalextric it remained for years to come. The figure of eight track came with a blue car (Lotus?) and a yellow car (Ferrari), white plastic crash barriers and green triangles used to bank the track and some other bits to make the fly over. There was also a big heavy transformer to convert the current with hand controls that were red and blue I believe and that would grow warm and smell a little when used for a while. I cannot quite remember the numbers on the cars although I am sure the blue one had a number 1. May be the yellow was number 4. Stirling Moss was the only racing driver I knew of until an older cousin later introduced me to the name of Jim Clark. I remember that my mother said the man next door played on the Scalextric with my dad all day. That would be “Uncle” Graham, who worked with jukeboxes and slot machines. He was married to “Auntie” Gwen, who drove a black taxi cab. A childless couple who once showed us slides of their holiday to Holland in their home they went on to be the first people in the street to get a colour TV. There must have been other presents and other events but it is all gone.