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.