Voulez Vous
It was the last holiday I would take with my parents. The last time we would visit the caravan park in Rhyl. The penny arcades, the Rhyl Suncentre, the wave pool, the Dragon slide, the ice cream, the junior disco, the football matches England lads against Scots (no Welsh, they took their holidays elsewhere, I can’t imagine why).
I was 15 years old and had no cash so I decided a trip to the charity shop was in order. I dumped all my old rubbish into a box and jumped on a bus to Oxfam.
The quality of a particular Oxfam in 1987 was very much dependent on the affluence of the area. The Wigan store was mostly orange lamp shades and old men’s pants. A surly shopkeeper in his late twenties looked up as I entered. Very tall and then thin, big curly hair, clothes mostly brown he looked like a student from an old episode of Columbo. He glowered at me as I dropped the box onto the counter.
Picking up my Abba Voulez Vous album with two fingers like it was some unpleasant wet thing he’d found in the bushes he said, “Not much call for this stuff nowadays. Everyone wants CDs.”
“It’s in perfect condition”, I reasoned.
“I’ll give you 50p”, he said. His manner said more, it said “And that’s my final decision.”
Next up were the old toys. A complete set of Star Wars figures and a Mr T Van.
“Not got any Transformers stuff?” He asked hopefully.
“I’m 15. What do you think?”
He shrugged. “2 pounds for the lot.”
Things weren’t going well. He tossed my collection of “Look in” magazines from 1983 straight in the bin. The Top of the Pops Annual 1984 featuring Madness on the cover made me 30 pence. And an orange and white waterproof jacket which had always been useless in even the slightest drizzle brought me a pound.
The big items were at the bottom of the box though. Best of all was my hardback set of “Alfred Hitchcock’s Three Investigators” books. I’d loved these as a child and the covers still evoked strong memories of summers at the beach with my nose in a book. For most of my early teens I wore Hawaian shirts like Jupiter Jones. These books were important.
“2 quid,” said the hippy.
I stared at him in dum silence.
“And I’ll give you a fiver for the Commodore 64.”
I shuffled forlorn from the shop with a little over a tenner in my pocket leaving my childhood behind.
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Poignant - we’ve all been there, and the sadness is universal
Growing pains! Next you will start collecting them anew again. Such is the pattern of life. Great reading!
Now a whole prompt on the moment of leaving one’s childhood behind could spring from this Damien. So glad you found us and I do hope more lad’s follow your lead and come on in and train here. Do you think I need a sign up that says they are welcome
I will give back, not take away, things from childhood.
Now a whole prompt on the moment of leaving one’s childhood behind could spring from this Damien. So glad you found us and I do hope more lad’s follow your lead and come on in and train here. Do you think I need a sign up that says they are welcome
I will give back, not take away, things from childhood.
I still have my collection of Three Investigators books - I loved those things. The moment when you start finding new homes for childhood favorites is a hard one.