Willie Rainford - There'll Be Rain, Dear This Christmas

 

Released 1972, I have no details about this record, Willie Rainford had another record released in 1977.

A few years ago when I was buying some records from my record dealer, he had a copy of this record I almost turned it down as I had just acquired a copy, something made me change my mind and  I brought the record, when I got the record home and compared it to the copy I already had it was the same label , same song but a different artist, I can not remember where which copy came from, the Willie Rainford release has 'There'll Be Rain, Dear This Christmas' as the 'A' side and 'Christmas Shoes' as the 'B' side and has the catalogue number as C 1035.

George Elliott released the same 2 tracks on the same label as catalogue No.         C-1036 with Christmas Shoes' as the 'A' side and 'There'll Be Rain, Dear This Christmas' as the 'B' side, there is a different musical director for both records.

In the early days of the blog I posted 3 different versions of 'Thoroughly Modern Millie' all of them had the same track on the 'B' side.

The George Elliot version has not been posted on You Tube.

 

Willie Rainsford - There'll Be Rain, Dear This Christmas

Three Blonde Mice - Ringo Bells

Released November 1964, the First of two singles from this group, the 'A' side 'The Twelve Days Of Christmas' is not on You Tube, while checking my storage I have both sided of their second single from May 1965 so I probably have a copy of that single, when I was buying lots of Christmas records I would get many I had never heard before.

 Three Blonde Mice - Ringo Bells - YouTube

Bob Rivers - Little Hooters Girl

Bob Rivers sadly passed away earlier this year, I first came across a CD of his when I was in the HMV store in London, I had a long service award and took it as HMV vouchers, I had a couple of pounds remaining, I saw a Bob Rivers Christmas CD at £1 so I brought that and another cheap CD, I went on to acquire most of the Bob Rivers CD's.

The Little Hooters Girl - YouTube

Elvis Appreciation

I live just outside London in West Ewell, though we have London telephone numbers, near Epsom Hospital there is a road with a similar name, this would not normally be a problem however the person who lived at the same number as me ran an Elvis Appreciation Society, I'm not sure what happened whether he moved house, gave up or died, people were getting no response from the person we started getting people turning up at our house asking about the Elvis Society, we had to explain that it was based in Sunnyside Road in Epsom, this was some time before I started the blog. When packages and parcels fail to arrive I often wonder if the Post Office have delivered them to that address.

Our land line telephone number was one digit different from one of the local Old Peoples Homes, one person always seemed to dial the wrong number, he would then tell us off for answering the homes number, not that he had dialled the wrong number, we have had caller number identification since the late 80's, when he called we just ignored the call.

I lived in Greenford before we moved to West Ewell, in the 1980's the Model Engineering Exhibition and  A Major Model Railway Exhibition were held in the Wembley Conference Center, great for us a short bus ride and we were there,  I was at the Model Railway Exhibition and the way it had been set up you had to go through the entrance area to get between the two areas the show was located in, the reception area also had the Ticket Office where you could buy tickets for future events, as I was going between the two halves was packed with people dressed as 'Cowboys', I'm looking at my ticket and program was there a discount if you dressed as a cowboy, no there was a Country & Western Festival in the future, the tickets went on sale that day, they had all dressed up to go any buy their tickets.

Weavers Green - That's How Christmas Began

I found my copy of  this 1967 release from one of the Hook Road Arena Boot Sales some time ago. the 'A' side 'I Saw Santa Sitting On A See-Saw', is not on You Tube, but the'B' side is., I do not recall ever hearing this record until I transfered it to MP3 format.

 Weavers Green - That's How Christmas Began (1967) MGM - YouTube

Windows and Murder

 

One of the buildings we dealt with was in Shaftesbury Avenue, in one corner of the building had some Social Housing incorporated, we had nothing to do with the housing, it overlooked one of the flat roofs, the roof was the responsibility of the Landlord, one of the families living their regarded the roof as their own personal rubbish dump tins bottles and general refuse was thrown on to the roof, in their wisdom the senior management had decided not to renew the window cleaning contract, we had a job issued that there was human excrement on the windows, the little sh1ts that lived there had taken their excrement wrapped it in toilet paper and thrown it against the windows, as a workaround to remove the excrement we used the fire hoses to blast the stuff off, on another front actions were started to evict the family.

A couple of weeks later a child was murdered in the Seven Dials area (part of Covent Garden), it turned out the little sh1t worked as a Rent Boy and he had been murdered by one of his customers, there was a memorial set up for him, reading the letters form his classmates 'he was such a wonderful person', are we talking about the same little sh1t, the family dissapeared, the Landlords cleaners cleared the rubbish from the roof, we had no problems from that area again.

Be careful what you wish for sometimes wishes do come true.

Paddy Roberts - Merry Christmas You Suckers

 

Released 30th November 1962, the last single by Paddy Roberts, and a bit prophetic as Christmas seemed to start earlier each year in the UK it is was not hemmed in by Thanksgiving, the start of Christmas was when Father Christmas arrived at Bentalls in Kingston usually late October, we would be taken to see him mid December, my mothers thinking was if the Christmas decorations have to come down on twelfth night they go up twelve days before Christmas, some shops were selling Christmas cards in June, another indication the Christmas was approaching was the advert for Timex watches on television, on Christmas Day the adverts extolling you to but this or that ended and changed to ones to book your Summer Holidays, though these start well before Christmas now.

PADDY ROBERTS - 'Merry Christmas You suckers' - 1962 45rpm - YouTube