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

Kempton Park Toy Fair

Yesterday I went to the Toy-fair at Kempton Park, it was very busy possibly due to the date being close to Christmas, the Toy-fairs tend to be either model car oriented where there are more people selling model cars or ones where Model Trains are in the ascendance, yesterday's was one where model car's were more prominent, the queue to get in was the longest I had ever see it, one of the things I do is buy the old Triang mineral wagons and replace the chassis with a Bachmann one from either the China Clay wagon or the Salt wagon, they both use the same underframe, there were plenty of the triang mineral wagons there, most were priced at £5 or more and by the time you have acquired the Bachmann wagon the cheapest I have found was £4 but prices normally start at £7.50, I decided it was project not viable at present, I had spent most of my money and was having a last look around before I left, I noticed a bov under one of the stalls that I had missed on my initial walk round, the box contained a large number of Bachmann 16ton Mineral wagons all with coal loads, unboxed at £6.50, I ended up buying 16 perhaps I should have brought the lot, I rejected the odd ones that were damaged, mainly missing brake parts and some were from a later period than I model, one stall had a box of pigs they were a bit large for most scales. 

 

Mona Aboud - I should Have Left The Light On For Santa Claus

The 'B' side of this 1980 release, this record was issued on 2 different labels.

 I Should Have Left the Light On for Santa

Meeting Rooms & St. Giles

 For my sins I once worked in Building Facilities, it was not a job I enjoyed, meeting rooms were a particular bain, one woman called us and said I have booked Meeting Room 7 (it was a small meeting room for 6 people) I need 40 exrea chairs, I told her that we did not have any extra chairs and that you could not fit them in the room, I was told I was being very unhelpful according to her, another time someone stormed into the office and shouted at us you should have better signage on your meeting room doors I can not find room X, without looking up I said thats in such and such building about a mile down the road.

One day we got an 'A' job it had a four hour deadline, the job was there are naked  vagarants dancing in the car park, so we went to the building, there was no sign of the vagarants, the Building St Giles House shared certain parts with the Hotel next door, when cleating bottles of wine the bottles were just dumped in the recycling bim, they were not emptied some bottles still had some of the contents in them, the vagarants had diccoverd this, and had forced the bin open and had been drinking the dregs in the bottles, by the time we got there the offenders had dispersed, there was little we could have done if they were still there. The ironic thing St Giles is the patron saint of homeless people.

Mona Aboud - The Pretty Little Dolly

 

Released 1980. This is another record I first came across on a compilation CD of forgotten Christmas songs, I was looking at the new listings on a site I brought quite a few records from, this was listed so I brought it as one of the 50-100 christmas records I was buying each year back then, I no longer buy large numbers of Christmas records from America as the postage deals changed and it became unviable to buy records, the postage went fron1st record full postage then $1 for each subsiquent record, the revised was $17.50 for each record, the Customs declaration form only has 5 lines and I discoverd by accident thet if you brought 5 cheap records ($4-$6) as the first 5, the records were listed in the order you brought them on the Customs form, the avarage for the first 5 records was about $25, Customs duty started at $30, from memory the Custins duty worked out at about £30 of which £24 was the collection fee.

The Pretty Little Dolly - The Tonight Show - Mona Abboud Auer & Jim Rusk [1966] - YouTube

More Fun On The Trains

 I was almost always the last person the leave the office in the evening, I would walk from Blackfriars to Waterloo and catch the train at about 17.25, all the incoming passengers had left the train, there was one person left he was asleep the way he was dressed spoke vagarant, we had from one of the beggers that worked the commuter services from Waterloo, the scnario was "I have been on the phone for most of the day and I have found a place at a hostel from Thursday (always in three days time) until then I will still need to eat, I only want a small meal" but I digress, with the usual British reserve nobody woke him up, one of the station staff at Vauxhall woke him up, and he started, he was on his way to work, he had a job unlike you lot who don't have jobs, he did not stop shouting, at Clapham Junction when the doors opend their were two British Transport Police waiting for him, he was escorted from the train still shouting, maybe he was already known to the staff and police, most of the people on the train were returning home from work.

Anothger time a couple of vagrants got on the train, as the train left Waterloo they produced a bottle of wine I think they had stolen from the Off Licence on Waterloo Station, they excitedly peeled of the foil cap then their faced dropped the bottle had a cork and they did not have a bottle opener, that made me think they had stolen the bottle if they had brought it they could have got a bottle with a screw top.

Granny - Granny's Holiday Fruitcake

 

Released 1963, Granny is Jerry Thomas, in  Stan Freberg's record  'The Old Payola Roll Blues' the record label mentiond is the Obscurity label, this ia another record I first came across on a CD of forgotten Christmas records.

Granny - Granny's Holiday Fruitcake - 1963