First released in 1957, the record was also available as a 78rpm disc, I have it on a 45, the record is part of an activity pack, with actions for children to do during the song, a lot of the records have become separated from the activity packs, when I first posted this record it was still available to buy.
The only recording I could find is taken from a 78.
Doris Stalter Martin - I Got the Chicken Pox for Christmas
Sorry this record or any of Mike Mercado's records are posted on YouTube.
Each time I posted a Mike Mercado record I got a number of comments from former pupils of the schools he had taught in as Brother Solomon later as Mike Mercado, saying his subjects were Discipline and Music in that order, he left the order in 1966 and became Mike Mercado, there were hints of other things being carried out.
It seems the hints that something untoward was happening were true,
Teacher accused of historic sex assault received pay-out worth £58k today | East Anglian Daily Times
Working in the Holborn/Covent Garden/Leicester Square/ Shaftesbury Avenue area of London vagrants were always a problem, we had to get the rear of certain buildings power washed every week,to remove the detritus, it was discovered that one of the Building Inspectors could not read or write, he had been employed as an Engineering Cleaner, when that grade was abolished the was made a Building Inspector, nobody knew of his iliteracy, he was put to use as a yard cleaner, one day I had given him a new box of black rubbish bags in the early afternoon I got a call from him he needed some more the area had been knee deep in empty Tennant's Extra (Tramps Treacle) & Carlsberg Special Brew cans, another time he went to the building to clean it up, he call back I can't go down there they have some of the female vagrants down there and they are all naked and taking it in turns to have sex with them.
When you had female vagrant you always had a lot more problems, one morning there were two vagrants sitting on a building entrance doorstep, a male and a female one, they had 5 cans of strong larger he had drank 2 and picked up the extra can opened it and started drinking it, she then started it was her money that brought the beer and she should have the extra one, the next minute they have come to blows.
One time were were watching the delivery to one of the local shops/off licence that the vagrants used, most of the beer came in as a couple of cases, when it came to the Tennant's Extra (Tramps Treacle) this came in by the pallet load, there was a campaign by the local authority's to try and stop the sale of the strong beers to discourage the vagrants.
The adverts on the escalators at angel station had one that said 99% or all money given to beggars goes straight to Drug Dealers, while waiting for the power washing with the council official we watched one of the vagrants shoot up twice in under half an hour. A number of buildings were fitted with Unicam or Other Digital locks it was not surprising that many of them were left on the default factory settings, another thing the vagrants used to do with these locks was put their needles in the buttons and break then off so when you pressed the buttons the needle would go in your finger under the nail.
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.
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.
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.
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.