| Gatley
- The End of the Line
By Peter Boden 17. CHILDREN’S PARTIES. Click on images to enlarge I never did
like parties as a child. There seemed to be a conspiracy among parents
to shuffle their children out to other houses for an agonising hour
or so. Firstly, I would arrive home from school and be told to have
an extra wash including round my neck and ears. I had washed before
that day in the morning! Then it was teeth scrubbing for a second
time that day. Apparently I had to go to Audrey’s birthday party. I was sent out with strict instructions: be polite at all times to everyone, give Audrey her present, join in all the games, eat a modest amount of their food and do not forget to thank the host for the wonderful time that I must have had that evening. Oh goodness me, the endless senseless, balmy games of yore! We had two lines of chairs. There was one less than the number of children present. We all had to clump round to the dreadful music from a wind-up gramophone or even worse the dreadful sound of their uncle Charlie’s piano playing with four fingers, which he had on his right hand! His left hand usually grasping a large glass of beer. The idea was to chase round and round until the music stopped. At this point you tried to get a chair to sit on. The one with no chair was “out”. To brighten the game, we would slip an extra chair in the line and cause dismay to Audrey’s mum. We had “passing the parcel” round and round. There were many layers of wrappings which you had to remove when the music stopped (once more). The parcel became smaller and smaller until the last wrapping revealed your present. On one memorable occasion someone, who shall be nameless, got access to the parcel before the party began and placed a live frog in place of the usual chocolate bar. Then there was “postman’s knock”. I did not understand what to do as I stood in the darkness outside the living room, with a girl companion. I got it right much later in life. Some parents insisted that we went to their child’s party in fancy dress, based on a particular theme. The theme at one party was the tea-party scene in Alice in Wonderland. For crying out loud; though we got a lot of fun from trying to dip the Dormouse into a large bucket. His mother was not amused at the sight of his clothes. Also the large watch disappeared during the party and Uncle Charlie was not amused.
It was always too much for me as I never liked parties until I was
old enough to play hide and seek in the wardrobe with my favourite
girlfriend. Some of my contemporaries at those early parties in the
1930s were photographed on a youth club outing in about 1940 (Illus.
24).They included: Arnold Mottram, Mary Davies, Masie Groves,
Ray Mottram, Marjory Williams and Audrey Brooks. I wonder where they
are now and if their grandchildren go to parties or do they watch
the TV. |
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