A 1970s Christmas – Growing up in Leeds – Yorkshire

 

Christmas is here again, bringing back memories, some make us happy, some not so happy.

My memories are all happy, bittersweet though, most of the people who made my Christmasses ones to be remembered, are no longer with us.

Then again, maybe they are, we just can’t see them.

Here are some more memories of growing up in Leeds in the seventies, carrying on from part one, which can be seen at the link below.

It’s a long post, sorry, however, worth reading, I think.

There was so much more I could have added so, think yourselves lucky!

 

The Excitement of Christmas Eve

 

My very first memory and yours too, I’m sure, is the excitement of Christmas Eve.

We’ve written our letters to Santa, sent them up the chimney; there is no doubt in our minds, that we will receive all we asked for!

Not only have we sent Santa a letter, we’ve been to see him, in person, to tell him what we want.

Our usual Christmas grotto was at Brown & Muffs department store, Bradford, however much more than Santa’s grotto in Brown & Muffs, I remember they had a wooden escalator!

 

 

Pillow Cases at the ready

 

Pillow cases are at the ready, placed at the bottom of our beds, the earlier we go to bed, the earlier Santa will pay his visit.

A lot of time was spent, breathing on the frosty window, melting the ice, to look out to see if Santa was on his way.

Read that again; yes! The frost was on the inside of the window.

We didn’t have central heating, until I was about twelve years old; I never remember being cold though, I must have blocked out that memory!

 

 

Up with the Lark

 

Oh, our poor parents, when we awoke at dawn, maybe before!

After everything was inspected, oohed and aahed over, we went back to bed, taking our loot with us, I always ate everything in my selection box…all of it, one thing, straight after the other!

We got up again, at a more civilized time and Christmas day began.

 

 

Every single one of my Christmas’s was spent at my Grandmother’s, right up until coming to Greece in 1977, it was full house, all the family, Aunts, Uncles, cousins, I loved it!

 

 

Another vivid memory is, in the run up to Christmas, going to Calverley Woods, with my Uncle Francis, to gather holy for decorating the house.

He was great Friends with the Gawthorpes, of lodge farm Calverley,  I can still see the steam coming of the freshly killed turkeys, hung up in a row as Mrs Gawthorpe gutted them; it’s a wonder I wasn’t psychologically scarred for life!

This is the same Uncle, who, when I was about ten years old, taught me to use a shotgun; it wouldn’t be allowed today, would it?

As we grew older, we made more Christmas memories, the carol service, on the last day, before breaking up for the Christmas school Holidays at Pudsey Grammar is a fond memory, this event meant that Christmas was well and truly here.

 

 

Gifts for friends

 

Now that we are free from school, if there had been snow, the snow shoveling began, along with the carol singing, all this was done, to amass a bit of pocket money with which to do our own Christmas shopping.

 Woolworths of  Pudsey was the place: four or five of us together, we all saw what each other bought, so we had a good idea of what we would be receiving!

 

 

 “Merry Christmas Everybody”

 

We have now reached the seventies and things really got going, instead of being spent at home, with family, Christmas Eve was spent in the Old Hall at Farsley, for me, anyway, bopping away to The Slade:  “Merry Christmas Everybody”, which was booming out of the jukebox.

 

 

Rum and black, or barley wine, evil stuff, if consumed in large quantities, gave me my first ever hangover, I can remember trying to keep as still as possible, when I went to bed, if I moved at all, I was sure I would be sick!

 Let me now tell you a story, a story by pictures.

 

A Good Old-fashioned seventies Yorkshire  Christmas:

A Story in Pictures

 

Christmas Morning

 

Christmas morning could find our Mother’s, in something like this.

 

 

The first job, on Christmas morning, was to turn on the Christmas tree lights.

 

 

Not much could be seen, of the trimmings, they were all obscured by a sheet of silver rain.

 

 

The rather badly made trimmings, after following John Noaks’s instructions on Blue Peter, were hidden at the back of the tree; we can now throw out all excess washing up liquid bottles and egg cartons, collected just for this handy craft!

After drinking copious cups of tea, in mugs that looked something like this, all of Yorkshire had visited Hornsea Potter!

 

 

We dolled ourelves up, ready to enjoy Christmas, wearing our “specially bought for Christmas” get up, bought in Chelsea Girl, made us feel very “With it” indeed!

 

 

The more “Arty Farty” of us, the less “Dedicated followers of fashion”, may have donned something like this, see picture below.

 

 

 If we were off to spend the day with friends and relatives, this was our form of transport.

 

 

Once we arrived at our destinations, more cups of tea were drunk, accompanied by a mince pie, or maybe a Mr Kipling’s Bakewell tart, Mr. Kipling makes exceedingly good cakes you know.

The more daring of us had a Babycham.

 

 

Seventies Christmas Gifts

 

 Now comes the giving of gifts, most to be returned in exchange for something else, in the New Year, especially the Christmas jumpers!

 

 Children received any, or all of these shown below.

 

 

The Mousetrap game was rather difficult to assemble; it needed adult assistance, much to the chagrin of parents, what fun though, catching the little mouse at the end.

 

 

There was inevitably an annual of some sort in there with all the rest of the goodies, I remember getting either a Sindy or a Jackie album, and boys received Beano or Topper.

 

 

 Then there were the “Smellies”, always the “Smellies”, which were never missing from any Christmas, this was the easy way out:  “Oh just buy him some aftershave, it always comes in handy”.

 

 

Apart from the Aramis, men’s toiletries were pretty dire, maybe Aramis was too, it’s years since I smelt any, if you couldn’t afford the aftershave, there was always the soap-on-a rope!

Notice how there was much more choice for the ladies, not that choice is always a good thing.

Here we have items for people on a strict budget.

 

 

If it was a gift for a girlfriend, not for your best mate’s sister, you were likely to buy one of these, a little bit more exclusive, just to show you care!

 

 

Let’s not forget the gift sets, usually consisting of bath cubes, they never dissolved, or the talc, with an especially cloying scent, these were mostly given by your old Aunts and were also bought by school children as a gift for their teachers.

 

 

That same Aunt, who buys bath cubes, is likely to have bought you one of these.

 

 

When what you really wanted, was one of these.

 

 

The year that Clive Dunn brought out his record “Grandad”, every person, in every house, in the land, could be heard singing: “Grandad, you’re lovely”.

 

Seventies Christmas Dinner

 

 And now it’s time to eat the Christmas lunch, if you’re from Yorkshire, you call it Christmas dinner, no matter what time of the day it’s eaten.

Mothers have been up since the crack of dawn, to put the beast of a turkey in the oven, they have been slaving over mounds of spuds and Brussels sprouts all morning, probably battling with something that looked like this.

 

 

When they do finally manage to sit down for a minute, with a gin & tonic, they always looked rather red and sweaty, not much changed there then!

The turkey was usually dry, the sprouts boiled to a mush and the children fighting over who was going to pull the wishbone.

Down at the other end of the table, a fight was ensuing over who had the dark meat and who had the white.

Once it was all on your plate though, you loved it, and asked for seconds.

 

 

Until the great juggling act, of getting everything cooked and ready at the same time, was over; food was kept warm, in one of these, the hostess trolley!

 

 

After everyone had eaten fit to burst, along came the desserts.

 

 

 The same things are still eaten today, there’s nothing like tradition, although, mid-seventies, some aspiring people did experiment a bit, tiramisu, fondu, a black Forest gateau, instead of a Christmas cake.

 

 

Tiramisu didn’t last long though, all that new-fangled stuff, it soon went the same way as the prawn cocktail and chicken-in-a-basket; out the window!

 

That After Christmas Dinner Feeling

 

Now that we’ve eaten; it’s time for a bit of television, watched on one of these.

 

 

Mind you, I don’t think we had a colour telly until about 1972, when did Princess Anne get married?

We had our colour telly then, as I remember all female relatives descending on us, to watch her wedding, in colour.

Here’s a sample of what we watched all through Christmas day.

Some of us watched, while others were having that famous Christmas moment, asleep, mouth wide open and snoring.

 

 

On Christmas Day, the telly blared out all day, it was never switched off.

 

 

To accompany our telly viewing, this was the sort of stuff passed around and around and around, we must have consumed in one day, enough calories, for a week!

 

 

 

 I love every single one of the things pictured above, someone had brought a Terry’s chocolate orange, from England, for my daughter, it was during the summer but as soon as I saw It; I thought: “Christmas”!

Drinks were handed around, maybe on something like this.

 

 

A drinks trolley, some even had a cocktail cabinet.

 

 

As my parents were not big drinkers we had neither, all booze, what little there was of it, was kept under the sink, along with the washing up liquid.

There may have been a soda siphon, it might not have been working though, if dad had forgotten to buy the cartridges needed, in the rush up to Christmas.

 

 

“Wakey Wakey” –  We’ve Now Reached Tea Time.

 

The women, not long sat down, after clearing up all the debris from the dining table and washing up, now having a good old gossip, with a sigh, start all over again.

Out comes the roast gammon, the pork pie, stand pie, all bought at Leeds market.

Tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, Branston pickle, red-pickled cabbage( homemade by my Grandmother),  Silverskin pickled onions, oh, and iceberg lettuce, have I missed anything?

 

 

After a few more drinks, a bit more telly and another snooze, it’s time for home, children are tired and fractious, moaning over broken toys and where’s the mouse from the mousetrap game?

Rubbish is tipped out of the bin, just in case it was thrown away with the old wrapping paper, by the way, the bin we used for old paper was this one, I swear to God it was, the exact same, I suppose we had bought it from Asda.

 

 

Christmas Day Evening

 

Once home, we went up to our rooms which were decorated something like this.

 

 

Via a staircase, which, when using, sunglasses should be worn.

 

 

We ran a bath, in a bathroom like this, knowing beforehand, there was no way on earth though, that those bath cubes were going to dissolve!

 

 

 We were tired, parents were frazzled but oh, what a great day was had by all.

I love Christmas, I couldn’t wait until the next one, I suppose our parents could!

 

A Seventies Boxing Day

 

Boxing Day, some up bright and early, some just taking it easy, a day off from all the cooking, we had left-overs galore, bubble & squeak was the tradition in our house for lunch (sorry dinner, I’ve been away from Leeds for a while).

 

 

 After lunch, we gathered our Christmas money together, which looked like this.

 

 

 Off we went to fight in the Boxing Day sales, and to try and return a few unwanted presents, if our purchase was rather expensive, or if you just wanted to show off, that you owned a credit card, one of these would have been used.

 

 

We would pop into Boots the Chemists, to leave our Christmas photos to be developed, which had been taken with a camera like this.

We’re still laughing at those self same photographs today!

 

 

If W.H.Smith’s was open, we would browse around for something to exchange our book tokens for; the tokens had been given to us by the same Aunt who gave us the Bay City Rollers LP.

 

 

What do you know?

As soon as we turned on the telly, after arriving home, what did we see?

Yes, you’ve guessed it, holiday adverts, two weeks in Benidorm for fifty quid, all inclusive!

 

 

That, my dears, was a typical, seventies, Christmas in Leeds.

they were wonderful and I miss them, I haven’t spent a Christmas in England since the millennium, it’s about time I did something about that.

Oh, don’t forget darlings; write your thank you notes for your Christmas presents, you can use the sweet little notelets that you got from your Aunt; you know which Aunt, the one who gave you the Bay City Rollers LP and the book token.

 

 

I had such a good time writing this post, I just couldn’t stop looking at all the old pictures and listening to seventies music.

To all of you out there…..as Noddy Holder would say:

“MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY”

 

 

 

Enjoy more 70’s goings on by clicking on the links below!

 

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 70s – A DECADE OF DECADENCE

The 1970s – Growing up in Leeds, Yorkshire

 

More Christmas stories:

 

The Beggar Boy at Christ’s Christmas Tree: When nostalgia hits it hits hard: The saddest Christmas story.

 Flying Home For Christmas – A Good Old Yorkshire Christmas in Leeds

My big fat Greek Christmas

Christmas Part I

Christmas Part II

Christmas Part III

Christmas Part IV; Finale!