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| Copyright REBELLION |
Y'know, I don't think I ever had any WHAM! Annuals when they were first published way back when. I may have read the odd one in Primary school when we were allowed to bring such things into class (in the relaxed run-up to holiday periods) and temporarily swap them with our classmates ("I'll let you read my BATMAN Annual if you'll let me read your BEANO Book!" sort of thing), but I can't say with absolute certainty, so it may not have been so.
However, looking at the array of books below (especially those by ODHAMS) takes me right back to the period in which they were published and the place in which I lived at the time. I can therefore only assume that my seeming familiarity with them (and the resulting sense of association) is down to me reading the characters in the weekly comic, and perhaps even seeing the Annual covers advertised in its pages. Or maybe I was vaguely aware of them on display in shops in the run-up to Christmas, even though I never actually had one.
In light of this, I find the realisation that these Annuals represent almost the entire period of my early years at Primary school to near the end of my span at Secondary school to be immensely mind-boggling. After all, how can a mere nine books embody what once seemed like such a vast expanse of my young life?
Not that any of that is important to you, but you know how self- indulgent I can be when it comes to wallowing in personal nostalgia. However, now is the time for you to do likewise, as I pull back Time's curtain and present a portal into the past, allowing you once again, in your mind's eye, to relive the sights and sounds of happy days gone by, when now-departed loved-ones were right alongside you to share in the happiness and delights of an earlier era.
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Coming soon: the complete SMASH Annual cover gallery.
