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| Hail, the returning hero |
Raymond Bennie was his name - and still is, I presume. He was one of my classmates in primary school, whose family emigrated to Australia around 1968 or '69. Ironic then that our school's name was Canberra, and it struck me years later when I saw him in an old class photo that he 'looked' Australian. That's to say, he looked just like what I assumed a typical Australian boy would look like as I've always felt that many Australians have a distinct physiognomy. I wonder if either his father or mother might've been an Ozzie who decided to return to the place of his or her birth, hence Raymond's immigration way back then. Not that any of that's important, but you're not being charged for any extraneous detail so no need to panic.
However, just before I get to the point, I also sometimes wonder whether Raymond ever returned to Scotland for a visit over the years, as surely he and his parents would've had friends and (assuming they were of UK origin) relatives with whom they'd want to keep in touch? All I know is that last time I saw him was around 55 years ago when we were still primary school pupils, and 55 years is a long, long time. To think that he may have returned on occasion yet I never ran into him is a bit sad, as he was part of my youth - and you all know how important my youth is to me. As yours is to you also, I'm sure.
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| Raymond in September 1967 |
So what's the deal with Raymond to warrant a mention here? Simple. We weren't particular pals who hung about together, but one day he invited me back to his house after school. I've no idea why; perhaps he was just at a loose end and wanting someone to talk to, or maybe he was simply trying to expand his circle of friends, but I accepted his invitation and accompanied him home at four o'clock. All I remember of that visit is me expressing a liking for a small stuffed cloth Santa Claus lying on his room floor. "Take it" he said, generously, so I did, and Santa returned home with me for the rest of his existence. I assumed him to be a cat's play-toy, a notion reinforced a few short years later when I saw his double in a garden across the back lane from a friend of my mother's we were visiting that day. I was sorely tempted to nick him, but resisted.
Poor Santa took a bit of a drubbing over the coming weeks and months (maybe even a year or two), due to the fact that my brother and me played 'dodgeball' with him. My sibling's bed ran along one side of our shared room and my bed ran along the opposite side, so we'd hurl Santa at one another while we each tried to evade being hit by him - not that it was painful when Santa found his target as as had no weight to him. Eventually, Santa was in a sorry state due to the rough-handling he'd received and his seams started to come apart, so I carefully undid the stitching holding him together and separated the cloth segments into their individual pieces, intending to sew him back up more securely to better withstand his 'dodgeball' adventures.
Alas, it just wasn't to be as, due mainly to the dawning enormity of my ambitions, I repeatedly procrastinated from remedial administrations until, eventually, at least one of the six cloth pieces was mislaid and never seen again. I kept what remained for a few years, but eventually disposed of them after flitting to a new house and deciding to rid myself of childish things in an attempt to be more 'mature'. (That never quite happened, eh?)
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| Seller's photo of cloth Santa |
Still, I never quite forgot Santa, and while keeping an eye out for a doppelganger replacement over the years (and decades), I bought other Santas as 'stand-ins' until such time as I could locate one. Not that any of them were ever used for dodgeball (I had my own room by then), but I'd dig them out at Christmas to brighten up the living-room in a festive fashion. Recently, however, I saw on eBay what looked to be the same Santa I had as a kid, though with one significant difference. My Santa had been manufactured 'ready-to-go' as a complete item, whereas the eBay one had clearly been a 'do-it-yourself' kit version that hadn't been sewn together too well. As you can see from the seller's photo, the edges hadn't been 'turned in' and were all frayed, and it needed a bit of a clean.
No problem for the big man. (Yes, that's me - why are you laughing?) I carefully removed the stitching, applied a thin coating of PVC glue to the frayed ends, and once dried, stitched Santa back together again (outside in so that the edges would be out of sight when reversed), all the while being fully aware that I was finally completing the task I'd set for myself over 50 years earlier, but had left undone. It felt almost like I'd simply dug out the pieces of my original Santa given to me by Raymond and picked up where I'd left off all those years before, making my feelings of accomplishment even greater than I'm probably entitled to.
He still needs a bit of a clean, but it's good to see yet another once-familiar face from my childhood back in the fold, along with all the other replacement items I've managed to secure over the years. Honest, hard as it may be for you to believe (or appreciate), it's almost feels like they've never been away. And, take it from me, that's a good feeling. So here's to Raymond for being the source of happy memories of days gone by. Hope he's doing okay for himself over in the land of Oz, though I'd be surprised if he even remembers me - or Santa.
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| Another snap of Santa after a little work by yours truly |
16 comments:
Poor Santa's feeling a bit neglected as no-one's commented about him. Never mind, Santa, I still loves ya.
You've done an excellent job as always, Kid, but I'm mystified how you come to regard these second-hand e-bay purchases as your own long-lost items from childhood. I could never do it!
Looks the same, feels the same, made in the same period, conjures up the same memories, CJ, so to me it seems like the same item. I'm equally mystified as to why you'd have difficulty regarding a duplicate item as an original, when in every important way, it fills the space left vacant by its predecessor.
In my grade school years I was a big PEANUTS fan and had a plastic Snoopy toy for some years, long enough that his nose wore off. I lost him on a family trip, but though the 'rents bought me another no replacement had any value.
That's interesting, GP. You mean emotional value I assume, but couldn't you love it for itself, even if not as a 'replacement' for your original? After all, Snoopy is a cute li'l dog.
Great job on Santa! Currently, I'm close to getting reprints of every comic I had when young, albeit in reprint form, as I was kinda forced (when I left for college in 1975) to get rid of almost every personal possession I owned. My childhood had some troubles, as they say. So every book, every comic, or toy that I used to own, and lost, that I can recover now means like I never parted with it. I survived my youth, and now in my dottering old age, I can somewhat continue on by replacing at least some of my childhood objects. And if I don't want the item I used to have, sometimes I'll buy it and hold it for a small time and pass it on to friends, getting rid of my past on MY terms. Good sewing job! Oh, and if I don't respond before, Happy Christmas and Joyful New Year to you and yours.
Thanks, LM, and good luck on your quest to obtain replacements for almost all your childhood possessions. You've got it spot-on about recovering stuff seeming like you never parted from it - that's exactly how I feel. And festive felicitations to you and yours, too. And Santa says hello.
Although I don't actively seek out replacement items like toys , ornaments etc if I did, a replacement would be as good as the original ( as it is for me with comics). I'm in the process of starting to clear out a lot of my old comics again ( stage 2 of my clearence) I just have too many with limited space but still find it difficult to lose those books from my childhood (6 to 15 ish) . Those books I gave away a few years ago (100s of comics and paperbacks) I dont miss. But I guess those core comics will stay with me till the "end"
Nice want a restoration .
If I were to snuff it tomorrow, McS, I'd feel sorry for whoever had to come in and sort out my stuff. I imagine the enormity of the task would tempt them just to bin everything, despite its potential worth, purely on the basis of just how many possessions I own. I'll eventually (but not too far down the line) have to have a clear-out myself, just to ensure that whatever I part with goes to a good home and not a council dump. There are some things I could never part with, though, so I'll have to pre-arrange their safe continuance for after I fall off the twig.
Re the general subject of toy collecting-- I was never moved to collect them. Yet whenever I see some TV show focus on some collectibles TV show-- particularly those where a collector has devoted loads of time and trouble to collecting paraphernalia built around a character (Superman) or a theme (Universal monsters),a part of me still says, "I want that." But all my fan-hunting efforts went into book-collecting. So I wouldn't mind having a toy collection if I just didn't have to put in extra labor to get it.
And it's not just the extra labour, GP, there's the money aspect of it to consider as well. It can be quite an expensive pastime. Of course, I don't restrict myself to collecting stuff based on just any one character, there are several (if not dozens) of them in my sights. (Yogi is probably tops though.)
Curiosity got the better of me. If Facebook is correct Ray Bennie lives in Sydney and his hometown was Glasgow. Must be the same guy
Thanks for that, LH, I'll take a wee look and see if it's the Raymond I knew. Cheers.
Update: I sent him a pm on his Facebook page, LH, but he never replied. Thing is, FB pages can survive long after the owner's demise, so I can't help but wonder if that might be the case here.
Interestingly I found your blog post while researching an identical santa. My Christmas decorations group have told me he is a thing called "clothkits". They were printed fabric sheets which you cut out and sewed yourself so your original one was hand sewn too.
It didn't look hand-sewn though, nor did the other one I saw in a back garden a few years later. I actually entered the garden to receive my second Quercetti Fireball XL5 parachute toy which had overshot the lane between the garden I was in and the one across from it, and I picked the Santa up to examine it. I'm pretty certain they were pre-stitched because the one in the seller's photo wasn't sewn together too well.
It's a bit like my two Space Blimps Of Christmas, I suppose. The first one I ever had came in a window display box and all the parts were glued in place, whereas my replacement around four years back was an earlier unassembled version in a smaller box with no display window and the parts had to be slotted into place by the buyer. I managed to find a replacement for that one as well several weeks back.
The point being, sometimes things came in different versions.
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