Let's say it was 1970 - though it could have been 1969 or 1971. It's hard to be precise after so long a time. I bought a SANTA CLAUS figure containing sweets, scoffed them, and then used the figure as the Christmas ornament it was always intended to be. I bought it from a shop called CORSON's, which still existed up until February of 2018, whereupon the owner (who I remember working in the shop as a teenager when it belonged to his parents) retired and sold the premises, though it still operates as a convenience store under a new name and owner.
But that's by-the-by. If I remember correctly, the plastic bottom half of the Santa got heat warped (maybe I sat it too near the fire - can't quite recall anymore), and it was reluctantly dispensed with after a while. When I was down in Southsea in December of 1978, I saw two of them in a shop window*, but they were there only to provide festive decoration and weren't for sale, being the personal property of the shopkeeper. I tried to talk him into selling me one, but he was resistant to my offers of mucho money.
(*Thinking back now, I'm amazed at there being only a 7-9 year gap between owning my own Santa and seeing another two of them, as it seemed as if aeons had passed in between. Then I remember it was almost half my life away at the time, which probably explains it.)
I saw another one on eBay just a handful of years ago and considered bidding on it, but I got distracted and it was sold before I could make an offer. However, I 'borrowed' the seller's photos and I'm sure he won't mind me using a couple of them here. I'll keep an eye out for another and make a bid should one come up, as I continue in my quest to re-acquire things I once had and would like to have again. (It's good to see my old Santa though, even if only in a photograph.)
Did you ever have this particular Santa, readers, and do you have any seasonal reminiscences about it that you'd care to share with the rest of us? If so, the comments section awaits your visit.
I've never seen one of these before. He looks a mischievous little chap and his face is a curious orange. I was very interested in the shop you mentioned. I'm always taken by a shop which has a good family history and has been passed through the generations. I Googled the shop and if it's the right one, the last owner sounded like a Basil Fawlty type character who regarded customers as an inconvenience. Sounds like my kind of guy. What was your experience of him, Kid?
ReplyDeleteI remember when I was a kid and he'd have been a teenager, catching him spying on me to make sure I wasn't nicking comics from the spinner-rack. I was in the habit of placing comics I was interested in on the floor while I continued searching through the rack and he must've thought I was preparing to nick them. I remember not being best-pleased and saying something like "It's all right, I'm not stealing them" which I suspect embarrassed him a bit, but that was my only experience of him until decades later, when he gave one of my pals (who he knew a bit) and myself a run up the road in his car as he was going that way.
ReplyDeleteStruck me as a big quiet guy who kept himself to himself. His shop was at the top of Adelaide Road, but his family also ran the Corson's store that used to be in Westwood Square as well, I believe.
I do feel for shopkeepers trying to make an honest living, especially in this day and age. I read about a fish and chip shop not far from me who, after 40 plus years, is changing its menu from fish to burgers as it's no longer viable to make a profit from fish. To be honest I'd be suspicious of anyone coming in the shop. I don't think I'd be good at running my own business. You have to be polite to even the most obnoxious customers.
ReplyDeleteActually, if you run a shop, you're not really obliged to serve anyone you don't want to, though obviously you wouldn't want to turn money away. The secret, I suppose, is to have a business that everyone wants and needs and is so necessary and satisfying that it makes them be polite so that they'll get served. Easy to say, harder to do. (Though the brothel I run seems to do okay. Oops, rambling again.)
ReplyDeleteA brothel's a good one. I've always thought a Funeral Directors would be a sure-fire money spinner but I saw a programme once about businesses struggling to make a profit and one of the episodes was about a Funeral Directors! Blimey, if you can't make money from that, what's the point?
ReplyDeleteYeah, you might as well just lay down and die. (Funeral Director joke.)
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