Poppets, Bee Hive Hair And Radio Luxembourg.
Hey.
How are you today!
Perhaps you are having a Saturday lie in….and why not.
I used to like them myself after a week of having to go to school or work every morning, but on the other hand I also used to feel that it was wasting precious free time too.
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Sometime, in my school days, I used to go out to the Majestic Ballroom in Newcastle with my great friend Valerie on a Friday night….we saw The Hollies once and the singer was an instant crush of mine.
There were also the wonderful times at the fabulous Club A GoGo.
Afterwards we would sometimes go back to her house and I would stay the night.
Luckily she had a double bed so there was plenty of room, even with her little sister in the bed too.
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Once we got back there, we would sneak through to the kitchen as quietly as we could and shut the thick wooden door very firmly.
She would then dig out a couple of packets of Vesta Chicken Chow Mein.
Once these were prepared we would butter lots of white sliced bread and make sandwiches with the stuff.
Not any kind of cuisine but it seemed completely delicious at the time.
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We would then sit and gabble on endlessly about the boys at the dance, what they said, boys, who we liked, boys, clothes, boys, and school….and boys….ad infinitum.
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I definitely remember that first thing in the morning Valerie would light two ‘fags’ and put one in my mouth as we were waking in the morning.
These ciggies were mint tasting Consulates.
Oh, the grown-upness of it all!
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And of course there was always the ritual of listening to the weekly run down of the latest hit records on Radio Luxembourg.
Pure pleasure in our narrow little world.
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I remember one particular summer when we were resplendent in massive bee-hive hairdo’s, blue eye shadow, pale pink lips, shedloads of lumpy mascara you made by spitting on a solid black block and then brushing it furiously with a stiff little brush applicator, white plastic high heels, beige nylons, bright summer dresses with huge knee length circular skirts puffed out with stiffened petticoats and excruciatingly tightly fastened wide, white, studded plastic belts.
This whole being finished off with white plastic ‘Poppets’ beads.
These latter being round beads with a hole in one side and a lump on the other.
They would then ‘pop’ together and you could make necklaces and bangles with them.
Very ‘de rigeur’ at that time.
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I expect that we looked truly horrendous….but the boys did not think so!
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We were fearless then!
Ah, those were the days!
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Talking of days, do have a good one yourself.
Jaksie
x
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