SANTA CLAUS CAME TO TOWN - AND STAYED...

It was 1972 or '73, getting on towards Christmas.  I'd

just acquired two different Santa 'cake toppers' from a shop

called W & R HOLMES, which was one of the absolute best

shops in my local town centre.  One of the Santas was on skis

and was identical to one once given to me by a neighbour

(ROBERT BAIRD) two or three years before when I

lived in a different house in another area.

The second Santa was smaller and, unlike the other,

was more of a 'cartoon'-type figure.  I had them both for a

relatively short time before they vanished into the limbo that

inevitably claims most items from our youth.  In 1977, a mere

4 or 5 years later, but seeming like a lifetime (after all, I'd gone

from schoolboy to working man in that time), I obtained a

replacement for that second Santa in a local shop (RS

McCOLL's) across from where I worked.

When I was in Portsmouth in 1978 to be best man at
a then-friend's wedding, I saw the same Santa in a news-

agent's and bought it for my pal.  Why?  Because he'd been

with me when I got the two Santas from W & R Holmes on

that Saturday morning back in the early 1970s so it somehow

seemed fitting.  Whether he kept it or not I have no idea, but

I still have my 1977 replacement and it's been part of the

Christmas decorations every year since then.  (That's

40 Christmases in case you're counting.)

So, in yet another self-indulgent fit of sentimental

reminiscing, I decided to give you the backstory so's I'd

have an excuse to show a photograph of that little Santa.  As

you'll have guessed by now, that's him at the top of this post.

Takes me right back to that crisp Saturday morning in the

early '70s just looking at him.  Long may it be so.

Have you got an old Christmas decoration that

  you'd never part with?  Go on - tell us all about it.  

Posted in: Cartoons