BIBULOUS BIBLIOPHILES

Rambling Recollections from a Bibulous Bibliohile

Christmas time at Gamages  

Around Christmas time, after the War, my Nan and Grandad would take me "up West" to look at the toy floor at Gamages or Selfridges. Jeffrey came too one year when he was old enough. We then went on to see a Pantomime at one of the theatres near Leicester Square. I remember it was Peter Pan and I thought it was dumb. But I didn't say so. Peter Pan was played by a well known actress whose name I've forgotten but who was a favourite of Nan's. 

One year we'd go to Selfridges and the next to Gamages. Grandad liked Selfridges on Oxford Street best, it was more modern - like an American Department Store he said knowingly - and he liked the "decorations" in Oxford Street outside. But Nan preferred Gamages.

Gamages Xmas 1947

Mike's Rambling Recollections

 

Helen's Stories

HOME

 

Gamages was a very large emporium type store at Holborn where she had been born and brought up as a child and I think it had sentimental memories for her. Her maiden name was Gamage and she'd enter the store she claimed some distant relative had started, with a glow of pride. It's now been gone for years, swept away like so many other English institutions in the name of efficiency and progress.

I remember my first visit after the war to Gamages. The streets were full of servicemen in uniforms. It was a truly exciting experience. A whole floor of the building was devoted to toys. In those days, boys had real toys, like Meccano, toy soldiers, Hornby train sets, model steam engines, fretwork sets, and such like. Plastics were only just starting to be heard of and certainly not used for toys. Words such as electronic or computers had not even been invented.

Inside the store it was hot and crowded, but everyone was noisily enjoying them-selves in the Christmas atmosphere. Very quickly we were sweating even though it had been freezing cold outside. The lighting, I recall, was very dim, like when we had 'blackouts' at the end of the war.

Come to think of it, some of the lighting may still have been gas, and that is another reason why it was so stiflingly hot. We were all jammed packed together and could only move with the flow of the crowd, like when coming out of a footy stadium. God knows what would have happened if someone had shouted, "FIRE."

Being only a small child I could not see some of the toy exhibits, so Grandad lifted me up so I could see over the heads around us. I remember us watching the model trains going around and around, through tunnels and over bridges; stopping at stations and going through little farms with little toy animals in the fields. It was wonderful.

 

 Equally exciting was the Meccano exhibition. Some of the exhibits were driven by little model steam engines. One is still vivid in my memory. A huge model steam shovel laboured at work. It puffed and panted away as its little model steam engine's components vigorously rotated and reciprocated. It even had a little steam whistle they let us kids pull the cord to toot. The time and ingenuity and patience needed to tighten all those thousands and thousands of little screws and bolts must have been horrendously expensive by today's standards.

t was a tremendous outing for a little boy who had not had too many toys to play with. Actually, I think my Nan and Grandad enjoyed the visit just as much as I did. 

Just as fascinating as the toys, were the overhead jumble of tubes and wires that transported the money collected by the Sales Clerks. Previously I'd seen a similar system at Pontings at Ilford, where my Mum would take me to buy my 'best' new clothes, but this was much grander. The cash system at Gamages was as good as the model railways!
The little brass cylinders came from all directions along shiny wires and the Cashier's office was much grander. This was a sort of Victorian folly, constructed from glass and elaborate cast iron painted greenish gold. They had several Cashiers inside the little prison. They were older and more severe matronly types, not at all like the young girl at Pontings, who would give you a smile when she looked up and saw you watching her.

Payment, using these contraptions, was always something of an ordeal and I remember an incident at Pontings that illustrates the point.  After giving the sales clerk the money for payment, they would make out a receipt. The receipt and money would then be put it into a cylindrical container with a screw cap. This in turn would be placed in a tube. At the pull of a cord a bell would ding, and with a whoosh of air, the cylinder, by magic, would be transported to the Cashier's 'Office'. At Pontings, this was a high glass walled hut arrangement near the centre of the shop floor. The Cashier then took the receipt and the cash out of the tube, checked it was correct, and if necessary, supplied the change. She then signed the receipt and sent it all back again. It was always best if you gave the correct amount, even if it was something like nine and eleven pence halfpenny, because then you didn't have to wait so long for the Cashier to send the change back. Sometimes the cashier had to get the Head Cashier to check change, especially from notes. I remember once my Mum received the wrong change and it was very embarrassing while they all tried to sort out where and how she'd been short changed by tuppence halfpenny or whatever.

After we had seen all the toys, and Nan had had a look at the china section, she told us we couldn't spend all day at Gamages. Her feet ached - she suffered from bunions - and she wanted time to have a cup of tea at Lyons and see the decorations at Oxford Street before we went in to see the Pantomime. Grandad loved having a pot of tea and cakes at the Lyons Cornerhouse at the Strand, so he didn't need any extra encouragement.

I remember that although it was still light when we entered the store, it was dark when we came out. The cold air hit me with a gasp after the hot stifling conditions inside. I think there must have been power restrictions that first visit, because they kept telling me how better the Oxford Street decorations were before the war. But I thought they were still pretty good. In those days they didn't have fluorescent lighting and all the lights consisted of thousands of coloured light globes. They were arranged in different patterns and designs and twinkled on and off. Some were like cascading water, others like shooting stars.

As they thought the Oxford Street decorations were not up to standard, Grandad said, " Well at least we've still got Piccadilly Circus to look forward to." I thought he was talking about a real circus. "You said we are going to the pantomime. I've been to the circus already." But they just laughed at me. My Grandad was quite upset when he found that they hadn't even turned on the 'Bovril' lights for his grandson when we got to Piccadilly Circus. The 'Bovril' lights were a well-known decoration that before the war went all year round.

"Never mind, Arch," said my Nan. "He's got plenty of time to see them another year," and she gave my arm a little squeeze like she always did when she wanted to show me she loved me. I saw the Bovril sign a few years later and it was much nicer than the boring things that Sanyo and McDonalds have there these days. Sometimes you see it in old newsreel footage but it is always in black and white and you really needed to see all the colours changing, to really appreciate it.

After the diversions we were running late and it looked like Nan would miss out on her cup of tea. She became a bit irritated with Grandad, but with a flourish of extravagance, he said, "Stop worrying, we'll get a taxi." 

That just about made her apoplectic. "Well, that's typical. You spend all afternoon looking at toys and then you want to waste money on taxis."

But I'd never been in a taxi, so I said, "Oh, let's go in a taxi; let's go in a taxi." They looked at each other and Nan relented, so I got my first taxi ride. Grandad wanted us to take the trip in one of the new taxis, which had proper doors with glass windows and a metal roof. But I wanted to go in one of the old-fashioned ones that still worked in London just after the war. They had a canvas roof and were open-sided.

"We don't want to go in one of these old draughty things," said Nan. "Let's find a new one."

"But they don't honk like the ones I like," I said. "I want a honker."

Grandad laughed, "Let him have a honker if that's what he wants, Mum."

He always called her Mum, not Frances, which was her name. So with grumbles Nan accepted the majority decision and we got in a honker. When we were nearly there, I said to Grandad, "Why doesn't he honk it Grandad? Isn't he going to honk the horn?"

So Grandad tapped the driver on the shoulder. "Can you give the horn a couple of honks for the nipper here." The driver put his hand outside the cab and grasped the big black rubber bulb. "Honk, honk." He looked around at me, and laughed. "Honk, honk," he repeated.

They must have had a double acting reed in those old bulb horns, because when the driver squeezed the bulb the horn went "honk", and then when he released it and the air re-entered the bulb, it went "Honk" again. But never were the two consecutive honks exactly the same pitch. It gave the old London taxis a unique sound I've never heard elsewhere.

When we got to Lyons the driver asked me if I knew what Father Christmas was bringing me. "I'm not sure, but I think I might be getting a train set," I said. He smiled at my Grandad, who smiled back.

"Well, if you're a good boy, maybe that's what you'll get," he said.

After Grandad had paid the taxi driver, Nan straight-away asked him how much he'd tipped him. "Only a bob," he said.

She snorted. "So you've wasted three shillings altogether on taxis. If you'd not spent all that time looking at toys we could have all got the bus and it would have only cost us sixpence." Grandad said nothing as he smiled at me and gave me one of his secret winks when he knew he'd got the better of Nan.