Going, going, gone!

It was not just the toffee apples that we provided (as I mentioned earlier) to the many school fairs and church fetes or bazaars. We gave up a lot of other things to the various drives. Books, comics, toys. You may not have realised it, but as the various fairs and fetes came around, lookout if your room was in a mess and despite several requests, lookout if you had failed to clean it up. Even when sharing with three brothers, the excuse “But I cleaned up my part” didn’t ‘cut a lot of mustard’(as the old saying went) with my parents. Or worse, if you had been misbehaving. A quick punishment was the removal of whatever you liked the most, had just bought or, sometimes wouldn’t share. You could see it swiftly deposited into the fair box (most unfair if you ask me). There was seldom, if ever an opportunity to get it back from the box before it would be sent off to whose ever school was next in line. I remember buying the same phantom comics three times. Once from a store, the second time from the fair, after they had generously been donated by my mother in a cleanup, then the third time when they were given to another fair and someone bought them before I could get there. I had to pay nearly full price to buy them off the person who had beaten me to the stall. Very expensive comics, which eventually went to another fair anyway. Not surprising my collection of Phantoms for the last 25 years is boxed and locked away.

Much of the little things we valued, we had bought ourselves with the small amounts of money from various jobs we offered to do for people we got to know in the community. Lets face it, things were fairly limited on the spare cash front in our house. Receiving an ice cream when out was a special, very special occasion. Generally we would ask once for something, be told “No”, then, if we felt particularly foolish, we would ask again. To be told “No, and don’t ask me again”. Then if we were really foolish that day, we might ask “Why?” Never a wise move. The next reply usually came in two parts. One part was a very clear instruction to us, the other part a very decisive action on our parents part (just don't call it a slap, smack or belting).

With our sweat, our hard earned meagre dollars slowly accumulated till we had enough to buy the treat we had wanted. Yes, whatever money we managed to get usually went into treating ourselves straightaway, not into saving for the future. That may have been a better idea. A few cents here and there didn’t get much but, it could have accumulated. But it was also interesting when I look back on the wide variety of different jobs I took part in. Some successfully. Some enthusiastically. Some poorly.

(continued tomorrow)