Country notebook
In the early to mid fifties, when I was a little tacker, a certain Draper's store in South Molton Square was a frightening establishment on the Thursday market day shopping trip.
During most of the year I wasn't bothered when I entered the "Lovely knit wear, Ladybird children's wear, Dannimacs, Gor Ray skirts and silk nylons" emporium. However, when the interior was decorated for the festive season it was a place to be feared, and I had to be dragged in by my mother or aged maiden aunt when they wished to purchase lace edged handkerchiefs, initialled handkerchiefs and boxes of scented bath salts.
In a corner a sixpenny lucky dip bran tub. Next to it a motionless seated, plastic masked, figure.Was it an effigy or a human being? After my first encounter I informed my parents that I didn't want him coming into my bedroom, and he could leave my stocking and presents at the foot of their bed. Even when I ceased to believe in him he continued to scare me.
My aunt in her own inimitable way tried to reassure me,"Don't be so silly it's only an old get-up got up in a red dressing gown with a wad of cotton wool for an old beard."
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Today, I recall that hideous plastic mask with eye slits so narrow that if even if there had been a pair of human eyes behind them I wouldn't have been able to glimpse them. Aged 65 those slits, those empty slits, and the thought that my childhood Father Christmas was eyeless still haunts me.
Comments
by albangreen
Thursday, January 10 2013, 12:03AM
“I remember the shop on the corner of duke st. It would be interesting to know who wrote the article”