Milk time again – it’s Rhian Harris

Something a bit different on the blog today. We don’t have a writer completing our interview Q&A, we’ve given the honour to Rhian Harris, Director of the Museum of Childhood. Rhian is the brains behind the Modern British Childhood exhibition. Oh hang on, turns out she’s a prize-winning writer after all. 

If you could write about one object in the Great British Childhood exhibition, which would you choose, and why?

The 3/4 of a pint milk bottle, 1970s. I find this simple object very evocative. It has many levels of meaning, from the personal – I distinctly remember drinking the luke-warm milk before break-time – to symbolically representing a nation feeding its children after the war.

Milk. Evocative stuff, isn’t it?

What lost object from your own childhood would you like to own again, and why?

My Fisher Price School House – I absolutely loved it! It had magnetic letters that stuck to the roof and mini-figures that small hands could manipulate easily. It provided hours (actually years) of imaginative play. I remember, after I’d had it a while, painting and drawing all over it so it resembled a multi-coloured den rather than a school.

Hop into my time machine and it will take you back to one specific hour of your childhood – where and when do you want to go, and why?

I would love to revisit Christmas Eve when I was about seven and to recapture the unbelievable giddy excitement and almost unbearable anticipation of what the next day might bring. Getting ready for bed, the strong feeling I would never fall asleep (I always did) and willing the next day to come…

Can you surprise me with one unusual fact about your childhood?

I attended the Miners Strike March in 1974 when I was six (I came early to politics!)  There was a long coach journey from Harlech, North Wales, to London.  Whilst on the march and seated on my dad’s shoulders, I shouted through a megaphone “Thatcher, Thatcher, Milk Snatcher”. No idea what I was saying but very topical for Modern British Childhood.

Look closely… nope, can’t see her

What’s the earliest thing you can remember writing?

I entered a writing competition when I was about nine, run by my local library. I had to write about my favourite character in a book. I wrote about Pippi Longstocking and won! I was overjoyed and given a book as a prize – The Brothers Lionheart – signed by Astrid Lindgren herself.

Red welly boots? Here comes Abby Worth

Four names, but who’s the odd one out? Minnie Mouse, The Queen, Allan Ahlberg and Gary Lineker. If you want the answer – and how could you not? – you’d better read our Q&A with the welly-boot-loving writer, Abby Worth.

What object are you writing about and what were your first thoughts when we told you?

I’m writing about a Quentin Blake illustration from The Witches. To be honest, my first thought was ‘oh no!’ As a child, I hated his spidery, spiky, black-eyed scribbles. They were frightening and ‘adult’. But like anchovies and Nescafe, Blake gets more palatable the older you get. And it’s a rather perverse challenge to write about something you’re not overly keen on.

What object from your own childhood would you like to own again, and why?

A red, sticky marzipan cake in the shape of a fairy toadstool house, made for my 4^th birthday (and made mythical due to a lack of photographic evidence). My own memory is a mere snapshot: candles aflame, little upturned faces glowing with awe, myself all aglow with pride, my mum probably in the background somewhere just thanking God it hadn’t melted yet.

Hop into my time machine and it will take you back to one specific hour of your childhood – where and when do you want to go, and why?

Boots on, ready for mischief

Without a doubt, back to the moment in this photo (right). Wearing those red welly boots and too big trousers, bumbling along through sweet peas and elderflowers towering over my head. My garden’s always been a wild, overgrown one and as a child it was a practical jungle, full of adventure and magic.

Can you surprise me with one unusual fact about your childhood? 

By three, I’d already had major head surgery. I was born with Crouzon’s Syndrome, which meant my skull was fused as a baby (very painful, because as my brain grew it had nowhere to go). So the clever Great Ormond Street doctors took it apart and put it back together like a jigsaw to make room for my burgeoning cerebrum.

What’s the earliest thing you can remember writing?

We used to have letter writing time on a Friday afternoon in Ms. Plimsoll’s year two class. I had a strict weekly rotation between Minnie Mouse, The Queen, Allan Ahlberg and Gary Lineker. The only one who wrote back was the Queen, and it was a half-arsed attempt because she just put a Buckingham Palace brochure in an envelope. Tsk.

Junk mail monarch?

Partying backwards with Katie Treggiden

It’s the longest day of the year today. The nights are drawing in. But cast aside those gloomy thoughts and bask in the bright, shiny presence of design geek and award-winning blogger, Katie Treggiden. Katie, over to you…

What object are you writing about and what were your first thoughts when we told you?

I am writing about the Ladybird dressing gown sold by Woolworths in 1981. My heart sank, as I was only two in 1981 and had never heard of it! I was hoping for something I remembered! Luckily some of my lovely twitter followers shared their memories with me, and I’ve been able to merge those with real memories, to write something meaningful.

Is it me, or is that cover just a bit too busy?

What lost object from your own childhood would you like to own again, and why?

I have an old beaten up nightie case shaped like a dog, imaginatively named Doggie. I once lost him briefly and it was terrifying! Luckily we were reunited.

Hop into my time machine and it will take you back to one specific hour of your childhood – where and when do you want to go, and why?

I don’t remember how old I was, but my Mum threw me the most amazing ‘backwards party’ for my birthday one year. We all wore our dresses back to front, ate jelly and ice-cream before our sandwiches and I was known as Eitak Nediggert for the day! (My friend Hannah didn’t appreciate the joy of a palindrome that day!)

Can you surprise me with one unusual fact about your childhood?

I didn’t have an imaginary friend, but I did have two imaginary dogs! They were little terriers and used to go everywhere with me. I think they might have been called Pepsi and Shirlie!

The real Pepsi and Shirlie. Happy days.

What’s the earliest thing you can remember writing?

I remember writing my name at nursery school. Katie Treggiden. That’s quite impressive for a four year old! They gave us cards to copy from and I turned mine over because I already knew how to do it. I was a precocious child!

[Ed, here’s a “classic” Woolworths ad. 1980s advertising was soooo good.]

Mule envy and dreams of the cane – make way for Michael Rosen

Well, I think all our writers have finished their first drafts now, with the exception of one or two stragglers. The quality has been just stunning, so it’s time to celebrate. And what better way of doing that than inviting Michael Rosen onto the blog. He may a best-selling author and former Children’s Laureate, but he gets the same questions as everyone else. (Must say, I do like the sound of his parents, and tip of the hat to Mr Scotney – well done, Sir)

What object are you writing about and what were your first thoughts when we told you?

From that classic episode about the dangers of Super Glue

I’m writing about Muffin the Mule. My first thoughts were of this as something that I could never own and never have. We didn’t have a television and I think my parents thought that television was either not worth the money, was all lies anyway, was too frivolous for serious people like them and you could get it all from the radio anyway. I used to watch Muffin the Mule round at my friends’ houses and found the whole act rather strange and a bit mournful. One day a girl brought a box to school and took out a big metal Muffin the Mule and I was torn between wanting to play with it and pretending to be like my parents and be scornful of it. Really I rather liked Muffin and wanted it.

What lost object from your own childhood would you like to own again, and why?

For a while I wanted the cane I was caned with at primary school, but when I visited the school for its 50th anniversary (I was a founder pupil), they gave it to me. I would like something from my grandparents – perhaps the ship-in-a-bottle that was on their mantlepiece. It was a liner and I would stare at it, trying to figure out how it was put in there because it seemed to be bigger than the neck of the bottle.

Hop into my time machine and it will take you back to one specific hour of your childhood – where and when do you want to go, and why?
I can remember many magic moments around being told stories or being read to, usually by my parents and my brother. But I think I would like to celebrate the fact that our headteacher, Mr Scotney came into our class every week and read us a chapter of what seemed to be the most exciting book ever written ‘Hue and Cry‘ based on the film of that name. I would like to go back to one of those sessions when he read to us, and there were no tests, no questions, we could just sit there in awe of the story and being excited by it.

My wife’s Dad was an extra in this movie. Synchronicity?

Can you surprise me with one unusual fact about your childhood?

In 1956, my parents took us to East Germany which was at the time a Communist country whose real name (in English) was the German Democratic Republic. My parents were on a teachers’ delegation and all day, my brother and I had to amuse ourselves – but we got bored and bit naughty so our parents had us put with two families in the countryside. I couldn’t speak a word of German but stayed on a little farm, not far from Weimar. I’m fairly sure that no other 11 year old British boy or girl ever spent any time at all staying with an East German family between 1945 and when the wall came down.

What’s the earliest thing you can remember writing?

A poem about a train slowing down. I can only remember one line from it: “And now the train is slowing down.”

Didn’t they buy a lot of books

A Thatcher dartboard and hidden cheese? Time to meet Emily Bromfield

Can you hear the sound of clattering keyboards? For the writers working on 26 Treasures of Childhood, it’s first-draft deadline day this Friday. Some will be putting the finishing touches to their beautiful prose, others will be scratching their heads in a panic. A select few are sitting smugly, feet up on the desk, job done, just waiting to hear from their editor.  So before a tide of beautiful text washes over her, we thought we’d get one of those editors, Emily Bromfield, onto the blog, to answer our now-familiar questions…

What object are you writing about and what were your first thoughts when we told you?

Nope, sorry, I just can’t think of a family-friendly caption for this one

It’s a painting from 1982 of a Conservative Party Conference with Maggie, Dennis and other Thatcherites. And I’m quite delighted, 30 years later, on behalf of my four-year self, to get my own back in a small way on a woman whose face became a regular fixture on my dad’s dartboard. I can still picture him aiming for the forehead.

What lost object from your own childhood would you like to own again, and why?

Not available in my local Waitrose

My Fisher Price car garage: a great home for caterpillars and hiding the Bel Paese cheese that I wasn’t supposed to eat before dinner. It got given to charity without my knowledge a few years ago. I’ve still not quite forgiven my mum.

Hop into my time machine and it will take to you back to one specific hour of your childhood – where and when do you want to go, and why?
On holiday in the Cotswolds aged seven. I had a glow-worm green pyjama-wearing toy that I slept with and one night, turning off its lit face, there were still flickering gold specs in the walls that I thought were real glow-worms. It was only light seeping in from the corridor, but it made me believe in magic for a while.

Emily Bromfield is not in this photo. Well, I don’t think so. She was wearing glasses when we met.

Can you surprise me with one unusual fact about your childhood?
Not exactly unusual, but I had a really bad lisp until I was about eight or nine, when my mum sent me to speech therapy to correct it. Sometimes now, when I’m very tired, a hint of it comes back and I remember how much I used to struggle with the letter ‘s’.

 

What’s the earliest thing you can remember writing?
Perhaps not the earliest, but my first proper story was about a field mouse that got tragically killed by a combine harvester. The accompanying illustrations were quite gruesome. I’d clearly lost my faith in magic brought on by my glow-worm and was verging towards Hammer horror instead.

Rationed sweets and Viking poetry – it must be John Simmons

Joining us on the blog today is John Simmons, a 26 co-founder and one of the Big Brains behind the 26 Treasures of Childhood project. This is an exciting week for Mr Simmons. He’s got work on show at the brilliant Other Worlds exhibition in Oxford’s new Story Museum, but best of all he gets to answer our questions….

What object are you writing about and what were your first thoughts when we told you?

Relief. I lost my ration book many a long year ago and I’m getting hungry. Yes, my object is a ration book – two actually, one for food, one for clothes. This brought back a madeleine moment of going with my dad to the sweet shop when sweet rationing ended in 1953 (I think). “You can have whatever you want…”

No, not John Simmons. It’s Proust, enjoying a madeleine moment

What lost object from your own childhood would you like to own again, and why?

My football boots from the game when my primary school (St Clements on Drury Lane) beat our big, nasty rivals Copenhagen Street. I scored the first goal in the first minute, and we won 6-nil. Magic. I need those boots to bring it back.

Hop into my time machine and it will take you back to one specific hour of your childhood – where and when do you want to go, and why?

My ninth birthday in our flat when my mum gave me The Wind in the Willows. My primary school teacher had read it in class for weeks. I loved it and asked my mum for my own copy. My first book, written in by my mum, still my best treasure. I’d like to thank her for a lifetime of reading and writing.

Can you surprise me with one unusual fact about your childhood?

My best friend at primary school was Kamwal Mehta. His dad worked at the Indian High Commission in Aldwych, two minutes from school. I used to visit Kamwal to play at the weekend and loved the empty offices and canteen we used to explore. No security guards and cameras then.

What’s the earliest thing you can remember writing?

I must have been about ten when I wrote “Ulf the Viking”. It was a poem inspired by Rosemary Sutcliff’sbooks, particularly one called The Shield Ring. A terrible poem, I’m sure, but it shows how reading and writing feed into each other.

A page from an “uneventful day” in Rosemary Sutcliff’s diary

Wherefore art thou, Noddy?

A new victim – sorry, interviewee – on our blog today. Philippa Cowley-Thwaites is the woman behind Straight Talking communications. But how would she answer our bendy questions….? [Ed, I know, that’s really poor]

What object are you writing about and what were your first thoughts when we told you?

Can you spot the five health and safety risks in this scene?

A Famous Five book – “Five Go to Demon’s Rocks”. I loved those books. Dad read them to us at bedtime, always finding excuses to read ‘just one more chapter’ before we turned the lights out. Timmy the dog was my favourite, Ann was a wimp and George had a very strange predilection for keeping small rodents about her person. Happy days. [Ed: “her” is correct, “George” is a girl – see, I do check this stuff]

What lost object from your own childhood would you like to own again, and why?

An inflatable Noddy figure! My mum collected tokens from Cornflakes packets and sent away for it for my birthday. It was about three feet high and stood at our bedroom door. It was always totally deflated in the morning, must’ve had a slow puncture! I’d love to repair poor old Noddy so he didn’t collapse during the night like a drunk.

Hop into my time machine and it will take you back to one specific hour of your childhood – where and when do you want to go, and why?

Noddy, before he went digital

A hot afternoon in Folkestone, on Goodrington Sands, on holiday. A large woman got stuck in the ‘penny-in-the-slot’ ladies’ toilets. They had to get someone from the Town Hall to come and let her out. It was one of the funniest experiences I had as a child and the leading news item in ‘What I did during the Summer holidays’.

Can you surprise me with one unusual fact about your childhood?

I didn’t get chicken pox, however much my mum exposed me to it. I got it at 34 instead – not funny.

What’s the earliest thing you can remember writing?

My name, I think. And Philippa is a bit of a feat. I wrote a story when I was eight about nuclear war – it contained the words ‘the radiation pulsated around us’. I kid you not, I was a precocious child.

Cricket magazines and cowboy fever – meet Jan Dekker

A big hello to Jan Dekker, another of the writers working on the 26 Treasures of Childhood project. Normally, Jan spends his days encouraging organisations to use words properly. But we’ve got him writing about… Well, read on to find out.

What object are you writing about and what were your first thoughts when we told you?

I was sure I’d get the milk bottle. I attribute my visceral dislike of milk to the too-warm, too-creamy stuff we received at the hands (or was it the teat?) of the state. So it was going to be catharsis over lost calcium. Instead, flares, rollneck jumper and bomber jacket fizzing with primary school memories. That’ll be a different kind of fun.

Jan Dekker is not in this photo

What lost object from your own childhood would you like to own again, and why?

The pile of Wisden Cricket Monthly magazines my mum got rid of unannounced while I was at university (odd, as she’d paid for them. She’s ruthless like that). They’d be a goldmine for the biography of Kent and England legend Chris Tavare I’ll get round to writing one day.

Hop into my time machine and it will take to you back to one specific hour of your childhood – where and when do you want to go, and why?

When football was a proper game

Can my dad and I rescind our shameful request to watch Where Eagles Dare over Christmas dinner at the neighbours’? Or maybe I can watch the 1974 World Cup Final again with my parents, and sneak some video evidence of my mum crying afterwards. She claims not to remember. Holland – beautiful, gifted, joyous, orange – lose to Germany. Of course you cried.

Can you surprise me with one unusual fact about your childhood?

Err… I had a kidney stone at the age of eight. A big ‘un by all accounts. It sat there gathering weight in my body for a year before my mum finally convinced the doctors to look in the right place for the cause of my “side ache”.

What’s the earliest thing you can remember writing?

A story about cowboys around the age of ten. The teacher said it had “fever”. Possibly the first decent thing I did at school. After that, English was my thing. Well, and history as well. It’s all stories, isn’t it.

Milky memories – a Q&A with Sara Sheridan

It’s two weeks now since we told our 26 writers which objects from the exhibition we wanted them to write about. We checked in with one of them, best-selling Scottish novelist Sara Sheridan, to see how she’s getting on, and to ask a few nosy questions about her own childhood.

What object are you writing about and what were your first thoughts when we told you?

Children line up for their daily dose of the white gold

It’s a mini milk bottle and I was delighted. I remember the free milk scheme vividly – especially the green plastic crates the milk arrived in… odd!

What lost object from your own childhood would you like to own again, and why?

I don’t have a lost object but I do have lost people. I’d love to go back and meet some of them again – a second cousin of my mother’s who used to tell amazing stories and Ina Pleitch, who looked after us twice a week (she was a bright shiny star).

Hop into our time machine and it will take to you back to one specific hour of your childhood – where and when do you want to go, and why?

I’d love to go back and explain some of the difficult and complicated issues in my family. I have a close and crazy family and as a kid it was endlessly bemusing. I think I’d visit myself on my 14th birthday, so I could explain. At 14 I’d be old enough to understand and young enough for the information to make a difference. So 7 June 1982 at 7am (right before breakfast). Perfect.

Can you surprise me with one unusual fact about your childhood?

Nothing, of course, seemed unusual at the time but we did live next door to a silent order nunnery. The nuns used to slip us sweeties and let us visit their chapel. I remember thinking that it smelled of, well, nuns. As a teenager I was convinced our house was haunted by angry nuns. Odd kid. [Ed: yes, that surprised me]

What’s the earliest thing you can remember writing?

I remember writing Christmas cards in my bedroom and getting told off by my father for being up too late. “But I’m writing one for you, Daddy,” I tried. I don’t think he fell for that.

And so it begins…

26 Treasures of Childhood was just an exciting idea that we talked about in pubs, until this Wednesday. That’s when our writers came along to the Museum of Childhood to be introduced to their Treasures.

Well, almost. Some of the Treasures are still out in other museums or private collections. They won’t be here for a few months yet. But we were all told which Treasure we’d be writing about.

John Simmons meets his Treasure, a child's food ration book from 1950

There were oohs, aaahs and the occasional gasp as editorial team members John Simmons and Fiona Thompson read out which writer had which object. There was also a real sense  of responsibility.

Some of our objects are old and a bit knackered, others have never been taken out of their original wrapping – but they are all Treasures in their own way.

Afterwards we had a look behind the scenes in the museum, chatted with the museum director Rhian Harris and director of exhibitions Stephen Nicholls  – who know sooo much about childhood – and got to look at a few of the Treasures.

We asked questions, snapped photos and took notes. The creative process had begun..