Louisa
master brummie
Does anyone else remember the Lord Mayors parties for needy children at the Council House in Birmingham in the 1950's? I think the school must have nominated each child for it (maybe from the free dinner list)
My memory is a bit hazy and I cant remember if we had a free pair of lace up boots from the Birmingham mail fund on the same day as the Lord Mayors party or were they seperate events.
At the party there were long tables packed with children all tucking into sandwiches and ice cream & jelly, surrounded by decorations and balloons and the largest xmas tree I had seen all lit up with lights. Being poor we had never seen anything like it. We never had a tree but just had wall streamers around the living room which was decorated every Xmas by my mother who got a special xmas job lot offer of wall paper and paste costing 10shillings and 6pence from Lewis,s store and us kids spent a lot of time taking the two sides wasteage borders off the wall paper which had to be removed before you could start to use the paper on the living room walls.
Back to the Lord Majors party -The colours of the costumes on stage of the clowns, magicians and different kinds of entertainers are particularly vivid as were the ice lollies they gave us to eat while the entertainment was going on. It was the first time I tasted a green ice lolly.
At the end Father Xmas appeared and we were all given presents. I had a robot which swivelled around to magically answer questions.
Not being used to so much food and ice cream and jelly needless to say I was always sick, along with quite a few others but I really enjoyed the party.
Happy days
My memory is a bit hazy and I cant remember if we had a free pair of lace up boots from the Birmingham mail fund on the same day as the Lord Mayors party or were they seperate events.
At the party there were long tables packed with children all tucking into sandwiches and ice cream & jelly, surrounded by decorations and balloons and the largest xmas tree I had seen all lit up with lights. Being poor we had never seen anything like it. We never had a tree but just had wall streamers around the living room which was decorated every Xmas by my mother who got a special xmas job lot offer of wall paper and paste costing 10shillings and 6pence from Lewis,s store and us kids spent a lot of time taking the two sides wasteage borders off the wall paper which had to be removed before you could start to use the paper on the living room walls.
Back to the Lord Majors party -The colours of the costumes on stage of the clowns, magicians and different kinds of entertainers are particularly vivid as were the ice lollies they gave us to eat while the entertainment was going on. It was the first time I tasted a green ice lolly.
At the end Father Xmas appeared and we were all given presents. I had a robot which swivelled around to magically answer questions.
Not being used to so much food and ice cream and jelly needless to say I was always sick, along with quite a few others but I really enjoyed the party.
Happy days
Mo