MEMORY AND COLOUR
I was looking recently at a wonderful picture on another Forum showing a wartime room in a nice house, decorated for Christmas. Splashes of real colour amongst all the dullness of furnishings and decoration. It made me think a bit about "memory".
I sense that no child today, and probably very few young to middle-aged adults, can have much idea of the impact that colour, because it was so much less universal, had on a young mind in the 1930s or 1940s. The world I was brought up in we now see as mainly black-and-white: photographs, film, magazines, books – even the cars were almost all black, homes were sombrely furnished and everyday clothes were dull and rarely striking. I don't remember those days as being particularly black-and-white or brown-and-beige, but when I think about it I realise that many of my childhood memories have remained in my mind because of the impact of colour: the surprise and joy, because of the immense contrast with normal surroundings.
I think of summer days and my eager anticipation of the arrival of huge, bright red poppies in our suburban garden; and, especially, that of a single peony with its crimson blooms. None of these flowers lasted more than a day or two but that made their arrival even more eagerly awaited. My father also grew Russell lupins and the kaleidoscope of incredible colours in those remains indelible. Remarkably, he had taken a few colour photographs of the garden in the mid-1930s when it was in its prime and on winter days I used to get these transparencies out of a drawer from time to time, hold them up to the light and wonder.
But it was particularly Christmas which provides me with a rainbow of memories. One especially: I remember helping my elder sister decorate our Christmas tree. It must have been the early days of the war. Out of the carton came something pink. Not one of those baubles which were made of glass and so you musn't drop them on the floor as they will shatter and can never be replaced. I think it was a little string of small, printed cards, each with a flower in shades of this gorgeous colour. What I do remember is being almost breathless at the sight of it and thinking that nothing could ever be as pretty and colourful as that. And perhaps nothing ever has been since!
The carton brought other delights, the glass ornaments of many colours, silver tinsel and finally a string of prewar fairy lights with their little oval bulbs of red, blue, green and yellow which, that Christmas and for many following, continued faithfully to light up when they were finally plugged in. And Christmas brought other colourful sights. A visit to Lewis's to see a huge Hornby train layout which I viewed at eye level, with the locomotives all either red or green and Fyffes Banana wagons in yellow and Jacob's Biscuits in maroon. Father Christmas always brought me a book or two. The one I really remember and looked forward to was the Rupert Bear Annual and that was solely because the cover and a number of the pages were printed in full colour. Wow - or OMG as some would say today! And there was more: a kaleidoscope arrived one Christmas and you could look down it and twist it around to produce symmetrical patterns of colour and glitter. Also a little device which you held up to your eye, pulled the trigger and then watched a little disc made up of segments of coloured cellophane revolving in front of you, lit up by a sort of gas-lighter spark behind it. And on a few occasions during the war, at around that time, a food parcel arrived from the USA from a friend of my father's. The colour of the label on a tin of ham or peaches as my parents joyfully cradled it in their hands and examined it! And, my favourite of all, in the same carton some tubes of sweets with their outer wrapper in glorious Technicolor, of which I never remembered having seen the like (and wouldn't see on most British products for many years to come).
Those are just a few of the things which come to mind. Events - those I remember mainly in black-and-white. Apart perhaps for one occasion when I was taken to see Snow White; and again, the contrast between that and a normal film - and life - was huge and never to be forgotten. But as for objects, they are almost all in colour. Even after the war, not a lot changed or, if it did, only slowly. I think I remember going to Sutton Coldfield to see a shop which had installed in its window the first coloured neon sign in the town after the war and you looked at it and marvelled. Either red or green. Later on, bright printing in shop windows in what I think we now call Dayglo - usually an orangey red. Gill's toyshop sold Wilders fireworks and their colourful wrappers gave as much pleasure as the detonations and were certainly worth collecting up and hoarding afterwards. If Dad went to London on business he would bring back a copy of the Saturday Evening Post with a colourful Norman Rockwell painting on its cover and, inside, adverts for vast American cars in blue and green and red. But that of course was the USA and anything was possible there.
I remember when things started to change in Birmingham and elsewhere. Or at least when I noticed that they had changed. In 1952 my dad bought, not a black car, but in silver grey and a couple of years later changed it for a stone-coloured one. In 1955 the civilian bloke who ran the NAAFI on the RAF aerodrome in East Anglia where I was based wore a PINK pullover. Blimey! Clothes clearly didn't HAVE to be grey or brown. People started to paint their living room walls in bright colours, sometimes with one wall contrasting with the other three. Bright cushions, colourful cups and saucers, lime green, purple, orange. I was on the top deck of a bus one day, looking down at the passers-by, when I suddenly realised that most people no longer looked drab, but colourful and varied. It was an awakening for me. At the time I put it down to the rise of St Michael and M&S. And at around that time I was given a camera designed to take colour film. The first time I saw my slides projected on the lounge wall, glowing in their full glory, was probably the last occasion I felt wonder at the brilliance of colour and just how breathtaking it could be.
Not a patch, though, on how those little pieces of pink card made me feel as I hung them on our Christmas tree in the dark and dingy days of 1941 or 1942.
Chris
I was looking recently at a wonderful picture on another Forum showing a wartime room in a nice house, decorated for Christmas. Splashes of real colour amongst all the dullness of furnishings and decoration. It made me think a bit about "memory".
I sense that no child today, and probably very few young to middle-aged adults, can have much idea of the impact that colour, because it was so much less universal, had on a young mind in the 1930s or 1940s. The world I was brought up in we now see as mainly black-and-white: photographs, film, magazines, books – even the cars were almost all black, homes were sombrely furnished and everyday clothes were dull and rarely striking. I don't remember those days as being particularly black-and-white or brown-and-beige, but when I think about it I realise that many of my childhood memories have remained in my mind because of the impact of colour: the surprise and joy, because of the immense contrast with normal surroundings.
I think of summer days and my eager anticipation of the arrival of huge, bright red poppies in our suburban garden; and, especially, that of a single peony with its crimson blooms. None of these flowers lasted more than a day or two but that made their arrival even more eagerly awaited. My father also grew Russell lupins and the kaleidoscope of incredible colours in those remains indelible. Remarkably, he had taken a few colour photographs of the garden in the mid-1930s when it was in its prime and on winter days I used to get these transparencies out of a drawer from time to time, hold them up to the light and wonder.
But it was particularly Christmas which provides me with a rainbow of memories. One especially: I remember helping my elder sister decorate our Christmas tree. It must have been the early days of the war. Out of the carton came something pink. Not one of those baubles which were made of glass and so you musn't drop them on the floor as they will shatter and can never be replaced. I think it was a little string of small, printed cards, each with a flower in shades of this gorgeous colour. What I do remember is being almost breathless at the sight of it and thinking that nothing could ever be as pretty and colourful as that. And perhaps nothing ever has been since!
The carton brought other delights, the glass ornaments of many colours, silver tinsel and finally a string of prewar fairy lights with their little oval bulbs of red, blue, green and yellow which, that Christmas and for many following, continued faithfully to light up when they were finally plugged in. And Christmas brought other colourful sights. A visit to Lewis's to see a huge Hornby train layout which I viewed at eye level, with the locomotives all either red or green and Fyffes Banana wagons in yellow and Jacob's Biscuits in maroon. Father Christmas always brought me a book or two. The one I really remember and looked forward to was the Rupert Bear Annual and that was solely because the cover and a number of the pages were printed in full colour. Wow - or OMG as some would say today! And there was more: a kaleidoscope arrived one Christmas and you could look down it and twist it around to produce symmetrical patterns of colour and glitter. Also a little device which you held up to your eye, pulled the trigger and then watched a little disc made up of segments of coloured cellophane revolving in front of you, lit up by a sort of gas-lighter spark behind it. And on a few occasions during the war, at around that time, a food parcel arrived from the USA from a friend of my father's. The colour of the label on a tin of ham or peaches as my parents joyfully cradled it in their hands and examined it! And, my favourite of all, in the same carton some tubes of sweets with their outer wrapper in glorious Technicolor, of which I never remembered having seen the like (and wouldn't see on most British products for many years to come).
Those are just a few of the things which come to mind. Events - those I remember mainly in black-and-white. Apart perhaps for one occasion when I was taken to see Snow White; and again, the contrast between that and a normal film - and life - was huge and never to be forgotten. But as for objects, they are almost all in colour. Even after the war, not a lot changed or, if it did, only slowly. I think I remember going to Sutton Coldfield to see a shop which had installed in its window the first coloured neon sign in the town after the war and you looked at it and marvelled. Either red or green. Later on, bright printing in shop windows in what I think we now call Dayglo - usually an orangey red. Gill's toyshop sold Wilders fireworks and their colourful wrappers gave as much pleasure as the detonations and were certainly worth collecting up and hoarding afterwards. If Dad went to London on business he would bring back a copy of the Saturday Evening Post with a colourful Norman Rockwell painting on its cover and, inside, adverts for vast American cars in blue and green and red. But that of course was the USA and anything was possible there.
I remember when things started to change in Birmingham and elsewhere. Or at least when I noticed that they had changed. In 1952 my dad bought, not a black car, but in silver grey and a couple of years later changed it for a stone-coloured one. In 1955 the civilian bloke who ran the NAAFI on the RAF aerodrome in East Anglia where I was based wore a PINK pullover. Blimey! Clothes clearly didn't HAVE to be grey or brown. People started to paint their living room walls in bright colours, sometimes with one wall contrasting with the other three. Bright cushions, colourful cups and saucers, lime green, purple, orange. I was on the top deck of a bus one day, looking down at the passers-by, when I suddenly realised that most people no longer looked drab, but colourful and varied. It was an awakening for me. At the time I put it down to the rise of St Michael and M&S. And at around that time I was given a camera designed to take colour film. The first time I saw my slides projected on the lounge wall, glowing in their full glory, was probably the last occasion I felt wonder at the brilliance of colour and just how breathtaking it could be.
Not a patch, though, on how those little pieces of pink card made me feel as I hung them on our Christmas tree in the dark and dingy days of 1941 or 1942.
Chris
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