A VERY TEENAGE CHRISTMAS
25th December 1971
Here I am at age 14, on Christmas morning, in Winchester, Hampshire, England. I have opened all my gifts and I am wearing them. I was taught that you always dress immediately in anything you’ve been given as a gift to show how much you appreciate it. Thankfully, I liked the long-sleeved T-shirt because it came from my favorite shop, BIBA, which I’d visited with my mother in early December. I quite like the mini-skirt now, though I can’t really remember it. Those very long socks were all the rage at the time; I think my sis gave them to me. The rag-doll was from my mother so I’m holding her to show how much I like her. I am eating something I got in my Christmas stocking — cookies, by the looks of it.
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| Bernadette the Teenager, Christmas Morning, 1971 |
Much more interesting to me now than my 14 year-old self is the decoration of our dining room. I’m standing right in front of the coal fire, a fire which is almost certainly trying to heat the entire room, so by blocking it, I’m being a selfish cow. That’s the coal scuttle in front of the telly. OMG, LOOK AT THE TELLY! Above the fireplace is stonework. No, it isn’t. It’s wallpaper. Fooled you for a moment, right?! That’s a hippy poster on the wall. None of yer framed family photos for us, thank you very much. In a catholic, stiff-upper-lip kind of way, we were a trendy family. Well, trendy for 1971, anyway…