Hazel Freeman recalls Christmas parties in her father’s shop
Resource Type: Audio | Posted on 18th July 2011 by Liam Physick
Hazel Freeman remembers the Christmas parties that were once held in her father’s shop, and how the mothers would leave ther babies in the prams outside, and one woman forgot her baby when she went home!
Interviewee: Hazel Freeman
Interviewee Gender: Female
Date of Interview: 19th February 2011
Interview Transcript
Hazel: Great Father Christmas used to come.
Jenny: Every year?
Hazel: Yes, there was a grotto, and the mums used to be there . . .
Jenny: Queue up, and . . .
Hazel: . . . queue up, and the children would sit on Father Christmas’s knee, and they would get a present from the angels (Jenny laughs) and the prams were left outside the store. Is this too much?
Jenny: No, this is great.
Hazel: The prams were always left outside with the babies in them.
Jenny: Oh, right! Outside the, in the street?
Hazel: Yes! All the mums left their babies outside.
Jenny: God, you just couldn’t imagine it now!
Hazel: There was an incident was of, of a mum going home, and the granny saying, well, “Where’s little Susie? Oh, my goodness I left her! (both burst out laughing) I left him (sic) outside the store!”
Jenny: (laughing uncontrollably) Madness!
Hazel: It’s unbelievable! And the, the ladies would come in in their hairnets and curlers. They were nearly always in curlers, with their hairnets on, you know, tied up with a kind of bow in the front . . .
Jenny: Yeah.
Hazel: . . . so that, you know, they didn’t have perms in those days, they came later . . .
Jenny: Yeah, yeah.
Hazel: . . . so they had to wear rollers, or curlers, as they call them, so they’d look nice for their husbands in the evening because that is how it was done.
Categorised under: Social Life
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