I love a good party and I think it's because I had some wonderful party experiences as a child. Birthdays, obviously were an exciting time in our house. Oddly I don't remember any specific party, of say mine or my brothers birthday they do tend to merge into one mushy birthday party memory, except this one for some reason. This was my sixth birthday and I wonder if I remember it clearly because of the fuss that was made getting me in the Heywood Advertiser, complete with picture, I still have the cutting and the original photograph taken by the newspaper photographer. Also this dress I'm wearing, my mum made me, and I adored it. I always wanted a long party dress (because that was the fashion in the 70's) and I finally got one. Even after birthday and Christmas was over, I would play dress up and wear it around the house! I probably wore it for all other friends birthdays as well, until it got too small. My brother didn't look too happy at having to dress up in those hideous checked flares, or maybe he just hated standing next to his annoying little sister... Who knows?
For one year only I remember we had a Christmas party at school. I have no idea why they didn't do it again, but all the kids had to design and colour in their paper place mats with a Christmas theme then all the classes met in the hall had beef or chicken paste sandwiches (a kids party staple) Mr Kiplings fondant fancies and crisps and all the other yummy finger food that isn't good for you! Then we went back to our classrooms, moved all the tables back and played party games for the afternoon. It was FABULOUS! I also used to love end of term, bring a toy to school day. I used to love seeing what other toys my class mates had, and invariably I would get toy envy and play with theirs instead of my own. But I digress. I guess St Margarets didn't do another party like that, because it was so hard to organise or they just couldn't cope with so many overexcited kids flying high on lots of e-additives to be bothered doing again.
My next door neighbour, Angela was a year above me at school, but that didn't matter. I considered Angela my best friend at home. She went to the local catholic Primary School and at Christmas there the teachers and nuns put on a proper school disco for the juniors. I don't know why I was allowed to go because it was really just for St Pauls church and the school kids who went there, but I loved it. They had a proper DJ and flashing lights, a disco ball and everything. And curiously for me, it was overseen and chaperoned by the churches/school's nuns. Apparently the nuns taught at the school too. Iwas fascinated by this because it was a different world and decided I wanted to know more about catholism and why my church and school was so different to Angela's. I even know what music they played... The Hucklebuck and One Step Further, our 1982 Eurovision entry! I'm sat next to Angela in this photo. I think it's the only one I have of her.
Obviously, I was invited to other kids parties from Nursery and then Primary school, but these are the memorable ones because; Christine played pin the tale on the donkey at her parties and I wasn't allowed to because my mum said it was too dangerous! Kate's because I was a bit bemused by it all at first. I had no idea who she was or why I was there... I know, bonkers eh? But she turned into one of my best friends at school. Rachel's because her first house (picture below) we had a party in, I discovered she had her very own wooden wendy house in the back garden with a proper kitchen and table and chairs and which I thought was fantastic. The other house she ater moved to was enormous! And I mean HUGE. It was a big old Victorian Lodge or of that ilk and I loved going there to play and get lost in all the huge rooms; Audra's because we played Twister and I'd never played it before, I thought it was great fun and made a change to musical bumps, musical chairs, musical statues and my personal favourite pass the parcel (To music); Nichola's, because she was my cousin and I always went to her birthdays; Simon's because his mum decided she needed peace and quiet, so we had to lie on the floor and play dead... I won because I fell asleep!;
Amanda's beacause she got a trumpet for her fifth birthday. She couldn't play a single note properly but still insisted on trying to blow along out of tune to Summer Lovin' the Grease Musical because she got the Soundtrack LP as a gift too; Sarah's, I don't know why, maybe because I never really hung around with her at school and was surprised when a got an invite. (Not like today's parties where every single child from the kids class has to be invited in case someone is offended, god forbid.); and finally Glen's because I made friends with a girl called Catherine, who weirdly, I met again at 12 years old when I moved to a new High School and she remembered me! We would only have been 4 or 5 years old at Glen's party! Spooky coincidence.
My Cousin Diane was getting married in I think 1981 and you know now how much I loved dressing up in long dresses and wanted so much to be A Rose Queen attendant at church, simply because I would have the chance to wear a pretty long dress. Well, my dream came true, when Diane announced her wedding and asked me to be a Bridesmaid (Above) I was so over the moon and excited I couldn't sleep the night I was told or the night before the wedding. I remember my feet being really sore in these stupid pointed shoes I had to wear, but I wasn't going to let a few blisters stop me. I had little pink lace gloves (which i still have and my mum knitted me this gorgeous pink cardigan, (which you can probably just make out.) Anyway the wedding breakfast, I got to sit on top table and received a silver necklace with Alison on it, (which I also still have) and then I danced the night away with my Uncle Trevor, who I thought was very silly and great fun. His daughter on the other hand was on the cusp of becoming a teenager and so sulked and moaned through the whole day and evening because she had to wear a "Stupid dress".
My Mum, Granddad and Uncle all worked at one of the town's factories SEI (or Salford Electrical Industries) and every year the kids of all the workers were treated to a big Christmas party at Heywood Civic Hall. The usual paste sandwiches, crisps and cake were available and then party games on a huge scale. I remeber doing the okey cokey and felt quite frightened because the circle was huge and the older kids got a bit rough. It was the equivilant to a kiddy Mosh Pit! Anyhoo, every child got a Christmas present and a photo with Father Christmas (Not Santa!!!) When I was a kid it was Father Christmas. And we got some really good presents. I got a full dolly's china tea set one year, (ehich I still have, well the pieces I haven't broken!) and a pottery and art set another year. Once you reached a certain age you were invited to a trip out to the Pantomine instead. Can't remember what I saw, but I remember being on the coach with all of mum's friends and their kids.
In 1981 Diana and Charles got married and like most people we watched the ceremony on TV and then had a Wedding Street Party afterwards. As you can see from the pictures there were a lot of kids on our street. There was and almost none street party that morning. Just one family on the street didn't wish to participate in the celebrations and so out of spite went out for the day and parked their car in the middle of the street! All the kids watched in excitement as about 8 dads (including mine) "bumped" the Mr and Mrs Misery's car to the end of the street! Hilarious! You Can just see the red cortina at the top of the street! 
Weirdly, I have racked my brains and realised I never knew or met the majority of the children in these photos until that day. There was pretty much three friends I regularly played out with in the photo below and four or five families that I knew throughout my chidhood, but that was it really. We did live around the corner in the little cul-de-sac so maybe we were a bit cut off from the main residents in the street. We had the usually party food, played games had egg and spoon race, three legged and sack races, a mini disco then the grown ups took over! I remember lying in bed hearing all the shrieking and cackling of inebriated parents out partying! And yes, the kids were left at home alone!
Finally, my first street party was in 1977, The Queens Silver Jubilee and as my mum was part of the registered child minders circle on the estate we were invited to the party on Welland Avenue (the posh end of the estate) by Fran, the kindest lady you could ever meet, who ran the registered child minders group and organised the street party. Everytime I hear the song Simple Simon Says, it takes me straight back there as we played this game and it must have been the first time I ever payed because I thought it was great fun at the time. My mum had bought me a special red, white and blue dress for the occassion, which I loved and wore at every occassion after. I even insisted on wearing it for my first school photo! So that's the extent of my childhood party memories, I'm sure there were more, but I can't remember. Still, lots of lovely memories to go off, and whilst writing this, I get and excited feeling inside that makes me want to go to a party right now! LOL xxx
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