Memories of Childhood

Here's another memory. Every Christmas (and being Jewish, each Chanukah) my sister and I when we were young could have TWO annuals. My sister always chose the usual fare from the girls' comics like JACKIE, BUNTY, BLUE JEANS etc and BLUE PETER whereas I went for things like RUPERT BEAR, DONALD & MICKEY, and then later SHIVER & SHAKE and the other sort of anarchic comic annuals. I still have some of my sister's Blue Peter annuals, but believe it or not the last annual I got was THUNDERBIRDS TOP SECRET ANNUAL in 2001-specifically because I am big fan. This Christmas somebody sent me a 1981 Dangermouse Annual which looks really dated. You would be amazed what stuff people still have in regard to annuals-check out Ebay and you will find all sorts that you might have got.

God I remember having the Rupert Bear annuals in 1972 and 1973. My nephew now has possession of them and they are still in very good nick. They’ve adopted heirloom status now.

(This thread is better than a chimp in a spacesuit riding a unicycle on a highwire).

Whilst eating a banana and watching The Jungle Book on his smartphone!

It is amazing that annuals are still around but of course whereas the ones we had were mostly from comics tie-ins, now they are also tie-ins for television programmes. Mind you, I also remember TV21 and Look-In which were mostly to do with kids television.

Has this been mentioned at all-James Bond. Can you remember which film you saw as an older child OR being accompanied by an adult if it was an A or AA rating. My Dad took me to see 'Live and Let Die' and I became a major fan. I had quite a few cars and the elusive Lotus Esprit that turned into a submarine from 'The Spy Who Loved Me' when I became VERY aware of the gorgeous Barbara Bach as Russian spy babe Anya Amasova. I was actually thinking of a James Bond thread, but I am not sure if that has been done before. It would contain loads of pictures and some self-made videos with a few surprises. So which one did you see first?

First Bond film I went to see in the cinema was ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ in 1977.

Pretty sure I went with my old man because it had an A certificate on it, when Bond did his scenes with the Bond girl I remember shutting my eyes and my old man muttering something like ‘he must have a caravanette full of rubber johnnies as well as a PPK”..which went right over my head because at that time I didn’t have a clue what a ‘rubber johnnie’ was

Yes true at school someone was mentioning durex all the time. I thought it might be another version of a pot of paint(Dulux) we were rather naive. Great film though to see on the big screen and later I went to see 'Moonraker' and one of my friends was in the front of the cinema and when Jaws appeared he yelled out "bet he didn't use Signal 2(toothpaste) which got a laugh.

Wasn't a Signals toothpaste fan (and if I'm being honest), I can't remember which one I favoured as a kid - (probably was Colgate), but I'm more akin to Macleans Freshmint these days

I ordered a load of Signal 2 toothpaste from EBay, love that stuff, can't get on with anything else and now it's not in shops anymore I have to get it over the Internet, but 12 tubes last nearly two years. Colgate and Macleans been around for years, but not sure you can get the original toothpaste Gibbs SR which we used for a while. Makes me laugh about people switching to electronic toothbrushes, we used to have one in the 70's where it had interchangeable brushes and we each had a colour which we attached individually when using it. I use an ordinary brush myself and change it about 7 months or so.

For kids there was CREST I was trying to remember that for days and then it suddenly hit me. I think it had an elephant cartoon on it. There were a few toothpastes around and most of them weren't bad but I could only really get on with Signal 2. Teeth were a moot point with me when I was younger. I ended up in University College Hospital in London to have abscesses looked several times. They gave me this large piece of plastic(if you remember what slides looked like that you could get processed from a camera and then shown on a projector if you can visualise this) and expected me to put it in my mouth so they could take a photo of it. It made me choke several times. I also remember being put to sleep another time and then when I woke, there was blood pouring out of my mouth-an experience I never wanted to repeat. To this day I still don't know what caused them because I didn't eat a lot of sweets as a child. Finally I remember the school dentist and although he was Polish he sounded like he was interrogating me like the dentist played by Sir Laurence Olivier in 'Marathon Man'(when he is interrogating Dustin Hoffman in the chair) He couldn't help it, it was just the way he spoke...but he never got the secret invasion plans out of me

To illustrate.