'A Lovely Day At St Luke's Christmas Market'

Well, I am positively GLOWING with the festive spirit right now after visiting St Luke's Christmas Market this morning at Silverhill.

I got there a bit early and so stood in the queue where I got chatting to a lovely lady. We passed the time of day by talking about all kinds of worldly things and about 'the state of the world these days' but none of it was depressing for long before we were laughing together again.

Once inside the Church hall I had a whale of a time browsing through the variety of stalls and quickly found an ideal 'stocking filler' present for my Mum (don't you dare breathe a word now!). An elderly lady had a hand-made card stall and was selling some lovely cards for just 30p each! That is INCREDIBLY cheap for hand-made cards and so I 'filled my boots' and bought 20! I asked the lady why she was selling them for so little and she told me that she can get £1.50 a time for them 'outside' but that she believed in raising a good amount for the church and felt that people coming to Christmas sales like this expected to be able to pick up a bargain. I was really touched by this and told her that what she was doing was truly in the spirit of Christmas. "As long as I cover the money it takes to buy more materials I will be happy", she told me with a gentle smile.

There was a FANTASTIC raffle table with over 100 prizes stacked up on it as well! If I had been able to stop to the end of the event and wait for the raffle to be drawn I would have 'invested' a few pounds on tickets as some of the prizes were well worth winning like a full sized bottle of Jack Daniels, for example! Sadly, I had other appointments to go to today and I really don't like paying for raffle tickets and just writing your name or telephone number on the back of them.

I DID have a go on the Macmillan Nurses Tombola stall though and amazingly won three prizes with just a £1! You get 5 tickets for that and numbers had to end in either a 5 or a 0. Hilariously, the first thing I won was a pink ladies handbag! Now, I know I'm a, Dick Emery fan but that is ridiculous! Next I won a Mc Millan Mug and lastly I got a nice Indian sculpture of an elephant. The lady who sold me the tickets told me that she had brought it back from India when she went - not bad, eh for a single pound!

The cake stall really made my mouth water! By gum, if I had been returning home straight afterwards I would have bought a few cakes! Small cup cakes were only 30p and looked delicious. they reminded me of the 1970's when my Nan used to arrive every Friday evening with a white bag full of cup cakes with 'swirly toppings' on for us to munch on while watching Brucie and 'The Generation Game' on T.V.

After a second look around (and a good 'um and aah' about buying a Christmas cushion from the arts and crafts stall) I decided it was time to have a cup of tea and a sit down. The whole event was really well organised and there were rows of tables in the middle of the room all with plates of biscuits, cutlery and sugar in neat bowls upon them. The tea was 50p and to my delight when I went to sit down the nice lady I had been talking to in the queue was sitting on her own so I asked if I could join her. We then spent a good half an hour nattering about Christmas, Charles Dickens, what people expect at Christmas these days and all that kind of stuff. A real Christmas person she was and I think both of us felt better for meeting each other afterwards! That's the kind of thing that SHOULD happen at community events, after all! Not a mobile phone in sight to ruin a good wholesome conversation!

So enamoured of this lady was I that I gave her a free copy of my, 'Timeless' CD as a little 'memento' of our chat. She seemed genuinely pleased at this (though she hasn't heard it yet!) and it was nice to be asked a few questions about my 'musical career' again! I told her about my mate, Alan and the making of my Christmas album and about the existence of this blog. We chatted about St Clement's Church Christmas do next week and I urged her to go. Hopefully, we will bump into each other again there next week!

The pictures you can see here are of just some of the lovely Christmas cards I picked up today. I LOVE giving hand made cards as I feel I can say what I want to say in them and the fact that they are hand made makes them seem all the more personalised. With my finances in pretty dire straits these days its been a couple of years since I've been able to afford to buy the amount of hand made cards that I need to send out to all of the people I know. Thankfully, thanks to that dear old lady on the card stall today that won't be the case this year...

Here's looking forward to next week and my FAVOURITE Christmas Fair of them all!

Love Tony x

'Good Game! Good Game! Didn't She Do Well!'

Of all of the programmes from my childhood 'The Generation Game' is the one I associate most with Christmas. Watching the Generation Game with old Brucie (or middle-aged Brucie as he was then!) was a real family thing. The show appealed to everyone whatever age you were because its mixture of slapstick humour, interesting games and Bruce's fantastically funny way of making fun of the whole thing - and taking the mickey out of the contestants - was simply television magic.

I am not one for hankering over the every word of  celebrities but Bruce Forsyth will always be someone very special to me. The ULTIMATE professional he has made so many shows over the years I associate with happy times and 'Strictly'  has a touch of The Generation Game about it somehow...

Take a look at the video above. If you haven't watched a whole episode of 'The Generation Game' for years (as I hadn't when I watched this yesterday) it is sure to bring back many happy memories. In my case, it inspired me to come up with a new Christmas song based on my love for my childhood Christmases would you believe! 'Christmas 73' is the working title for the song as yet but that's hardly full of excitement so I will let the lyrics percolate for a few days and then see if I can come up with something much more snazzy! 

For those of you new to my world, I have a habit of writing and recording a new Christmas song every year (as long as I can afford it!) and then 'release' them in early to mid Dec on my Youtube channel (Maybrick44). If my producer (and friend) Harvey Summers likes 'Christmas 73' it could be my 'release' this year! 

Anyway, back to Bruce and the Christmas edition of 'The Generation Game'...

'Nice to see you, to see you....NICE!' Has to be one of the best catchphrases any entertainer could have to start a show, don't you think? I mean, straight away he or she is interacting with the audience and making them feel a real part of the show, welcomed and at home. I know Brucies jokes are all a bit out dated in 2013 but I much prefer 'gentle leg pulling' that the more graphic stuff of today. The prizes that get dished out here to losing contestants are also hilarious! Walking off screen with a drill (no box - with the wires dangling and all!) after losing out must really have made men feel better about their lives. Its a bit like saying "Well, loser, back to your D.I.Y. chores for the missus!" HA HA

Oh and where would we have been in those days without one of Anthea Redfern's twirls?

To be honest, she is as wooden a presenter as Pinocchio but it doesn't really matter as Brucie is such a large personality there simply wouldn't have been room on screen for another! That's why the scenes here with the equally awesome, Frankie Howerd are nothing short of T.V. heaven. Frank comes across as a nice guy during his chat to the losing contestants in the semi final and he is sorely missed today.

Oh well, enough chat, get watching and don't forget to let me know your thoughts on the subject.