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Cardiff remembered: When our Christmas presents were an orange or an apple

Author Brian Lee writes a weekly history and nostalgia column for the South Wales Echo.

Saffron Jenkins

Saffron Jenkins, InYourArea Community

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Cardiff remembered: When our Christmas presents were an orange or an apple

Christmas during the Second World War. Image: Mirrorpix.

Written by Brian Lee

Growing up in my beloved home town of Cardiff during the Second World War meant as children we had to make do without brand new toys at Christmas time or any other time for that matter.

This was simply because they were not being manufactured – everything then was geared to making aeroplanes, tanks, ships and anything else that was needed to defeat Hitler and his so-called master race.

Most toys we received were either second-hand ones or of the homemade variety.

One Christmas I can recall having a wooden aeroplane and a wooden revolver which I kept under my pillow having seen Humphrey Bogart (or was it George Raft?) do it in one of those black and white gangster films.

I also recall having a book about Robin Hood and his Merry Men, and a stocking – one of my Mum’s – which was placed at the end of my bed.

If I remember rightly it contained an orange, an apple and a few sweets or nuts.

The only bananas I had ever seen then were the ones in those Hollywood films which Mum took my sister Valerie and me to see at our local bug house the now long-gone Coronet Cinema in Woodville Road.

We had to make do with whatever Father Christmas could manage to get us.

Speaking of Santa, did you know he has only four fingers on his right hand?

I know this for a fact as I was invited to a Christmas party at my late cousin Gillian Donovan’s house in Rumney, Cardiff, and when I went up to collect my Christmas present from him I couldn’t help but notice the missing digit.

I expect one of the reindeers must have accidentally bitten it off when he was feeding them.

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However, Christmas for me was not all about toys.

With Dad in France doing his bit to defeat Hitler, everything was left to my mother to make Christmas a happy occasion.

It was all about singing Christmas carols with my sister Valerie.

We would visit the “posh” houses in nearby Harriet Street and Richard Street and on Christmas Day we would attend morning mass at St Peter’s Church.

We’d watch Mum making Christmas puddings and putting up flimsy paper decorations hung from one corner of the room to the other.

And on the mirror over the mantle piece she would write “Happy Christmas” with a piece of soap.

  • Please send your pictures and stories to Brian Lee, Cardiff Remember, South Wales Echo, Six Park Street, Cardiff, CF10 1XR
  • or email brianlee4@virginmedia.com
  • If sending a letter, please include your phone number.

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