Thursday July 27th 1972
I organised The Mummy and Daddy Christmas Present Fund a few years ago for several reasons.
First of all, it means that the children (my little brother and sister) don’t have to worry about ideas for buying Christmas presents for Mum and Dad because it is all organised by the Fund. Second, it means that they don’t have to spend all of their pocket money on Christmas presents, because mostly the Fund consists of my pocket money. Third, my brother and sister are not very good at organising and planning things so the Fund (that’s me again) relieves them of these time-consuming tasks.
When I say that the Fund mostly consists of my pocket money, well just to give you an idea, two years ago we bought a toolbox for Dad, it cost 17 shillings and 6 pence down at the hardware shop. We bought Mum a pair of gloves from Hinds in Eltham that cost nearly 15 shillings. Now a few days before Christmas the Fund Box had just over 35 shillings in it. 32 shillings and 6 pence came from my pocket money, 2 shillings came from Lucy and about 9 pence came from Jonathon.
When I went to collect the money from the Fund Box two days before Christmas to actually buy the Christmas presents for Mum and Dad, there were only 33 shillings in it. But there was also a half-eaten Mars bar. After a bit of detective work, I was able to ascertain that the half-eaten Mars bar was Jonathon’s contribution, and that he had “borrowed” 2 shillings from the Fund (which he had not even contributed in the first place).
So you can see what I mean about my brother and sister not being very good at organising and planning things. Plus, you can see that Lucy contributes more to the Fund than Jonathon, despite the fact that she is two years younger and so gets less pocket money.
After I bought the tool box and the gloves, there was about 7 pence left over which I decided to keep as my commission and also to cover all costs of organisation, etc. I don’t get a lot of pocket money but I do use it wisely. And also I try to increase it through entrepreneurial ideas. For example, sometimes there are things that I don’t need any more or I create things (pictures, games, or things with an entertainment value) which I offer to sell to my brother and sister. So when I have sorted all these things out, I lay them out in my room labelled with prices, such as 1 pence or 2 pence, and invite my brother and sister into my bedroom to view and buy them.
There is no obligation but usually Jonathon and Lucy buy something for a few pence and then I put the money I have collected from them straight into the Mummy and Daddy Christmas Present fund. So you see we are collecting all year for the Christmas presents.
I don’t know what Jonathon does with his money except to maybe buy Mars bars and the like, but somehow he has no notion of how to save or to expand his assets. Lucy is quite different. She has less money, but she does know how to use it. So for example, Lucy is always able to give me a small birthday or Christmas present which she has bought from her own pocket money. Whereas Jonathon is never able to give anybody a birthday or Christmas present.
Last year we got Decimal Currency (that was on February 15th 1971). We had to re-learn Maths in school to understand how it works. It seems to be quite simple, because everything just adds up to 100. But unfortunately it seems as if everything has become more expensive, or even doubled in price. We were talking about it in English and everybody was saying, for example, if a jar of strawberry jam used to cost 1 shilling and 7 pence before decimal currency, it now costs 17p (that’s New Pence). But really it should only cost about 8 pence (that would be the equivalent of 1 shilling and 7 pence in Decimal Currency).
So for this same reason, the children and I are having problems with our pocket money, which has not gone up at the same rate, but is remaining at the converted rate of old pounds, shillings and pence to new pence. But because the prices of things in the shops have gone up, we can afford much less.
Last year, the Mummy and Daddy Christmas Present Fund did not contain a great deal, not anything like the year before. That is to say, it did actually contain about the same as the year before, but it was not worth so much. So we were not able to buy such good presents for Mum and Dad. This time, while most of the money in the Fund originated from my pocket money, Lucy had managed to contribute a little bit more, while Jonathon had contributed nothing at all (I suppose he had realised that a half-eaten Mars bar is not worth much and it is better to eat the whole Mars bar and not make a sticky mess of the Fund Box).
In addition, there are other present problems to be organised. Mum said this year that she has no time to buy birthday presents for us, so she wanted to give us money on our birthdays so that we can buy our own presents. That meant that I would get 3 pounds and Lucy would get one pound.
I think it is a bit of a shame because it is not half as nice as getting wrapped-up presents, so I persuaded Mum to give Lucy and me the money a few days in advance for our birthdays. The thing is that my birthday is on April 10th, and Lucy’s birthday is on April 13th. So my idea was that if she gave Lucy and me our money on April 9th, then Lucy and I could swap our money and we could each go out and buy each other presents, then wrap them up and give them to Mum and Dad, who could then give them to us on our respective birthdays. That would save Mum and Dad a lot of time.
That was a really good idea because even though Lucy is only 7, she has a pretty good idea of the kind of things I like and of course I know what she likes. So we went out together with the 4 pounds and I bought Lucy a doll in a cot, which cost 85 New Pence, plus a few stickers and a new album to stick them in, which I know she likes, and Lucy got me all sorts of things with the 3 pounds that I had at my disposal – books, a Smiley badge and a little mirror, and a sewing set. Then we wrapped everything up in pretty wrapping paper and gave them to Mum and Dad, so that we could open them on our birthdays. And the best part of it all was that everything was a surprise, because we had made sure that we didn’t see what we were each buying in the shops, and that everything got put into bags so that we still couldn’t see them.
One thing that was a little bit different was that even though Mum had said she didn’t have time to buy any presents, I think Dad still wanted to. The thing is, I think Dad really likes buying presents, for example, when he comes home from work sometimes, he has a paper bag from Gamages or Selfridges (which are shops near where he works in town) and it is full of really small presents for us, like dinosaur rubbers (which used to cost one shilling each) or propelling pencils, or maybe some felt-tip pens. Sometimes he even brings a Chinese dinner in paper bags from Soho.
But because this last year Mum said that we weren’t going to get any more presents any more – and that includes Christmas presents, when we are also going to get just money – that meant that we really weren’t supposed to be getting any presents at all. (Although I am still running the Mummy and Daddy Christmas Present Fund this year, because we children do have the time to buy presents).
Anyway, just before my birthday in April this year, Mum said to me she wanted to talk to me about something. She said that Dad really wanted to buy me a birthday present, and that he wanted to surprise me. Of course, I got really excited! Surprises are always good, and presents are so much better than money. But then she said that she wanted to tell me what the present was, so that I wouldn’t be disappointed.
Well I can tell you that then I already was a bit disappointed because if it is a surprise, then it should stay as a surprise. I don’t think it is about how wonderful the present is, just that it is a present at all. And really I don’t want to know about what it is. But Mum convinced me that if I opened the present on my birthday and didn’t know what it was in advance then I would be really disappointed and angry. And that then I would get cross with Dad and he would become upset because he had only being trying to give me a nice present.
I tried to convince Mum that that wouldn’t happen, because I am not the kind of person who would be cross with someone else for giving me a present that I didn’t want. I would just be happy with any present. But Mum wasn’t having any of it and she said that she would have to tell me what Dad was planning to give me in order to avoid a “scene”. So I said, OK.
Turned out Dad was going to give me a silver thimble. OK, it is a bit of a surprise because it is not exactly like you can read a silver thimble or you can play with it with your brother and sister and also you cannot use it to perform an important part of your hobbies which are writing and ballet, but it is still a very interesting and valuable item which you can use in one of your secondary hobbies, which would be sewing doll’s clothes in my case.
So I said, I am not disappointed at all, and frankly, Mum didn’t seem too happy about that, and she said, When you open it, do try not to act disappointed but the thing is I was a bit confused now. I am not very good at pretending things, so I was not sure how I was going to react when Dad gave me the silver thimble on my birthday.
Anyway when my birthday came Dad gave me a little box, all wrapped up, and he was really excited. I knew what it was of course, but I was trying to pretend I didn’t know, and when I opened it up there was a little silver box with a little silver thimble on black velvet and I tried to be really surprised and told Dad it was really wonderful but actually it wasn’t. I had practiced trying to act surprised so much for at least two days that I couldn’t do it any more, even though I actually was excited to have a wrapped-up present, and it really was exciting to have a real silver thimble.
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