LetterstoSantathat reveal justhowmuch childhood’schanged

The lad who said he’d been good because he fetched mum’s coal. The little girl who longed for a carpet sweeper . . .

LAST week, three longserving Santas told the Mail about some of the eye-watering demands modern children make on them.

They were left spluttering into their white beards by the unflinching requests for tablets, smartphones and laptops.

Each struggled to remember the last time a child asked for something simple like a doll or train, far less a token gift like a satsuma.

And letters can be just as blunt and mercenary. Sometimes, today’s missives to Father Christmas even feel like they have been written with the Argos catalogue by the child’s side.

Some will even send their parents a link to an Amazon wish-list to pass on, or as one cheeky youngster (whose parents couldn’t resist posting it online) wrote: ‘Dear Santa, Please text my Dad. He has my whole list. I love you xxxx.’

No wonder those old enough to remember get nostalgic about a less commercialised, simpler time.

The tradition of writing letters to Father Christmas can be traced back to the 13th century, when a girl wrote a letter to the real Saint Nicholas, a bishop, who lived in Myra, now Turkey.

In 1963, the UK Post Office stepped in to officially ‘manage’ Santa’s mailbag, and launched its Letters To Santa service, with an address at the North Pole, and special stamps that could be bought by Mummy and Daddy. It’s still going strong today, although numbers are dwindling, with most children switching to email.

Here, JENNY JOHNSTON digs into the archives — including the Royal Mail’s historic collection — to look at how letters to Santa have changed over the years and how it reflects on the ages.

SPACE RACE TOYS IN THE SIXTIES

WHILE cash-strapped, post-war children longed for an orange and a piece of coal in their stocking, the Sixties heralded a period of renewed prosperity in Britain, and children started getting a little bolder in their demands, as shown in this letter from a lad in Falmouth, Cornwall, in 1964.

It reads: ‘Dear Father Christmas. I’m writing to ask you please to bring me a tractor you can ride on and a trailer for behind and a garage please because I have lots of cars and I would like somewhere to put them. I have a brother called Paul. He’s a baby and would like a baby walker please as he’s nearly a year old.’

And not only did children write to thank their relatives for presents, but Santa, too.

One little lad, who signed off simply as ‘Adrian’, wrote: ‘Dear Father Christmas, I was pleased to get your card. Thank you very much for all the lovely presents you brought me and my brothers. We had a lovely Christmas. Thank you, Adrian. PS: Daddy has helped me write this on my typewriter you brought me for Christmas.’

At the old Rolls-Royce plant at Barnoldswick, Lancashire, a host of letters written by children attending Christmas parties there between the Sixties and Eighties were recently recovered. They provide a snapshot of an age when everyone was excited by the ‘space race’ between the Soviets and the U.S., culminating in the moon landing in 1969.

Nine-year-old Michael Stansfield, of Burnley, told Santa he had been a good boy helping with the chores.

‘I have looked after the baby while my mother is in the shop, and I get the coal. Please may I have a Johnny Astro because you can fly it round the room and land it on the fake moon.’

The letters also demonstrated that the Sixties was still very much an age when girls were girls and boys were boys. Gender fluidity was still a long way off.

In 1963, a nine-year- old girl called Dorothea politely wrote to Santa saying she would ‘ very much like’ a carpet sweeper. Also ‘ some dolls’ clothes and a book about ballet.’

You can sense she feels she is pushing her luck when she adds one more item for Santa’s consideration. ‘And perhaps a game,’ she suggests, before signing off ‘in hope’.

Little Iain Greenhalgh, of Barnoldswick, meanwhile asked politely: ‘ Do you have any second hand bikes?’

Ann-Marie Barnes, also of Barnoldswick, revealed how some problems for rural folk never seem to change, when she expressed concern for Santa’s reindeer, hoping they didn’t catch foot and mouth disease when they visited the county.

Perhaps the most touching letter of