Breeches, braces and puppet hero Brains make perfect gifts
» WELCOME to our down-the-decades Christmas gift guide. Jump on board the nostalgia time machine and prepare to pick a present from the past.
It’s 1901 and you’re looking for that special something for the man who has everything. Then why not pop along to J Garnick’s shop on the corner of Cheltenham’s Albion Street and Portland Street for a pair of breeches?
The very thing for the man who eschews conventional trousers, Garnick’s is, as the advert tells us, sole agent for seamless seat breeches, said to make them extra comfy. You might like to invest in a ladies’ riding habit while you’re there.
To make sure the breeches don’t fall down, a pair of braces could be just the thing. Not any old braces, but Arlex ‘As new as tomorrow’ transparent braces, made by Dowty at the Arle Court factory in the late 1940s. In that immediate post-second World War era, the firm was looking to diversify from aviation into new product areas.
Along with transparent braces, Dowty also produced men’s sock suspenders, marketed under the Arlex brand, an innovation that was followed a few years later by spectacles for chickens.
Board games have long been a feature of Yuletide festivities and until the 1950s one of the bestknown makers was the Gloucester firm of Roberts Brothers. The founder, Harry Owen Roberts, invented the new board game of Piladex, which was played with a balloon that players batted back and forth over a table divided into halves with a length of string. (Let’s be honest, it was table tennis with a balloon instead of a ping pong ball.)
Along with Piladex, games with intriguing names such as Winkle’s Wedding, Hiking in Fruit Town and Quick Cluk were manufactured at Robert Brothers’ Glevum Works factory in Upton Street. Put one on your shopping list and your Christmas party is sure to be lively.
Anyone who grew up in the 1960s will be a big fan of Thunderbirds. In fact, at the mere mention of the name you’re probably already humming its stirring signature tune.
Despite some of them having American accents, Jeff, Alan, John, Gordon, Scott, Virgil, Parker, Lady Penelope, Brains and other stars of the children’s TV show came from Gloucestershire. A company named Pelham Puppets had the rights to make Thunderbirds puppets and sourced the wooden heads first from a Stroud firm called Hoopers.
Pelham Puppets came under the ownership of Anne Wilkinson Designs, which made Thunderbird toys at its factory in Albion Street, Cheltenham until 1992. Who wouldn’t be delighted to find Lady Penelope under the tree on Christmas morning?
Still on the theme of toys, Thomas the Tank Engine is a perennial favourite with railway fans big and small. The character was created by the Rev Wilbert Vere Awdry, who lived in Rodborough Avenue, Stroud. So there’s another gift idea with a local connection.
On to the 1960s for a Bri Nylon jumper. Manufactured by British Nylon Spinners in Brockworth, this was the fabric of the future. Developed in wartime for making parachutes, Bri Nylon was crease-free, didn’t need ironing, drip dry and, most of all, modern.
There were drawbacks, though. A Bri Nylon shirt looked cool, but the wearer soon found him or herself perspiring like the proverbial porker because the material didn’t breathe. What’s more, bedsheets made from the new wonder material generated static electricity, so if you turned over in the night sparks lit up the room like a firework display.
If you wanted the latest in home entertainment 1970s style, a video recorder was high on your must-have list and you might have nipped along to Audio Visual Services in Gloucester’s Southgate Street to buy one.
By the end of that decade the VHS system had vanquished its arch rival Betamax and owning, or hiring, a video recorder at Christmas gave you the opportunity to record all the repeats you’d seen many times before to watch again whenever you felt like it.
What nobody knew then, of course, was that the future for video recorders was the same as that for spats four decades before.
As a final gift suggestion, what music lover would not be overjoyed to unwrap ‘The world of Jimmy Young’ on Christmas morning? As his legion of fans will tell you, Jimmy topped the pop charts on two occasions in the 1950s, first with ‘Unchained Melody’, followed by ‘The Man from Laramie”.
He wasn’t from Laramie, though. He came from Cinderford.