Dafter’s post yesterday about children’s parties took me back to my own childhood when parties were almost always held at the child’s own host, or at the very least, the local church hall. They weren’t that common, but you could usually guarantee getting an invite to maybe one or two per year, at least up to age eleven.
One of the great things about children’s parties then was that you got to meet the parents. Your school friends’ boasts that their father was a captain in the navy or mad professor could therefore be easily uncovered. On the other hand, what was really amazing was the stuff you never found out about until you visited their house and discovered The Family for yourself.
Rather than having the resident McDonald’s clown to entertain the party guests, this gruesome task was usually delegated to a reluctant elder brother. Once I remember one particularly warped individual wanting to take the party guests to visit the local chapel of rest at a nearby funeral home, ‘as a treat’.
Some parents were better at parties than others. I well remember the couple who did away with pass the parcel and musical statues and treated us children to several hours of looking at their holiday photographs instead. ‘And this is Aunty Elsie eating an ice cream on the beach at Porthcawl…’ I think one or two children actually threw up out of sheer boredom by the end.
Some must have dreaded it. I remember once turning up to a party just as someone threw a shoe through a (closed) window. The mother, a very smart woman, cigarette holder and glass in hand, just about made it to the door, grabbed hold of my mother, (whom she’d never met before) hugged her and said, ‘Thank God you’ve come! Come on in and have some gin.’
Then there was the family newly returned from the Far East whose idea of party food was bowls of rice and chopsticks. It was the only party where we spent the whole time trying to eat and never got to do any party games at all. The only real diversion was when their cat started swinging on the curtains and howling.
Or the girl whose father used army radios and walkie talkies to communicate with the guests. We didn’t see him at all, just heard his voice ‘Now make your way to the tea table where you will find a selection of jellies, sausage rolls and cakes to eat. DO not drop crumbs on the floor.’
Parties were almost always very small, rather sedate affairs. Girls wore their best dress, the boys almost always had a bow tie. The host mother almost always wore a neat, frilly little apron (apart from mine who had tied a bottle opener and corkscrew on hers to get at the booze when nobody was looking!) If the part was in the local church hall (and I think I only ever went to one of these) then the local vicar or priest put in an appearance and gave a little talk.
I’m not sure whether children actually enjoyed parties. The parents rarely did. But a party did allow for a huge variety of entertainment (often unintended – like watching a grandmother having a sly drink while pretending to supervise the party games).
And looking back, no two parties were ever, ever the same.
