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Christmas at Simper's shop.
Summary
Pauline describes the build up to Christmas and the joys of delivering bikes on Christmas Eve.
Transcript
It would be about 1964-65, we had a wholesaler in Stokes Croft where we went and they had a Christmas show and we went and bought then for what we thought would sell at Christmas and it was mainly – well it was a general selection of toys. It was games and puzzles and dolls for the girls and great big lorries and it was very interesting. These we used to put away in a Christmas club for people. They would see them, the children would see them in the window and say “I want that for Christmas” and they would come in and we would put it by for them and pay it off so much a week on a Christmas club card. I mean we had to buy the stock and it was always, you know, we weren’t doing a lot of trade before Christmas, September, October but we had to buy the stock with this sort of money coming in it helped us to pay the bills. We always made sure we kept enough money to pay for the stock that we had bought. And the best day of the year was Christmas Eve because you used to get aunts and uncles, mainly men who would come in for a present for their niece and they didn’t care how much they spent. Whatever we suggested they’d buy it. It was a lovely day that. We used to go out and deliver them on Christmas Eve, working up to about 10.00 at night. Ben would finish then and go and serve at church at the midnight communion, but people were very generous, they always offered us drinks but we couldn’t possibly drink them all. That was lovely, Christmas Eve, delivering bikes, you really felt good. I loved that especially if it was a frosty night “Oh! Thank you Mr. Simper, Oh! Thank you Mr. Simper – have a drink. It was lovely, all the children were hidden away.
