"Christmas is coming!"
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| Me & Tracy, Christmas 1977 - look at how chuffed I am, I've got the new Look-In annual AND the Starsky & Hutch Gran Torino! |
Welcome to the sixth post (you can find the others on these links here -
2017,
2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021) showcasing one of the Christmas highlights from when I was a kid (
beyond the catalogues I wrote about in 2016), seeing which annual I got that particular year. For those who don't remember them, annuals were (and still are) large size hardback books, designed for children and based on existing properties, generally comics and popular TV shows, as well as the occasional film and sport and pop round-ups.
The ones based on comics featured the same cast as the weekly editions, while the TV and film ones had comic strips, the occasional short story, fact files and interviews and - brilliantly - in the case of
The Fall Guy, behind the scenes information on stunts and how they were filmed.
Published towards the end of the year, annuals are cover-dated as the following year to ensure shops don't take them off the shelves immediately after the new year (though, by then, unsold copies are often heavily reduced). Still as popular now, though kids today don't have the choice of comics we did, the only real difference seems to be that they're skinnier (and that's not me being all nostalgically misty - my ones from the late 70s and early 80s are substantially chunkier than the ones I’ve bought for Dude over the past few years).
Here, then, is another selection of old favourites, ones I received and ones I remember my sister Tracy having. I hope some of them inspire a warm, nostalgic trip down memory lane for you...
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| 1968 |
One of my favourite TV shows as a kid and this was a favourite annual (though I'm not sure either when Mum or Dad bought it - I wasn't born until 1969 - or I was given it). Cracking book though.
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| 1977 |
My sister Tracy (
who I wrote about here) loved horses for as long as I can remember and went on to be an accomplished rider and tutor.
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| 1977 |
That theme music! Gambit! Purdey!
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| 1978 |
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| 1978 |
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| 1979 |
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| 1979 |
Sing it -
underground, overground, Wombling free...
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| 1980 |
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| 1980 |
If we were out on bikes around this time - my friends, or me and TJ - we'd ride two-abreast and pretend we were Jon and Poncho.
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| 1980 |
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| 1981 |
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| 1981 |
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| 1981 |
My favourite "funny" comic when I was growing up, Cheeky Weekly actually finished in 1980 (it was incorporated -
"great news for all readers!" - into Whoopee in February)
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| 1981 |
Sir Roger Moore as James Bond. Do you need any more reason to own this?
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| 1984 |
I'd moved on from annuals by this time, though I was a huge fan of
The A-Team (and still am, as I wrote about
here and here). I didn't pick this up until much later.
Happy Christmas!
scans from my collection, aside from the girls titles (thanks to the Internet for those)
You can read more of my nostalgia posts here
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