Blasts From My Past

One thing I notice about living in a new country is that I have no personal history here. When people talk about the old mom and pop stores in Naperville, or what they used to watch on TV, I don't usually know what they are talking about. This is particularly noticeable in Crackerbarrel, where the shelves are lined with old fashioned toys and foods that I can only wonder about.
So it was fun back in England to find two things being brought back from my own past. The first was the reprinted version of the Janet and John books. I have often thought about them, since I know two couples here with the same name. Janet and John were the equivalent of Dick and Jane in the 1950s and 60s. They are what I used in primary school to learn to read.

In the airport, I was equally thrilled to see a row of 1960s Sindy dolls. Sindy was the slightly more proper and very British version of Barbie. I can remember going on my very first flight, aged 9, to Italy, with my air hostess Sindy in tow. She wore a BOAC uniform and carried a little flight bag complete with passenger list, rather like the one pictured above. The only difference was my Sindy was brunette, although she became blonde after a horrible accident in which her neck split open and Pedigree sent me a replacement head with the wrong colour hair.