Christmas Gifts from Trustworthy sources
As the title suggests, the following Christmas Gift suggestions all link to online stores that place 'Customer Care' at the very top of their priorities.
I will be adding more online stores very soon and hope to offer something for everyone.
A Story for Christmas
The Christmas Gift that nearly didn't make it
I was about 12-years old as near as I can figure. It was Christmas Eve and I had watched my Father loading up the old Standard 8 before setting off on our journey. We were travelling north to spend Christmas with my fathers' family who lived in Lancashire. Back in those days, (it must have been 1959 or thereabouts) there were no motorways and cars travelled so much slower than they do today. The 132 miles takes us in the order of 2½ hours now, but back then it was a 4/5 hour journey.
The old car was of the type where the rear boot lid hinged downwards and, if there was anything more than a few small bags, it was customary to lay the luggage on the hinged down lid and tie it in place with a tarpaulin and length of rope. Of course, this was Christmas, so there was a great deal more than just the odd bag or two. There was one particular box that was quite large and measured almost as wide as the boot lid itself. It was only 4/5 inches thick and so it made the perfect base on which the rest of the luggage could be stacked.
Although the notion of Father Christmas was a pretence kept alive for the sake of my younger sister, I still knew better than to enquire about 'mysterious' packages and so the overly-stuffed boot was something that didn't get talked about. That said, the large box had certainly caught my attention and I was longing to know what was in it.
I don't remember a great deal about the journey prior to the incident. My parents were in the front with my father driving, and my sister and I were in the back precariously rolling around on the back seat as we did in the days before seat-belts. It was certainly very dark and we were obviously excited because it was Christmas Eve and we were on a long adventure. Suddenly there was a sound like a balloon bursting and the car swerves violently to left and right before grinding to a halt. It was a scary few moments.
My father got out of the car and, after a few minutes of looking around, returned to tell us that a rear tyre had burst. I seem to remember it being a wet, drizzly night. My mother got out to help my father but we children were told to remain in the vehicle and sit still. Peering out into the gloom I could see my parents unloading the luggage from the boot and I managed to see that the large box at the bottom was made of wood, something I hadn't been able to tell previously because of the tarpaulin.
Eventually, my parents returned and we resumed our journey ... but not for long. I don't think we had travelled very far before another tyre punctured. I didn't appreciate it at the time but cars only carry one spare wheel and ours had already burst. Thankfully, as was usual in those days, my father had a puncture repair kit and set to work repairing the inner tube. I don't know how long it took but finally we were travelling again.
I don't know how many times tyres went flat, but it was several. On one occasion
the swerving was considerably worse than before and we were violently tossed around in the back as the car rocked first one way then the other until we spun fully around finally coming to rest with a thud against the opposite verge, facing back the way we had come. Again my father got out to examine the car. This time he discovered that a front tyre had burst and the force of hitting the verge snapped the rope spewing the luggage onto the ground. Unfortunately, my father had no more patches and we sat in the darkness, in the middle of nowhere, as he considered what to do.
Thankfully a couple happened along in their car. They were on their way to a Christmas party and stopped to see what was wrong and if they could help. They offered to drive my father to an all-night garage in the nearest town. He went off with them taking the flat tyre and we children settled down to sleep on the back seat. My mother sat in the front of the car ... with the wheel jack in her hand, just in case. At first she had the courtesy light on for comfort but soon realised that that only showed any passing travellers that there was no man present. She switched off the light and sat in the still, silent darkness.
I have no idea how long my father was gone but I do remember my sister being concerned that Father Christmas wouldn't know where we were. Eventually he returned, still in the company of the same couple who had taken him off and, a short while later the wheel had been refitted, the luggage had been re-packed and we were once again on our way.
When we reached the next town my father headed for the garage and once there, checked the pressures in all his tyres. He discovered that they were all seriously over-inflated. It turns out that his pocket pressure gauge was faulty and he had used it when checking his pressures both before beginning the journey and again when he re-inflated each tyre after every puncture.
With the tyres now set to the correct pressures the rest of the journey concluded without incident. We finally arrived at our destination at 1:00am to find my Aunty and Uncle worried out of their minds. Without mobile phones, or even telephone kiosks, we had had no way of letting them know what had happened.
I hadn't been in bed more than a few minutes when a shadowy figured crept into the room. Through half-squinty, pretending-to-be-asleep eyes, I saw it place some parcels at the foot of the bed. One of them looked like a big box.
In the morning I awoke early ... as you do. I headed straight for the large wooden box. About 2'6" long, 18" wide and 5" high it had two clips on the front much like a wooden briefcase. I opened the clips and lifted the lid. Inside I found the most wonderful chemistry set any 12-year old boy could want. Small glass bottles of coloured powders and liquids, all neatly labelled. A Pipette, a burette and sundry glass tubes sat snugly into spring clips set in the lid. There were beakers, funnels, flasks, tripods, Bunsen burner and a rack of test tubes ... with one missing.
It was a great Christmas and a few specific points add greatly to my memories of that fateful Christmas Eve. Despite the repeated loading and unloading and its eventual despatch from the boot to the grass verge, the only damage suffered by the 'fragile' chemistry set was a single broken test tube. The couple who helped us were truly Good Samaritans as they knowingly missed their Christmas party in order to help resume our journey. And finally, Father Christmas found his way to my sisters' bedside.
