Friday Photo #64

It's the Spring of 1964 and I've just arrived home after a little rough and tumble down the park at the end of the road, probably instigated by the lad across at No.13 ringing the doorbell and, with all the innocence he could muster, asking Mum '...is Swede playing out?' My shirt hangs loose from beneath a favourite cardigan, one that I will outgrow within a matter of weeks. The wellies are still on and a plaster just above my left knee covers the most recent scrape in a childhood full of scuffs, cuts and grazes. Look at that face though - properly over-excited. The reason? It's right behind me. While I was out, Dad (and probably Uncle Ivor) had installed a full sized swing at the bottom of the garden - a swing! Actually at this point it's just the metal frame cemented into the ground, but the all important hanging bit would materialise shortly afterwards. The swing's arrival was a complete surprise and I'm impishly as pleased as punch about it.

On and off for a handful of young summers, that swing at the end of the garden was central to my world. The frame alone became a mini-chicane as I careered around the garden on a succession of scooters and bikes, it also formed the goalposts for a thousand kickabouts (reducing Mum's grass to a muddy swamp in the process) and it substituted as a Bat-pole for my imaginary adventures as the Caped Crusader. All this in addition to being a, y'know, swing! 

I've no idea (and irritatingly never thought to ask) how Dad acquired this magical plaything that made me the envy of my infant school pals and equally I have absolutely no recollection of it being dug up and removed from the garden a few years down the line, after I'd outgrown it it. The scruffy little scamp in the photo couldn't give a hoot about the details though. What larks he's going to have.

Mice Parade - Swing

Old Hat

 

C's brilliant bippity boppity hat musings of a few days ago (here) brought to mind my own long term struggles with.....well, head-wear of any kind really. In the same way that I don't have the correct shaped face to successfully support any kind of facial hair, I also possess a bonce that for some reason just can't carry off a hat, much to my eternal frustration.

Around 15 years ago I bought an old fedora from a vintage store in Brooklyn. It was love at first sight. I wore it constantly all around New York for the rest of that trip, convinced that I looked the bee's knees, regardless of what my reflection in store windows told me to the contrary.

The fedora was made by Fine Wear Hats of 58-14 Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn, which is approximately three miles from the location of the vintage store where I eventually found it all those years later. I wish the hat could talk. I'd love to know about its original owner. Did it ever leave the city, the borough, or even the neighbourhood?

Back in the UK, in the 15 years I've owned this fine titfer, I've probably worn it outside the house maybe twice, tops. I'm now fully conscious of the fact that it looks ridiculous perched on my head, however much I try to convince myself otherwise. Inside the house though, I wear it constantly - it's both extremely comfortable and strangely comforting. Come to think of it though, with no prospect of having a professional haircut in the foreseeable future and the old barnet becoming increasingly unkempt, perhaps the hat might yet serve an outdoor function as the lesser of two evils. 

Mice Parade - Old Hat