Damian Corless takes us on an enertaining trip down Memory Lane looking at what was on Irish television at Christmastime in the 1960s, the toys that children wanted from Santa and explains why pantomime is the ultimate survivor …

 

Christmas is for kids. Who could possibly argue with that? Well, there was a time when Church and State seemed determined to quash the Yuletide fun of Irish children with a large dose of religious and cultural fundamentalism.

Let’s take the national broadcaster’s bill of fare for the first Christmas Day of the 1960s. Radio Éireann had a lie in until 10.25 am when it opened with the weather forecast. This was followed by High Mass, seasonal music, Church of Ireland Morning Prayer, Carols from the Continent and Music For Hospitals, before a five-minute break for the News at 1.30.
From lunchtime until midnight closedown it was carols, ceilís, and song and dance almost all the away, with just two shows tailored for children. One was The School Around The Corner, with host Paddy Crosbie as the friendly headmaster, and the other was a Junior Red Cross party from a Dublin convent school.

Along the border counties and the east coast, the few thousand homes with televisions had a choice from the kids’ menus served up by the two British stations. The BBC’s highlights included the western Wells Fargo, Billy Smart’s Circus, What’s My Line, Tonight With Harry Belafonte and, smack bang in the middle of the day, Walt Disney; The Story of a Man Who Has Become a Legend.

The homage to Disney would have had the automatic vote of almost everyone looking in from the Republic, as Ulster Television’s rival across the schedule was Home For Awhile, in which: “Members of the Forces overseas being their record requests to the families at home.”

By the Christmas of 1965 the television set had become a fully integrated part of the Christmas Day ritual in countless Irish homes.

Loaded with civic responsibility and a deep deference to the Catholic Church, Telefís Éireann typically served up a schedule that put edification above entertainment.
So Christmas Day opened at 10 am with Mass, followed by Pope Paul’s Urbi Et Orbi address, followed by non-stop religious fare until lunch when some welcome froth finally arrived via Andy Williams, Lassie and a children’s hospital visit by School Around The Corner host Paddy Crosbie.
Senior churchmen continued to frequent the home channel until closedown. The top-rated Telefís Éireann shows for Christmas week 1965 were, in order, The Late Late Show, Tolka Row (the precursor to Fair City), School Around The Corner, Quicksilver (quiz), The Virginian, Club Ceilí, The Way of All Flesh (ancient slushy film), Life of O’Reilly (music), The Fugitive, The Riordans and Teen Talk.

By the time Telefís Éireann had reached its first non-religious show of the big day, UTV had already served up Stingray, Fireball XL5, Robin Hood and Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer, with panto, The Beverly Hillbillies, Thunderbirds, The Big Valley and Bruce Forsyth piling in behind with a sackful of kiddies’ treats.
While a tad more staid, the BBC was still a big lure away from Telefís Éireann for those who could get it, starting with a breakfast serving of Laurel & Hardy and onward with Billy Smart’s Circus, Dr Who, Ken Dodd, Val Doonican, The Black & White Minstrels and Christmas Top Of The Pops.

Although the boys and girls were too young to appreciate it, when it came to toys, 1960’s Ireland had never had it so good.
One spin-off from America’s baby boom of the 1950s was a huge surge in the quantity and variety of toys being designed and manufactured there, while Formosa (Taiwan) filled a gap for cheap and cheerful plastic dolls and other bric-a-brac.

With a range of wartime industries tapering off, factory space and production lines across the United States was available for speedy conversion to cater to the demands of the peacetime market, and millions of young families starting up in post-war America and flush with money demanded newer and better toys.

By the start of the 1960s, this boom in toymaking was beginning to make itself felt in an Ireland in the first mild flushes of its own economic mini-boom.
While some children perched on the knee of their local department store Santa still asked for slippers, or an umbrella, as their Christmas wish, the popular requests now included talking dolls, electric model cars, electric toy sewing machines and the mind-boggling range of products piggybacking on the rage for the space race.

The modest expectations of just a decade before had been gleefully cast aside by a generation who wouldn’t believe a word from parents who told them that in their day a bar of chocolate and an orange would have made the perfect start to their Christmas morning.

In the run-up to Christmas 1962 the country’s top department store, Clery’s announced the opening of the kiddies’ wonderland it called Toytown.

Continue reading in this year’s Christmas Annual