(HERE'S JOHNNY'S!) CALLING 'ANONYMOUS' FROM STEVE DOES COMICS...COME IN 'ANONYMOUS' FROM STEVE DOES COMICS...DO YOU READ ME? OVER...

If you're not the 'ANONYMOUS' who regularly drops in to the excellent STEVE DOES COMICS blog, you may well be confused by this posting. Just what the heck is it about?

Well, first of all, you shouldn't be reading someone else's mail...but, as you're here, I'll explain.

You see, dear (if nosey) reader, once upon a time there existed a magical place of wonder called JOHNNY'S. Nothing to do with what you got in the barber's 'for the weekend', I assure you, but rather a shop in Gallowflat Street in Rutherglen, Scotland.

My grandparents (who I irreverently referred to as 'Grunt' and 'Grumpy' - shame on me) lived in Rutherglen in the early '60s, and it was our well-established custom to visit them every Sunday. We had to pass through Gallowflat Street en route to their house in Hamilton Road, and we invariably stopped outside Johnny's on the way.

Johnny's was a newsagents, confectioners, tobacconists - and, as well as other sundry things that such shops always stock, also sold toys. Oh, what treasures teased, tempted and tortured us (my brother and me) from within the toy and trinket-bedecked window display. It was there (around 1963/'64) that I first saw an AURORA PHANTOM OF THE OPERA model kit, built and painted in all its blood-curdling, gruesome glory. I well remember being fascinated by the desperate prisoner staring out pleadingly from behind the bars of a basement window on the model's base. Deep lacerations in his arms had exposed the bones, and blazing red blood weeped from the wounds. What four year old boy wouldn't be captivated by such a sight?

A few years later (if memory serves - and why shouldn't it? I pay it enough), Johnny's had moved to bigger premises a few doors along (The Hospice Shop, I think - in the 2nd photo from the top), and it was there I obtained my second QUERCETTI FIREBALL XL5 parachute toy in 1968/'69 (or even '70) for a mere 2/6d. A bargain if ever there was one, because the one I got for Christmas back in 1962/'63 cost 10/6d.

Ah, dear old Johnny's...now sadly long gone. It must have been around the mid or late '70s it closed its doors for the final time, but I don't know for sure. In 1964, my grandparents moved to the town in which we lived to be closer to us, and that 1968/'69 visit to the shop was the last I can remember. (Might've paid it a visit around 1971, but can't be certain.)

The featured photos were taken a good few years ago, when the original Johnny's premises were a flower shop (and might still be). The reason I took them was because the name 'Johnny's' was still clearly visible under the painted green board above the new sign. At least, in real life it was clear, it's a bit harder (but not impossible) to see it in the close-up photographs.

So, 'Anonymous'...here, finally, are the photos that I promised you over at Steve's blog when we were reminiscing about this legendary landmark. Click on them to enlarge, click again for optimum size. You should JUST be able to make out a hint of the name of that long-vanished and much-missed shop from our childhoods, when, I wager, both of us used to think we had forever.

Here's to Johnny's...and to you.