3. Once Upon a Pivotal Christmas

The Amiga A1200 I took delivery of on Christmas day 1993 was a complete surprise. I wanted a computer and I had badgered my parents that little bit extra that year. A Christmas Amiga though is something I hadn’t thought possible so I hadn’t even really mentioned one. Instead, I can remember pawing through the Argos catalogue trying to decide between a NES and a Master System. I thought asking for a £299.99 MegaDrive or SNES was a bit cheeky, and so had convinced myself that I would be getting my very own 8-bit system for Christmas. It wouldn't be state of the art but that didn't matter. It would be a computer and it would be mine.

Christmas Eve turned painfully, slowly, and sleeplessly into Christmas day. I woke up early, and as was traditional for Christmas mornings back then, met my sister on the landing before pestering Mum and Dad to come downstairs with us. Shivering with excitement we opened the lounge door. My sister had a rocking horse that was immediately obvious despite Mum’s best efforts to wrap it up properly. This bode well for me ‘we must have been a bit flush that year’ I thought to myself. Near the horse, sitting on a new computer desk was my wrapped-up present. Not the kind of desk you use to store a NES. The paper was soon off and there before me was a brand spanking new 32-bit Commodore Amiga A1200... to say it blew Graham's BBC out of the water was a bit of an understatement and I was absolutely over the moon.

Actual event itself (recreated using actors -
TMUK is played here by Ronnie Corbett)

Fast forward an hour. The sun has risen to reveal a beautiful frosty Christmas day. My sister is still on her new rocking horse, Mum is putting the turkey in the oven and Dad is swearing at an RF cable, surrounded by various unhelpful Commodore manuals. I seem to remember it taking forever to set up, but once it finally was I had a few blissful hours alone with my new machine before my cousins turned up. The bundled games; ‘Oscar’ and one called ‘Dennis’ were both platform games (Dennis was a shockingly bad one, whilst Oscar was much better). They blazed with a smooth, multi-coloured sheen so far from what I was used to. Deluxe Paint IV AGA and Wordsworth still sat there unopened of course; unexplored treasures waiting to be experienced another day.

Launch-packs used to be more fun

Around midday, the extended family turned up. My grandparents dragged themselves out of bed and shuffled downstairs and my Auntie and Uncle traipsed up the garden path with two shrieking younger cousins in tow. The forced pleasantries began in earnest. After a sharp look from Mum I regretfully switched off the Amiga’s power and joined in.

That Christmas Day passed much like the 11 I had seen before and the nine I have seen since. Inevitably, Grandpa Clowes would have had one too many sweet Sherries and would have turned an alarming shade of red. We would probably have sat around and watched old Liz on the TV, and I'm pretty certain that I would have received a pen set from some unknown Aunt. But what set Christmas Day 1993 apart from the rest was that sleek beige computer, sitting proudly atop its black-ash desk, patiently waiting for its new owner to return and love it some more.

Almost 10 years on and my parents still have great difficulty understanding my love affair with that machine. Only last night I carefully lowered it—or its replacement I should say: another story—down from the cupboard and tenderly set it up once again. It's disk drive sleepily whirred and creaked to life, it flickered it's little light on and off a few times and then presented me with that familiar purple Kickstart screen, just as it had done all those years before. Perhaps that's why a young person’s first machine means so much; years can fly by in a cheek flapping supersonic blur, times may change but the ROM stays true and faithful.

TRUEmetaluk, September 2003.

You can add your thoughts on this story in the forum