FATHER CHRISTMAS (1973)          author: Raymond Briggs   publisher: Hamish Hamilton                    28 colour pages
			___________________________________________________________________   It's bloomin' Christmas again. Time for Father Christmas to prepare his sled, don his suit and boots and head off on his weary bloomin' way, delivering presents around the world.... 'Father Christmas' won the Library Association Kate Greenaway Medal - 1973 Dialogue is minimal, restricted in the main to Santa's 'bloomin' expletives as he delivers his goodies to girls and boys across the country and the world - he even drops in on Buckingham Palace... Trivia Hounds may note that the author's father, Ernest Briggs and his milkfloat put in an appearance:            It doesn't scan that well, but the number plate reads:     ERB 1900 = Ernest Raymond Briggs, born 1900. Ernest was employed as a Co-op milkman for some 30 years. Sadly, he died just before 'Father Christmas' was published. The book was so successful it spawned a sequel, 'Father Christmas Goes On Holiday'. Both books were combined into an animated film by TVC in 1991with Mel Smith providing Santa's bloomin' voice.    In 1989, that most irreverent of parody comics 'Oink!' provided us with a bloomin' good pastiche of this classic in their Oink! book. In the strip, 'Farver Chrismuss by Raymond Piggs' we see grumpy Santa smashing his alarm clock, kicking his cat down the stairs, and shooting at his reindeer before getting a boot up his own backside for having gone around folks' homes on Boxing Day. It's a bloomin' good pastiche, and looks remarkably like the Briggs original! See also:  Filmography - Father Christmas                  Father Christmas Goes On Holiday                  The Complete Father Christmas                                                       buy this book »    previous »    next »