I made my mother a brush from a coat hanger and two balls of yarn - the Christmas present I will never forget

It was November in the early 1970s and, as usual, I had no money or idea. And my mom wasn't going to help with the latter. While everyone else in the Jeffries family provided lists of Christmas gift ideas - my father's, for example, included a stocking cap, Anna Karenina and a socket set - my mother gave no indication of what she might like.

The gold standard for gifts is that you produce a gift that shows the recipient that you know them better than they know. knows himself. They never knew they wanted salsa lessons or a velor jumpsuit, but thanks to you, they do now. If not, you might as well give them the receipt so they can exchange your hopeless offering for something they'd really like. Or bypass the whole process with tokens.

Then I watched Blue Peter and realized there might be a Christmas miracle in the Black Country in the early 1970s. One of the presenters, probably John Noakes or Peter Purves, because it seems absurd to consider for a moment that someone as smart and sane as Valerie Singleton would have such a doomed idea. failed and sexist than this, told British children they could make a paintbrush as a gift. It might work, I said on TV. Mom would appreciate my work and a glimpse of her secret desires.

TV in the early 70s was always telling me what to do. Rather than lounging in my pants, I should be doing something. Blue Peter and why don't you just turn off your TV and do something less boring instead? constantly advising my generation how to use sticky plastic and washing-up liquid bottle caps. Prepubescent viewers were more productive at this time than British Leyland. Which isn't saying much, but underlines how much the UK economy has always depended on child labour.

I followed the instructions to the letter . First, I snuck into my parents' bedroom and nicked a wire coat hanger, then folded it in half and unrolled the hook to form a handle. Then I went into the bathroom and put my bloody hand under the cold running tap for a while. Next, I asked my mother for two balls of wool in contrasting colors - ideally one yellow and one blue. It seems highly unlikely that she was unsuspecting.

In my bedroom, I got to work, wrapping the wool around the metal frame, using the age-old skills of my mast-dancing ancestors. When that was done I realized the handle needed some work. As it was, that sharp bare metal could gouge out someone's eyes. He had already cut off my finger. So I wrapped alternating blue and yellow wool around the handle until no bare metal was visible and tied the pieces of wool into an unbreakable knot.

Next I cut 20 pieces of wool blue and 20 of yellow, each about a foot long, and tied them in alternating loops on the frame of the hanger.

I reviewed my work. This “brush” was a big disappointment. How could dangling loops of wool brush against anything? They did not have the required rigidity. Maybe I missed a vital step in Blue Pe...