Episode 2 - SVW Tapes - 17th December 1978

Full Transcript

"We wish you Merry Christmas, we wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year."

"We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you well."

"Christmas and a Happy New Year."

"And Granddad, I'm going to sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow now, and Mummy will be humming with me to keep me in tune. Here we go."

"Somewhere... over... well... I am glad that I heard of it... one and... my... "

"F, I'm gonna sing Baa Baa Black Sheep. It's my favorite one. One for the biker, one for the little bus down the tree."

"Hello, Grandad. I fell off in front of a basketball... They play basketball and run a rug... What?"

"But when you were a regular rascal, whatever... I was a regular, I felt like..."

"Why, why do we have to... why do you have to say the little rhyme about the ragged rascal, Dad?"

"Because you say 'rocks, rocks', and you say 'risk, risk', and you say 'Rachael, Rachael', you don't properly say... why do you have to say 'The ragged rascal ran round the rugged rocks'?"

"The ragged rascal ran round the rocket lock... my... I want... I will... all want everyone to sing Away in a Manger and then we only sing until he's crying."

"Don't try any other thing, okay? Because then I don't know you, right. We'll say at the end..."

"We'll say it on Grand... Can I say it all? Meanwhile, bye say..."

"This is going to be Away in a Manger. We don't know it either, please don't worry if we stop halfway through. Please don't worry if we stop halfway, right, ready go says Okay..."

"The J down in three days I look down..."

"It... little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay. And you silly Maitland, the cattle... the baby awakes, the little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes..."

"That's all that we know of Away in a Manger. That's all."

"Now this is Talk to the Animals." "Okay, bye bye." "If we could talk to the animals, just imagine it, chatting to a chimpanzee..." "...Imagine talking to a tiger, chatting to a cheetah. What a neat achievement it would be if we could talk to the animals..." "...learn their languages, maybe take an animal degree. With elephant and eagle, buffalo and beagle, alligator, guinea pig and flea..." "...We could converse in polar bear and python. And we would curse in fluent kangaroo." "If people asked us 'can you speak rhinoceros?' we'd say 'Of course-ceros!" "If we conferred with our furry friends, man to animal..." "...think of all the things we could discuss. If we could talk to the animals, talk with the animals, grumpy and sweet and sour with the animals." "And they could talk to us."

"That's all we can let me do, okay. Going to sing Jingle Bells. It's my favorite, favorite song. Because I like Father Christmas. See me longness."

"Sn... jingles, jingle bells, jingle all the way... fine it is to ride on a... Oh jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way..."

"I rode on one horse open sleigh... Jingle, jingle, jingle all the way."

"One fun to ride on one horse open sleigh... Jingle, jingle, jingle all the... ride open... Nana, we were driving past in winter lots of old houses and saw on their garages, and we saw lots of sleighs..." "...and we saw one with two seats, and it was nice." "And in the winter here, they're going to put the horses where they pull sleighs around." "And we might have a white Christmas this year. And stars bright and Peter..."

"Hello Grandad. Have you had a lovely Christmas? Yeah on... You're going to tell them about something." "Do you know the highest building in the world is? You got to come to America to see it." "Oh, what's the building called? It's this... this tower." "Hello... And it's how many stories? 101 stories and 1,500 feet." "And you go up in the lift and... go up on the lift that goes very fast." "Fastest lift in the world." "In what city is it in?" "Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin' town, Chicago, Chicago, I'll show you around." "Well, I'll bet your bottom dollar, you lose the blues in Chicago, Chicago, the town that Billy Sunday could not shut down. On State Street..." "...that great street. I just want to say, we've been on State Street, haven't we children?" "And what were they doing on State Street when we were there?" "Digging it up." "Winter." "I don't know why. And we saw a cop swimming down there and two cops and Dad or a car driving..." "Yeah, they are... a car driving down the wrong side of the road. That's right." "They were playing cops and robbers that day with... We didn't know what would happen."

"Grandmother, we went to see Richard Genoa, and I'll tell you all about him." "One day, he took us to a place and we got honey cheaper than normal because you have to take your own jars, and we went up there..." "...and he showed us around the town, and we went up everywhere around the town. Where is Genoa, Rachael?" "It's not far from somewhere... It's not far from the falls. No Niagara? No, at Niagara Falls." "And where did we meet Ru?" "At... Syracuse? No, no, know where the waters met him." "We met him at the Grand Canyon, and he gave me a necklace and a map of the Grand Canyon because he called me over to see as I was going over to see the rocks..." "...and he called me. So I went, and he gave me this necklace and the..." "...It had 'drawer' in the Grand Canyon and me climbing... and me climbing up the Grand Canyon, and it has coloured birds on it. And I was climbing up the Grand Canyon, and it said 'Happy Grand Canyon Birthday'. I think I might have told you that before one day, but I just was going to remind you. He lives in Geneseo, which is in which state?" "New York. That's the state it was in. And we were looking on the map about how far it was, and we rang up at the station, he wasn't there. And then we arrived there to see him, and he had gone out somewhere... somewhere to drink and visit JJ and..." "Then we met Camp in his house, and it was sold already, but he hasn't been told to move out." "So we waited overnight, and in the middle of the night, he pulled in and shouted, 'Who are you?'" "'Are you looking for someone?' And Dad shouted out, 'We met you...' or something. Said, 'We're looking for Rich.'"**"We're looking for Rich.' And Rich didn't hear him. So we just said to ourselves..." "...'I'll see you in the morning today.' And so we met him in the morning, and he didn't..." "...And then he found out who we were because they couldn't recognize the camper. I finished now, drinking..." "...hadn't he? He had been drinking and been to JJ. But then we went to... where do we go?" "We went back up into what country?" "Through the Adirondacks. And we went..." "...and we went to Canada. And what state of Canada we went to?" "Nova Scotia. We went to the end, and we met..." "...Yeah, and we met Simon." "We went to stay at his house. Where does he live, Rachael?" "Nova Scotia. And we were... our next-door neighbors from New Zealand." "Have you remembered him, Nana? He's next to Scott's house, Simon. She won't see you, darling, so you can go home." "That's all about him. And we met at his house. He lives...? What he does?" "No, that's Dartmouth. Dartmouth, which is near where? And it's near Halifax. And you go across a bridge to Halifax." "And he's in Dartmouth. That's the tape from me now. Hello, I'm gonna say..." "I'm gonna say some French words. And you better understand." "Where did you learn these French words?" "And I learned them quickly and quickly. And they all talk French... Quebec." "And Montreal. And the man hit me at Montreal. I was going to have it up in the window, and the man hit me, and Dad sneaked out behind him and hit him. No, and..." "They were shaking. He was shaped like a jealous person, but he was a funny old man." "He really was a weirdo. But what do you have to say to people if you don't know whether they speak English or not?" "Parlez Anglais? Parlez Francais?" "And what do you say when you're thanking people?" "Wait? No, no, no. That's when you want something." "Merci, merci, merci. And what do you say when you're thanking someone in Mexico, Maitland?" "Gracias." "But what was unusual about Quebec? What was right around the city?" "A big, big wall." "You're right, Rachael, isn't it? And what are the streets like?" "No, it always treats them... what they are down there with something over front... rock?" "Working to take people around the streets. And I heard a big thing over its mirror." "Horses that..." "...And those men had to take them back home. And put their coats on." "No, they have horses down in the little city part, don't they, take the tourists?" "And where the fort... the fort that was there? That was the Citadel Fort to talk about." "Oh, you want to talk about two forts. Yeah, we saw a citadel in Nova Scotia and Halifax too, didn't we? Yeah, in Nova Scotia, we found a fort." "Simon took us to the fort. That was at the Citadel." "And that was where... remember the big accident they had in Halifax Harbour and all those people were killed?" "What happened? Excellent, the T-shirts. The ship's... crashed... had exploded and..." "Rachael, you tell them. You know about it, don't you?" "Well, there were two ships in Halifax Harbour. One was full of explosives, and the other one was too." "And the sailors on board... they both crashed together, and they blew up, and it hit all the houses and blew everything down, and the sailors were all killed." "Over 5000 people were killed. 5000 people were killed, over... and all the houses were missed." "And there was a great big bank where it was. And we saw it when we were crossing the harbour bridge." "And today, guess what happened? We were at a wharf, and we saw great big ships, and they had four masts on each one." "And they were burnt inside. They were old sailing ships." "And no one cared for them, and they were old sailing ships. It was... yeah, in the morning." "We were there, and there were great, great, great big ones. And it was...? sick." "And they were fishing there, and we all came in and were freezing. What did we see?" "We arrived at Bar Harbor the other day. We went down on the way to see the lady from the tourist bureau. We went and looked at a yacht that was hooked up at the... Some people." "We went to have a look at your yacht, and there were some people from Australia, and they had come all the way from Australia to America on their yacht. It was on the yacht, and they came a very long way. And they had a boat with two masts, and it was a very, very big boat, and it had a lounge room and a stove all underneath the deck, and they had lots of fishing things, and it was a nice boat." "And they sailed all the way from Australia to... Bar Harbor. That's because we came across each other." "Do you want to tell me how we came across it? Well, Maitland can tell them that." "How did we come across from where we come from, Maitland?" "Ya..." "...mouth." "Yeah, Mr came to Bar Harbor on a big ship. And what was it called? What was it called?" "Something..." "...Blue Nose. That's right, the Blue Nose. And there, we had something on board there, the Blue Nose." "Tell them everything that you had to do on board." "There were toilets. Of course, there were toilets." "But what are some of the more interesting things that were on board? Oh, I know." "Bar and a casino, just like we... just like Las Vegas." "We won something at Las Vegas, a little teddy bear. But there was a casino on the ship, wasn't there? The same as we live in Vegas?" "k... longing as you could put the dime in the thing. The money is the slot." "I saw thousands of people winning. A lot more losing, mate. I... Rachael, we were in the casino, and they found... this nice man..." "...he dropped a 10 cent and had done, and then they picked it up, and he was allowed to keep it." "So we tried it. And then those people won 50... $45." "And they took it out, and they got a change to paper money, and they were winning every time." "They put money in, and they gave me 20 cents, and I had two goes, but won nothing." "That was a shame. Must not reachy. And it got jammed." "And one man let us put in a dollar's worth, 'Suddenly', and knew we didn't get one... 40 cents back." "Yeah, I won 40 cents for him. And the same man gave me the dollars worth." "He let me pull the lever and won the dollar, and we won the dollars worth. The same man." "I won them. For... he sees her."

"Hello, Nana and Grandad." "We're in Atlanta, and we will finish your tape tonight. Hi, how are you, bye... his hello." "Anyone, Grandad." "This is Maitland. When I went to the city... When we were almost here, we went to McDonald's, you know about that?" "Now, let's see... John, Hugh..." "...And not dirty. I'm dirty. John, little boy. And I'm..." "...And Hugh and Beth and Jack. Oh, I think I told you, Jack, and they went skiing. What are we doing?" "And we're looking up at the house. Yes, it's really neat, bye bye." "Tell them what... they haven't made... have been? I..." "We have... they have a maid called Beth, and... she's a last..." "...She's a black... she's a nice lady with black hair."

"Nana and Grandad, we're staying in Jack's house at the moment. We had the lights on the Christmas tree while we're doing it." "We made a cake for them while they were on holiday skiing, and the cake has sleighing candies for its arm, for its things..." "...So I can go on the snow, and... we put tiny presents that we made on it." "And I helped Mum make the cake. And all they did..." "...and all they were... and all... and all they were doing was being a pest..." "Still is." "Maitland, don't be a pest before Rachael... you start thinking of something you want to tell them." "And I hate him while he's doing this because he keeps throwing... shooting us with guns while we make the cake, tipping flour out of the cup that we got the cake made after all that took a bit of..." "He's been... pest... you can see on... into the speaker, you just did it then. Bye." "What does it sound like, Maitland? That's your vision of what? Hello, again this sounds like a sea." "You listen very carefully. I said in the middle of Rachael's talk. Yes, and I'm very mad. He did, too."

"No, we were in Atlanta. We actually came to Atlanta before. And we came down a month ago." "And then we all... we didn't stay. We only stayed a couple of days." "And then we set off in our castle again. And where did we go to?" "What state? Florida? No, and I went to Florida first." "We went across the Charles... across the... and down to Savannah. And down Savannah." "Now, do you remember one night in Savannah? We were playing on the waterfront." "And in Savannah, there's a very big river, and the boats come right past you, don't they? Boy, you could almost touch them." "And you and Rachael were playing in a sandpit on the waterfront." "And what it was like, was a sandpit. It was a sandpit made. And it was a boat, not a tugboat." "Oh, we were on... This tugboat was a boat. And then we played on it." "We made such a mess. When we were leaving in the morning, we saw the men cleaning everything." "And I said to you that was your mess they were cleaning. When we left there, we went down to Savannah... Other people were there too, made a fairly good job of it, weren't you? When we went to Savannah, there's something... Savannah's a very interesting place. It's very beautiful at the waterfront. But what's the... do you remember something about Savannah when we kept thinking we'd been around the block all the time?" "Because what... what's different about Savannah? All the same...? Of little parks on every corner, isn't there? All the streets are divided into blocks. On every block, there's a little park, beautiful park with a fountain or a statue or..." "...And you don't... And most of them are the same. And you never know which one... You think you're going around every block, and you think you're going right around, but you really... you go on one, and you see this, and then you're on another, you see this, you're about one... you're on the same block." "We called... where they train all the American servicemen? Parris Island. And we saw the army men marching up and... yeah, guns. That's right." "The guns weren't real. I think they were. Then we stopped at a lot of places, right?" "We stopped at a lot of places on the way, swam in the sea because it was lovely to get back to Florida again because it was lovely and warm and hot again. And then we went to Miami, and we called..." "We met a guy on a bus in New York..." "...who was a captain of a yacht. And he was chatting away to us." "And he said that he had a friend in Miami, in Coconut Grove." "And he was a New Zealander, married to an American girl, and they had a couple of children." "And that we should come visit when we got there. They weren't home, but we met another guy who was very interesting." "What was his name? Know... he had long hair and used to dress up... the red suit with banana... Captain Banana. Banana Cr..." "...He kept bananas. And he was really a Canadian. But he moved around a bit and..." "...he was at the time in Miami. And he had a girl with him." "And her name was Anu... Anu... Anu. And where was she from?" "Do you remember? Israel? No. Israel. Funny, very funny Israel, not one. Anyway, Kate, it's going..." "...eventually the girls... the girl came home who owned the house, was married to the Kiwi guy, but he was away delivering a yacht. So we went up for dinner with her that..." "...wife. Vegetable." "Anyway, Captain Bananas was great fun. But when we left Miami, where did we go?" "We went to the Everglades. And what did we see? Crocodiles... crocodiles and alligators." "We saw alligators, but no crocodiles because they're all nearly killed, and they live in the sea." "And there's no boardwalks because they're too strong. And we saw all the alligators." "We saw lots of alligators, didn't we? Real live alligators. And when they look at logs from the water... And one went right under..." "...underneath us. That we were standing on a bridge. But it's neat, isn't it? Because you can walk around the boardwalk. And then... don't do that, Dad, because I can't... come out of the..." "Then when we left there, we went right down to Key West, didn't we? Which is long..." "...What do you do to get to Key West? What's unusual is that? Gotta goes in a big, big way." "Big, big... lot of them. Well, it's 150 miles from Miami..." "...but it's little islands all joined up by bridges, little bridges." "It's... 107... and it's fabulous and warm, isn't it? Lovely... 150 miles long bridges. It's 150 miles long, the bridges." "Well, they all joined up. But then when we were down there, we met two guys that were truckies, and they had three house loads of furniture on their truck, but they couldn't leave. It was a Sunday, and they couldn't leave Key West till the next day to pick up because they hadn't picked up their papers." "And what did they go and get out of the truck for us?" "Bye... bicycle... bicycle? No. Ice blocks. Bicycle. They were going to... bikes. So... to Denver. Going to Denver. And one lot was going to Seattle." "I didn't hear them say one whole lot going to Seattle. Oh, there were three house loads. One was going to Denver, and one was going somewhere, one was going to..." "Anyway, we left Key West and we came back to Miami. We went to their place for dinner." "We said goodbye to Bananas, and we set off for Naples." "Naples leaflets? Not Naples, Naples. And then we went to Sarasota, which has the most beautiful beach and white sand." "We swam there all day, and then we gradually went on. We went to Tallahassee." "And we're ready to... Grace?" "We went to New Orleans." "Cold there, never goes down." "Well, it was a warm one, wasn't it? It was 80 degrees one day, and what? Very next day..." "...It was 1... 30! Boy, we are cold. That sudden drop, it was a big shock. Everybody was talking about it." "But New Orleans was very good fun, wasn't it? They have lots of jazz bands." "To this side now. You better turn it over or you'll be listening back to front. Turn it over, please..." "...man if you're on this side, thank you." "Okay, so then we got back... oh, when we left New Orleans, we went up to Baton Rouge." "And you just heard about New Orleans. Yeah, but then we went to Memphis. Who lived in Memphis?" "Who was the singer that lived in Memphis? We went to see his grave. Was... Oh, Elvis Presley. Up close... back. He died." "He died. It was very sad. We went to see his tomb. You'd better come to America." "Everything's better because we've been... house... boarding in the world. You got to drive on the other side of the road." "Now what's so funny about being down here in the South? What does everybody say to you?" "They all say..." "...something about coming back to see them. See... say... 'Y'all come back now, you hear? Y'all come back.' 'Y'all take care now.' Oh, do you know what we forgot to tell Nana?" "When we were down in Florida, we went home... Where is Disney World?" "Not far from Orlando. It's at a place called Buena Vista. Buena Vista. Oh, let's tell Nana what we did at Disneyland. Where we camped, we stayed right outside the most beautiful hotel in the world called the Polynesian." "And it's just fabulous. But we just camped in the parking lot. We couldn't go on the monorail because we weren't people... we could get the monorail from another place. So what do we do to get there in the morning? We got on the monorail, and you go through a beautiful hotel called the Contemporary. Remember? You go right through the middle of the hotel. And when we got there in the morning, what world do we go to first? We went to Tomorrowland. Tomorrowland. And what do we see... did... at Tomorrowland? What do we do in Tomorrowland? Races that you..." "...Oh, Space Mountain. I liked it, but it's scary. I hated it and liked it." "I don't really know what that means. But what... what did I have to do when we went on Space Mountain? What do you do? You go up a platform, and you get a little rocket. Yeah, they... you and I had to take off your glasses... my glasses. It was all dark, and it was... I was too... roller coaster in the dark, isn't that? Yeah, you almost go down. Well, Maitland didn't like it one bit, did you boy? Way..." "Rachael didn't like it. I like picking gun... smooth ride. But when they just... just got so scared... going bumped and bumped and bumped. I just thought the thing was going to fall, and it would be terrible. And Rachael, when she first got off it, she said, 'Oh, she didn't like it, she felt sick.' And then about half an hour later, she said, 'May I go back on Space Mountain now?'" "We won... and my favorite, boy. What's your favorite? The Haunted House. Oh, what's in the Haunted House?" "When they go past the clock... pointy hands... back mail gang round, round, round. And there's lots of ghosts." "And you see a shadow playing the piano when there's no person there. And spiders walking. Yeah, and coffins lifting up." "Yeah, and a man pushing a door open. But you're on little motorized seats. And you... what happens when you come out of the Haunted House? You and I were sitting together. Who else was with us?" "I couldn't believe you." "And then my place turned into a ghost, and then one sat with us, didn't it? Yeah, say go that way. And guess what happened when... and they went... Mum and Dad stayed out. We... well our ghost... our ghost that was sitting in our carriage, while the pamphlet of it in the book of the Haunted House... you see they have a book of everything, and the Haunted House had our ghost in the picture with two people... saw the ghost, and the ghost that was with us..." "...in the picture with two other people that weren't really there in the book. So now we know which ghost came with me and Beth. That's right. And what else was it we went on that?" "The gondola. The gondola. You went on the flying elephant, and we... on the starting... the PeopleMover. And I thought of something... the rocket... the flying elephant... don't go on the PeopleMover sideways with no safety belt. Who was that? Right boy? Yeah, PeopleMover got the... we square box?" "And that keeps jerking, yeah. What else was there? What happened at lunchtime?" "Lunch was a parade, and it was Mickey Mouse's birthday. And how old is he?" "40? 1... 50! But he doesn't look it, does he?" "Keeping his age very well. No... as small as Mickey Mouse and all his friends, the whole lot. They all came out, and you cuddled a lot of the animals, didn't you? All his friends... guess what happened? Guess what man broke off a balloon, gave it to this girl that flew up, and he broke off one, and it popped in his shirt." "Anyway. There's all kinds of things to do. Fun on that one that walked with... fast... nice because he had the balloons and..." "...Oh, was that Goofy?" "No, that was that great... I don't know what his name is." "He was right beside us and never stopped here to turn it off." "I liked him because he had funny sandals on and... and when wearing a naughty arm... hood..." "...came along and pinched his balloon and pinched his bottom." "He bended over, and he went... and he went running away. That's right." "Oh, there's so many things to do at Disney World, isn't there? Tell you... We're going to live where we can..." "...you see Disney World is... it's cut into two places, and we only went in one. And we're going to live in Florida here this year in an apartment, and we're going to do the rest... that other bit." "Yeah, there's another land. It's not like Los Angeles. It's all much newer than the Los Angeles part. That's going to get past it? No, this one... what you mean right here is that they... the other part that we missed..." "...where they have water things that you get into your togs, and you slide down these lovely water slides, long, long ones... over a mile anyway. I think we should tell then Grandad what we've been doing since we came back to Atlanta. We came back just a couple of days before Bev and Jack were setting off to go to... they've gone to Vail, the most beautiful ski area in the whole of the United States. And off the boys went... one wasn't feeling very well, but he regained consciousness with some time to get away. And they've got beautiful skis and jackets and lovely coats. And when we got back, they gave you children some lovely warm coats, didn't they? But oh yes, well, you'll get... Styling? Jack's got a lovely school here, hasn't it? It's the most beautiful school. It's got beautiful gymnasium and then swimming pools, and it's just like a university campus anyway." "The last day of school, because the children break up here on the 15th, and they don't go back to school until the second or third of January. They get... they get two weeks now, and they get eight weeks in June... 12 weeks in June. Yeah... 12 weeks, if they go to school longer a day here than you do in New Zealand. They start earlier, and they finish later." "Anyway, we went to Jack's school concert, didn't we? We get there, and they had a bazaar, and then we had a lovely Christmas dinner in the cafeteria, deep Southern fried chicken, and then..." "...here comes Tigger... Oh, Tigger, you want to get on our tape? Yeah." "Anyway, and then they had the concerts. Oh, we went to the basketball match first, and John was the big hero." "Oh, your brownie! Yes, you got a brownie at the Christmas dinner, didn't you?" "Anyway, then John played in the basketball match and was the hero of the night, scoring a shot in the last... I don't know if you just heard when you're listening to the tape on side two today, and what we're doing now... you might have heard something run. That was the gray pussycat running in front of the tape recorder, trying to get away." "He's gray. He's got a white leash, if you ever see him. He's pretty cute." "They have a white one that never lets you see him. This is a lovely house. It's not Rachael..." "...It's a very big house. It's on a very, very big piece of land." "It's in a lovely part of Atlanta, really beautiful. It's just down the road from the Governor's mansion, which we went to yesterday. And it's brown, isn't it, in the fridge?" "Oh, you just been... some fudge though. We'll give you a piece of it." "There's lots of bedrooms and lots of lovely... The brownie, by the way, is a special little cookie that they eat here and make. Like we lost his brownie. So we've all now just had a piece of fudge, and you might have heard we backtracked... we stopped to go and get it." "And what else have we been doing? The Governor's mansion yesterday was open to the public, and the Governor and his wife stood there for four hours shaking hands." "They shook hands with you, didn't they? And he's running for president, and apparently quite..." "...could be president in about eight years. Anyway, but the house was lovely, and it was all decorated, and they had a lovely Christmas tree, Rachael, and it's got antique Christmas tree things going back to 19... 18... from the Children's Museum. And guess who...? I'm more pleased with the Governor's mansion than the White House because the White House you only saw three rooms: the Green Room, the Blue Room, and the room... and the meeting rooms, all. But you think you saw more at the Governor's mansion. You, Rachael, you saw nearly all the rooms... lovely toys from the Children's Museum too, didn't you? I need some more... oh, no more fudge! We make this lovely fudge they make." "Beautiful fudge here because they have the stuff called marshmallow cream that you put on it." "And it is really something. Not needed. Yeah, anyway. Fudge... make a whole brownie... fudge. Tell him what Danny's doing. He's with your hat on babying... we got that hat in Los Angeles. Remember that lady gave it to... that gave you yours, and your hat's got special words on it. What does it say?" "S... mine says 'Tiger Woods'. Yours is a baseball headgear... says 'Auburn Tigers'. Me, if I have one... open fudge." "Well, we'll finish the tape... we'll finish the tape now. Listen, I'm post... right now, I'm going to post this tape to Gore because Nana and Grandpa are going to Gore for Christmas. Christmas is a week today, seven days today is Christmas Day. So they won't get this tape in time for Christmas now because tomorrow will it be Christmas? No, a week today, it's Monday today... by next Monday, it'll be Christmas. It'll be Christmas the day before in New Zealand because they're a day ahead of us. So we'll post this tape to Gore, and they might get it between Christmas..." "...and New Year. Well, and I hope you get this in Gore. I'm sorry we won't have it by Christmas Day, but it's just that we just wanted to get back here in time, and I don't know, one thing and another, and you find that when you do get to people's places, you're so involved, you don't get... just stay there a long time and go to any post office... we'll post them. But I think we should sing a little happy Christmas song for Tanya and Tasha and Steve. And so shall we wish them a Merry Christmas too? We'll sing 'I wish you a Merry Christmas'." "We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We wish that we could be with you, we wish that we could be with you..." "...We wish that we could be with you for a Happy New Year." "We wish you were in America, we wish you were in America, we wish you were in America for an even happier New Year." "There's a movie... it's Disney World, and it's called 'America the Beautiful'. And we're seeing everything except New Orleans. We're seeing everything except New Orleans in the movie, but now we're seeing New Orleans. We're seeing everything in America, everything that's... you really? Yeah, not... we haven't seen all the houses, Rachael." "This is Maitland Waters with a Christmas message to Tanya, Stephen, Natasha, Tasha, David and David and Dot. Dot? Dot..." "...Not a dog. And then Grandad... top? And Grandad." "So what is your Christmas message, boy?" "My Christmas mission is... I hope you have a very nice Christmas, and I hope you go to bed very early because then you sleep..." "...very... and they make it good... good rest so you can get up very early and look at all your presents. Bye, bye." "This is Rachael, it's my... this is my Christmas message from America. It's to Nana, David, Dot, Tanya..." "...Tasha and Stephen. And Dad. I hope you have a nice Christmas and go to bed early because then you get more time to unwrap your presents. And we're in Atlanta. They stayed up very late and saw Christmas, but I don't want you to do that. You just go to bed, wake up in the morning nice and early, and unwrap your presents. And I hope you have a Merry Christmas. Something nice... Nana, I think you've heard about my needlepoint. I haven't got time to do it and all that, but..." "...you'll get it after Christmas or something. Just wait for it, it'll come to you soon." "Because we never get much time to do anything like... right, later said, don't worry about us now." "You better not stay up too late. Or you won't have time... unwrap..." "...the wet... unwrap your presents 'cause you'll get too tired, and it won't be strong." "So if you have more sleep, you get stronger, it'll be better to open the parcels." "Can you tell them how strong you're getting, Mum?" "When they weren't able to see your muscles, you'd have to tell them how good your muscles are." "Where my muscles are... FD. That's a slight..." "You can run fast now, can't you, boy? And work..." "...And my muscles are a hundred... tin... wide? They're just very strong and hard. Now my boy..." "...Have you finished my one? I'm by... I'm finished." "Is your Christmas tree up a bit? Of course, it is, so knows..." "...he wants some presents because I fed up. He'll think you want a present." "You tell Nana and Grandad about the nasty Father Christmas you get in this country. Moonie either." "People that dress up as Father Christmas and that is that..." "...And they were religious? And they just want money and get booze... drunk booze and drugs and... drunk means drugs? Oh, you want... think they get drunk, boy? Yeah, do? Yeah. Well, no, the Moonies are a religious organization, go places and pay... and do you think Nana and Grandad did know about the terrible thing that happened in Guyana here, Rachael?" "What is it that you listen to? Well, Jones made all the people drink poison. They died, and 900 people died. And he was a naughty man. He shot himself so he didn't have pain. Babies of months old died, and everybody died. Mum might be able to tell you that at the end of the tape properly. Well, people here are very upset about it, aren't they? Reach? Yeah, because he's very upset about it." "Some of the people got away. The men got away. And the punishment was... this is children's punishment... tie them up to a tree out in the bush angle... in the jungle all night until... and all night until a snake... poisoned snake bit them, and then bring them in... or in a dark house and shock... electric shots hit them or dipping... dipping them in a well..." "...shout and bring them up and down then till they scream, 'Daddy, loud enough, Daddy, Daddy, I won't do it again, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!' And that's what they would do..." "...for punishment. Tell them about it." "Do... at New Orleans, I forgot to tell you. You see, we were driving along..." "...And he stopped in the park." "And there was... a man dressed up as Father Christmas." "He was... what he really was, a Moonie. And he was just trying to dress up so he would get money." "And they say... and he said, 'You want one of these books, Dad?'" "He offers him a candy first, doesn't he? Give you candy? Yeah, but he really would pull you out of the..." "...No, no, you wouldn't. He just wants money." "I know he would give you candy, and then he would..." "...People were giving them a lot of money, weren't they? People opening up their purses and giving them money. They're crazy." "I don't think they have Moonie Father Christmases in New Zealand, boy. I know they're very mean. So we gotta tell them about them to be wary. So you mustn't give Moonies money because they never look like Father Christmas. And we know they never... How do you know they aren't real Father Christmas? Because... hair too young." "No, they got faces. And the top part... of course, they got faces." "Father Christmas has got a face, hasn't he? The Christmas beard is real, then... just stick... stick on one, I think." "And so you must never give them money, never carry sweets around, and never give any children any. None, none, none." "Dad... he was offering Dad a book. Bedroom?" "Have it because they say they give it to you, and then they make you pay because they say... they say it's free, but it isn't. He's just asking for money." "Bye, bye. No, I mean it. He gives them the candies and follows behind them, and they give him money before he can say Jack Robinson. And they really do that because we saw ladies giving him money and money and money and not buying the book and only got one candy and kicked him the money and money."

Well, Christmas in America really is very, very exciting. There's all kinds of carol singing and choirs. The Governor's mansion yesterday, when he and his wife were busy shaking hands with their eyebrows, they had choirs, new ones, different ones every half hour. Because we're in the Bible Belt here, of course, they're all Baptists, you know, if everybody belongs to a church and they're pretty religious. Doesn't stop them from making a few bob out of people. Anyway, the television programs are just fabulous. They've got Nashville on the Road and the Grand Ole Opry, which they haven't... got place... school. But we didn't go to the Grand Ole Opry because you can only... you have to book months in advance, and it's only open Friday and Saturday. But we're going to go back in the summer because they have an outdoor Opryland, which is open only during the summer, so we thought we'd do the whole thing together. But the television programs are fabulous, the Christmas programs. They did one from Williamsburg, which we had been to, so it was great fun. That was Perry Como. Williamsburg is probably, I think, the most beautiful tourist attraction like that. The whole... the whole town has completely been restored for, you know, tourist purposes, and it's all oldie worldie. The Rockefellers apparently poured millions into it, and the whole town is completely as it was 200 years ago. Actually, we've been fortunate on this whole trip because America is looking at its very best. So much was done for the 200-year celebrations that everything's sort of very up to date.

But some of the programs on television are really funny. They really get stuck into Carter. And they're on about the energy crisis and how worried... and of course, Cleveland went bankrupt at midnight the night before last. And everybody's, you know, having jokes about that. They reckon that Cleveland has moved to Arizona to make a new fresh start. There's all kinds of jokes about the energy crisis. One that I heard the other night was... because everybody says 'y'all' here... and they said that Carter has a new policy for the festive season. And the C is for 'conserve your energy alert'. And to show how he really was going to do something about it... you may have read that his whole family is making a fortune out of the fact that he's president here. They write books, they go visit planes, they give... his brother Billy gets $10,000 a pop at Mother's Club parties and goodness knows what to raise money. And that even the daughters and the grandmother... They put her in a wheelchair and fire her around the countryside promoting him. They had a... outside the White House, and he had his little blonde daughter with her. And his contribution to the promotion was that she was going to flick out all the Christmas lights all at once and see how pretty it was. And this... she is standing outside the White House and pulls the big switch, and all the lights of the Christmas trees all over America go out. Their Christmas trees really are something to be seen. They're absolutely covered in the most beautiful Christmas decorations. The decorations are fabulous. I'm going to collect some and bring them back. They're kind to everyone because they are... they're just beautiful.

They're really getting stuck into Carter over China too. People don't seem to be too happy about it. They look upon it as his decision because he thinks he's going to be remembered and put down in history over creating good relationships. But they're not... people that we have spoken to anyway, not altogether happy about it.

And it's quite a country, really. The funny thing is, you know, it's the American way of making money. It's so acceptable, like the way that the President's family makes so much out of him. They all just say to us, "That's the American way, to make a million."

People are terribly friendly here in Atlanta. We're in a very expensive area. The school that Jack teaches at... he's the headmaster of what we would call, you know, the primary department... three schools within the one. It's just like a university campus. Unbelievable. The money poured into these schools is unreal, but the school is particularly good. The children have to have a very high IQ to get into it, as well as plenty of money, so it makes it pretty exclusive. And like we went to a basketball game the other night... there's some drawing plays... and just the uniforms these kids have, you know, his basketball... the uniform was... they have the top, and then they have the tracksuit and the warm-up suit and sweaters and everything, all just for basketball. And that's the same for every sport and every other activity. They keep them terribly busy. They're all in the band, or they're playing a sport, or they're doing something. They're all very busy. It's a very competitive school. Competition's the big thing here, of course.

Bev looked... a couple of days ago, the next-door neighbors invited... invited us there last night. They're Baptists and very wealthy people. They had a whole lot of kids from the university, Baptist children, in for dinner last night. And they have three very beautiful daughters and one son. And one works for Delta Airlines, the other one's starting studying at Med school. And so we had dinner with them, and we had a Christmas story time with the children first, and then we had dinner and a very nice evening with them. They're very friendly people. Everyone's marvelous. Rachael has been delivering invitations. Beverly's having a party, a block party they called it, on the 30th after Christmas, of all the neighbors. And Rachael was delivering some invitations, and kids... you have to say you wouldn't be home... she was going in to visit this one and that one. They've all got servants, all black servants. Everyone seems to have one. That's quite the thing to do. But what amuses me is that they stay slow, as is life in the South. They talk slowly, you know, Miss where it is.

Anyway, I want to wish you all a very happy Christmas. We are sad that we won't be able to share it with you, but we know you'll have a lot of fun with David and Dot. David won't let you down; he's always good for laughs. And just want to say we all love you and miss you. Have a happy time and y'all take care now and y'all get back home safely. The slow drawl of the South. Merry Christmas. Have a very happy time. Love the kids.