When Linda sent the post saying that Maggie had selected periwinkle as the prompt for today, I immediately thought of Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced boo-KAY) and her Royal Doulton with the hand-painted periwinkles. But I’m not going down that path, instead I want to talk about crayons.
Back in the ’60’s, the best present (for Christmas, birthday, etc.) a kid could receive was the box of 64 Crayola crayons with the built-in sharpener. This was eight times better than the box of 8 most of us bought to get us through the school year (the year I had Fabulous Auntie Jill for Art, she told us to get the box of 16, figuring we could use them). One of the colors was periwinkle.
Periwinkle
(see? I can still do HTML…)
I got the color code from this chart of all the Crayola crayon colors from throughout history. You can see there are many more than 64 of them. I was really surprised that periwinkle is still one of them in the box of 64; they’ve been phasing colors in and out each year, and I would have thought that periwinkle would have gotten the axe by now, but there it is…
One problem with having that many colors of crayons is that there are some colors for hich there is very little demand. By the time another gift-receiving holiday rolls around, there are no doubt colors that have barely been used. Periwinkle, asparagus, goldenrod (the official color of the customer receipt in a multipart form), cerulean, cornflower, and the redundant-souding colors, like blue-green and green-blue and red-violet and violet-red, would have spent the year langushing unused in the box while standbys like good ol’ red and black (congratulations to the University of Georgia football Bulldogs on their national championship) were worn down to stubs.
You have to wonder why they even put them in the box. Then you realize the amount of work that it took someone to actually come up with that color, particularly in the days before “millions of colors” computer monitors were even a thing. Or maybe there was a guy named Perry Winkle (younger brother of Winnie) who worked at Binney and Smith.
The mind boggles…
Let’s leave you with some of the best of Hyacinth Bucket…
The Sound of One Hand Typing 
I love this colour…one of my favs! I often use a version of periwinkle. Tgat show and Hyacinth is so funny but no one would blame her husband if he finally whacked her over the head and buried her in the garden. Did you know the gal who plays her messy sister was married to Marty Feldman?
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THANK YOU! I waited all day for someone to write about Crayola Crayons and my beloved periwinkle blue.
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You’re welcome! It was the first thing I thought of, and as I was writing it I thought of “Keeping Up Appearances”…
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It was a perfect post for the prompt.
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Keeping Up Appearances with Hyacinth Bucket was one of our all time favorite TV shows. Thanks for reminding me. Might do a little re-streaming.
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I think the shows might be on Britbox. It’s on Amazon Prime, too.
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I was born in 1959 so I remember Crayola from the ’60’s and all the other fab games and toys from that era. I still remember Winnie and Perry Winkle too~
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It was a nuch different time, when you could give a box of crayons and a coloring book and buy yourself an afternoon of peace…
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Yes and It left us a lifetime of memories too
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Ha thanks for the reminder of Mrs. Bucket, Patricia Routledge is a great character actor and her periwinkle-handled teacups :)
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That was such a well-done program. Fantastic characters, good stories, and Ms. Routledge was not above physical comedy…
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Yes so true š
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Loved the color chart. Got lost in the memories. Mrs. Bucket is hysterical.
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Remember how the crayons smelled? That will take you down memory lane.
I think what’s so funny about Hyacinth is that we all have a little of her in us. As much as we hate to admit it…
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Yes indeed.
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I’ve always loved crayolas and coloring, even today. I have the big box of 120, too.
That is a pretty funny TV show. I’ve seen it a few times. :)
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Quick survey: how many of the 120 have you actually used? I think the most I ever used of the 64 was 30.
Our PBS station here ran two episodes of it every Saturday night. We’ve seen all of them many times over.
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I’ve used them all a few times. I did the Color Your World Challenge quite a few times where it required us to post photos of something with each of the Crayola Crayons. White is the hardest to get to show up, especially on coloring book pages. haha. :)
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She’s brilliant isn’t she.
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One of the best sitcom characters ever. I don’t think I’m exaggerating.
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Definitely not. She was perfect for the role too.
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Oh! You got to love Mrs Bucket every street has one!! I enjoyed reading about the Crayola …hours of happy memories šš«¢
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The guy who wrote it, Roy Clarke, was a genius, and Patricia Routledge brought Hyacinth to life like no one else could. I’ve seen her in other things where she was a little more down-to-earth… she had incredible range as an actress. She just passed away recently, didn’t she?
So Crayolas were available there as well? They were hours of fun…
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I believe Patricia Routledge is still alive I believe , she about 93yrs old. She is an amazing actress! As you say she has an amazing range!
As for Crayola yes we love them still over here, my grandchildren use them šš
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You’re right, she’s still alive and doing well. Amazing how many people are living to their 90’s now. Glad to hear that kids still like crayons…
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Yes My mother in law lived to one hundred and some people are living well into their nineties! …I think crayons will always be around š
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I just can’t picture a world without crayons…
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No neither can I š
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