C is for Catalogues and Choirs

The letter we have reached in the Alphabe-Thursday Challenge is C
C is for catalogues (or, for my friends across the pond, catalogs) and choirs Do you remember the excitement of going through the mail order catalogue when it came, just to see what you might want to buy? Maybe you still do it. I used to go down to my Aunt's and sit with her and her daughter and scour the pages for something to spend my money on - those were the days eh? I particularly remember some awful polyester trousers in garish colours, with polyester jumpers that matched. This was when I had an allowance from my parents that I had to make do for all my personal needs, good training for money management. Then after I started work I ran two catalogues myself and made quite a nice little bit of money from them.
The first thing I bought from a catalogue was in 1969. It was a black evening dress, shirt style top, ankle length sunray pleated skirt and little diamante buttons and buckle to the belt. I paid £4 19s 11d over 20 weeks. Does this require translation? In 1969 we had not yet gone decimal in our coinage so you say that "Fourteen pounds nineteen shillings and eleven pence" And that was very expensive. The reason I bought it was that I needed a full length black dress to sing in my first proper choir. I had been in the school choir and as my voice was quite low I used to sing tenor sometimes (all girls you see) but started off as a soprano so I could sit with my mum when I joined the Billericay Choral Society aged 14. The first work we sang was Medelssohn's Elijah. It was a choir that sang oratorio most of the time and I loved it. I soon found my confidence and switched to the altos. Then imagine my delight when a few years later my first love (another C for Clive - he looked a lot like Hank Marvin) took over as accompanist. He had been my piano teacher until he went to college. My passion was not reciprocated by the way, poor Clive, these days I would probably have been arrested for being a teenage stalker.
Sorry if I find it difficult to stick to one subject, some letters bring so many things to mind. If you have time, please read my Mission Statement (link in my profile)as it is something I feel very strongly about at the moment
And if you would like to see some other bloggers take on "C" go HERE