The Argos catalogue took us on a tour of or own imagination – Laura Waddell

Thin, shiny pages offered a chapter by chapter framework for adult life – briefcase and all – writes Laura Waddell

The Argos catalogue was pored over by generations of analogue children compiling their Christmas lists for Santa (Picture: SWNS)

Farewell to the Argos catalogue, which after 48 years on paper is no longer to be printed; no longer to be lugged home, doodled on while on the phone, or fashioned as a doorstop. I am sad to see it go.

The BBC reported that the catalogue at its peak “was Europe’s most widely-printed publication, with only the Bible in more homes across the UK.” Now that the retailer’s online sales have tipped the scales, ditching the paper is an unsurprising move, particularly following the cessation of the Yellow Pages just last year, comparable in its obsolete, nostalgic heft. But still, this marks the loss of a particular print culture, the tomes beloved by generations of analogue children, who consulted its thin, shiny pages with the utmost concentration in preparation for composing hopeful letters to Santa. For many of us, circling a My Little Pony pencil case in the weeks prior was as much a ritual as leaving out milk and a carrot for Rudolph on Christmas Eve.

Book of dreams

Of course, it is with adult eyes I see the problems in valorising a book of consumerism. No doubt there were demands and disappointment. But, especially for children with no money of their own to spend, the Argos catalogue spurred the imagination. It was exciting just to look at all the branded games and toys. Wasn’t it really a book of dreams? One of the best pastimes was turning the pages, picking the best item from each, whether Game Boy cartridge or kettle. Poring over it with a friend, sometimes over the phone, we honed our aesthetic tastes as though money was no object. It was free to look at all of those things. And looking was leisurely, with no witness to the embarrassment of coveting outside our means, unless we circled it pointedly in pen.

The chapter by chapter breakdown provided a framework for adult life. In flipping through the domestic sections, there was all you needed for one future, and several alternatives. Would you prefer a classic kind of look, or might you be partial to a Garfield shaped phone? Just as the Ikea floor plan guides consumers through a physical mock-up of the house we might have, the Argos catalogue took us on a tour of our own imagination. Here is the kitchen inside our mind, and now the lounge.

In the decades the Argos catalogue was in print, game shows were offering the same kinds of objects as their grand prizes, held up by glamorous assistants or photographed before glittering, sometimes even moving, backdrops. It is no wonder the book elicited some of the same excitement. This is what you could win, it winked, showing off a suitcase set.

And, in ordering from one of the high street shops, each with catalogues piled outside, there was something magical about the chosen object appearing through a hatch, the mechanisms of the warehouse behind it hidden from view.

A comfortable life

Desire pushed the pen of every circle looped around an object. It wasn’t so much about getting the thing as the pleasure of wishing itself. Wishing lounging in possibility, wallowing in craving for anything that caught the eye, before turning the page and doing it again. Browsing the Argos catalogue was an exercise in preference, studying each object in turn to decide which pleased us most, just as a king might.

In retrospect, the items for sale have always been very everyday. An alarm clock. A lamp. Perhaps the dream was really to glide through ordinary life with ease, everything new and working well. Nothing broken, or with holes, or worn around the edges. A comfortable life. No limits on what we could and couldn’t have.

In the 2000s, when I was a teenager, the catalogue was scattered with signs of business casual, a hangover from the 80s. It was there in the muscle modelled home gym and home office supplies, and also, in a very small selection of briefcases, to me the most sophisticated things on offer. I had seen a briefcase carried only rarely in real life. They belonged to other, adult lands. As a four- year old, when my aunt who worked in an office visited, I had tipped her case on its side and transformed it into a makeshift stage, approximating a tap-dance on it, venting my excitement at the exoticism of the thing through energetic flailing leaving dents in the leather.So, in my teen years, I bought one from the Argos catalogue, using my wages from whichever pocket money job I had at the time. There was no need for a briefcase working in an indoor shopping centre selling hair scrunchies, or reluctantly carting around the Evening Times. But I wanted it. So I carried it to school. On a field trip, I was mistaken for a student teacher. I was offered a coffee. This was adulthood! This was transformation. A pantomime of adult life, where I imagined myself somewhere else, someone else, doing important things while wielding my briefcase as a symbol of strength rather than contravening uniform.

Adults develop awareness, if not lack of susceptibility, to the neuron-firing draw of consumerism. But I will not discount the way the Argos catalogue fired my young imagination, and helped me question who I might become as an adult, by offering up a menu of options and hundreds of pages of pictures to consider.

It’s not surprising that the catalogue was second only to the Bible in prevalence. Many households do not contain shelves full of books for kids to pore over and wonder about. But anything can be a jumping off point for learning, for the imagination, and for developing a sense of self, just as the curious and easily bored will read the back of shampoo bottles.

The Argos catalogue should be remembered as an iconic British publication, not just for the sheer scale of its print order, but for its place in the domestic imagination.