I saved up to buy my parents and sister their Christmas presents.
Not because I was a saintly child, but because this was the only form of expenditure my mother would let me use savings for without criticising my choices.
If I tried saving up for anything else, rollar skates, which I so badly wanted when I was eight, or a bike later on, I was told I couldn't have them, as the roads were too dangerous for me t use them.
Anything else I wanted was vetoed on similar, never very good grounds. So I learned that there was no point in trying to change my mother's mind.
When I started work, I bought my mother a present with my first earnings - this was customary in Glasgow. I don't know whether it applied elsewhere, but both girls and boys bought their mother a present with their first earnings.
After that I saved hard for over a year to buy a travelling alarm clock I had fallen in love with and finally bought it.
I was thrilled with it, until I got home and showed my mother it and she immediately said sourly, "Fancy paying that amount for an alarm clock!"
Once I left home, I tried hard not to show her anything I had really wanted and bought for myself.
I didn't manage to hide the gorgeous summer dress, full-length in unbleached cotton with inset crotched bands, the year being 1973, which my mother greeted with, "What a lovely nightie!"
I never put that dress on again without hearing that remark!
I knew even then that she didn't mean to be unkind, she just was one of those who "spoke as they felt" and considered it a virtue (in themselves).
Heaven help my sister or I if we had made similar remarks about anything my mother bought!