An Argument Against the Christmas Do

Christmas is a dangerous time of year to have a social gathering with work colleagues – I’d say ‘enjoy’ but does anyone really enjoy them? There's so much potential for things to go wrong and none of the options are good.

For a start, it’s dark and cold and (largely) cheerless and by rights and the laws of nature, you should stay home in the warm, hibernating in a huddle with loved ones, safe and cosy and only moving to throw a log on the fire or get up and pee. But do you do that? Do you heck.

Instead, you agree to the implausible suggestion of fun and team-bonding offered by a Christmas social gathering – which you’re too overworked and stressed to squeeze into a busy working week anyway, having also to squeeze in the tasks that need doing before the place closes for Christmas and also card-writing and present-buying in your lunch hours and evenings.

But you grasp the opportunity nevertheless, in Christmas jumpers or a sparkly tube dress, figgy pudding earrings and flashing reindeer antlers on your head, stuck on a table beside the disco speakers and chewing cardboard turkey and tinned brussels whilst laughing at cracker jokes with colleagues you can’t stand the sight of for 235 working days of the year but are now pretending you’re best buddies with.

Alcohol’s flowing and inhibition’s flying out the window on Christmas angels’ wings, and you’ve forgotten that whatever you say will be all round the factory by next Monday lunchtime. You’re spilling deepest darkest secrets that even your best friend from childhood doesn’t know – that your husband’s a tight-fisted arsehole you shouldn’t have married, that the temporary lad in Packing has a thing for you and you meet him Tuesday evenings in a pub the other side of Leicester where nobody knows you and his pregnant girlfriend with the brother just over from Sicily won’t get to hear about it; that you borrowed a bit of money from the petty cash tin to pay for this dress and will have to sneak it back on Monday before Bob in Accounting finds out.

It’s always the same. They say the divide between this world and the next weakens on Christmas Eve and spirits leak through, but the leaking happens well before then at the work’s Christmas do. And if you’re not careful, you’ll end the night snogging the face off the forklift driver from Outerwear in the back room of the Three Crowns, and after clocking-off time on Christmas Eve the ghosts of Christmas past and present will have emptied their desk in the office and kicked your future into touch.

So, Merry Christmas, one and all!

AM

The Harvest Surprise - or not

The day started just like every other at Braunstone Frith Junior School. Seated, cross legged on the oak polished floor, the hymns had been sung, the prayers chanted parrot fashion. Eyes mostly closed, hands held together before us. Mr. Hopkins, the headmaster, walked onto the stage signalling that we should all remain seated for his announcement.

“Bring an item of food from home tomorrow, children, for the poor in our Society.”

Collections were far from rare at school, though we had no idea who these poor people were. They must have been really poor because there were kids in class with cardboard covering the holes in their shoes, the laces a length of frayed string.  Another promotion saw us buy photos from a book. Pretty little faces stared back at us as we totally believed that our thruppence would help this child directly. We were encouraged to set up a stall of old toys to aid the PDSA and the mistreated poor animals. Our toys amounted to very few and were hardly fit to pass on.

Most families from the council estate were struggling themselves. Mum paid five shillings a week to the milkman from one 1^st January to the next, for a Christmas hamper. A week before the holiday our hamper was accepted with great excitement.

The milkman’s float buckled at the axles with the weight of Christmas fayre for most people on the estate. The electric float rumbled along even slower than usual, probably a good thing as the milkman got a tot of alcohol at each grateful house.

Apart from the cockerel, vegetables and mum’s mince pies, the box kept the family fed over Yuletide. Shops were closed for at least three days, five if a weekend was included.

There was little variance from year to year. The menu for hundreds of neighbours were tins of Oak Ham, Libby’s apricots or orange segments, a Fray Bentos meat pie, Pink Salmon, Ideal evaporated milk. Jars contained Lemon Curd, Mustard Piccalilli and Branston Pickle. A small pack of Scottish Shortbread rarely made it to Christmas eve. A small Christmas cake and a plum pudding were barely family size.

One thing that never changed was a box of five blancmange powders. We all hated blancmange. High on a shelf in the pantry sat the box until … October, and the harvest festival.

Veronica Smith’s dad baked all the bread for his family. Her contribution gained her a crowd of children as she carried a large crusty wheatsheaf portrayed in bread form. As she trod the path to school, the aroma of warm, freshly baked bread followed in her wake, torturous for those of us who’d had no breakfast.

Our headmaster and all teachers would marvel at the contribution. There was no point in my getting jealous. Had the masterpiece been created in our house, it would not have made it out of the front door without the crusty protrusions being picked, pulled or nibbled off. An ear of corn here, another there. Mum’s Christmas fruit cake had been baked late September. By the end of half term, the square cake was a very rough roundish shape after a week with both parents at work and three hungry girls at home.

On arrival at school I was able to leave the crowd behind as I approached the donation desk to deposit my contribution discreetly at the back.

History is said to repeat itself. As a young mother, I too paid the milkman a weekly amount to fill our Christmas menu.

Each October, my daughter too turned up at Harvest Festival with the offering of Blancmange powder for some poor person’s tea, but at least she did not have to compete with Veronica Smith.

Photo by Belper Unitarians on Unsplash

Carolyn Wheatley

Small Vices and Addictions

Some vices are so small that when asked to remember them I had to take some moments to recall and reflect.

I developed a taste for something called ‘Victory V Lozenges’ when I was about twelve years of age. Packets of these ‘sweets’ were easily obtained from the local paper shop, and small enough so as not to put bulges in your school blazer pockets.

My mother had, for some strange reason, a strong dislike for this liquorice product and tried hard to stop my consumption of the same.

Hiding places for the forbidden product became a problem when mum found mine inside my pillowcase. Happily the stash under the old flower pot in the shed remained intact until the late spring.

In winter, odd lozenges could be placed in the deep pockets of my gabardine Macintosh and in the summer the good old ‘sun hat’ provided transport and cover. I feel sure that, in those days, I actually got more pleasure out of hiding my addiction than I did from eating the forbidden thing!

Do today’s parents still impose the same sort of restriction on their ‘young hopefuls’ and do our children still adopt similar sorts of addictions?

I feel sure that many parents would be quite happy if their child only indulged in some similar product. Today they face the horrors of what is available on street corners, not to mention the internet and wretched social media.

 

David Taylor

Image available in the public realm on Pinterest here.

A secret vice held close

My downfall has not been gambling, smoking tobacco or pot, and alcohol is only consumed socially, in moderation. So, what is my secret vice?

I am afraid the answer has to be food. I was born with a healthy appetite and was hungry most of my childhood. From birth I was always a “good little eater” according to my parents. If anyone in our family of five left anything on their plate, the cry would go out, “Give it to the Biggun,” (often shortened to “Big”) or sometimes “dustbin guts.”

My appetite was famously discussed and laughed about with relatives and friends alike. Being applauded for something gave me a reputation to upkeep.  My dinner plate, along with that of my two sisters, was always emptied and wiped clean with a piece of white sliced mopping up the last of the gravy. Luckily for me, my sister did not like meat. I was not keen on Brussel sprouts. This mutual swap found us agreeing, at least once a day.

Food rationing was still a feature when I was born in 1947. I am told that family members all donated their sweet ration to me, the first child/grandchild/great grandchild. So, you see, it was really not my fault that I have such a sweet tooth!

‘Big’ - by name - reflected age, not size. All the kids I remember were thin, like me. The reason being our constant energy use. We played at every opportunity. Skipping with half a dozen girls over a washing line, taking turns to rotate the rope from opposite sides of the street, or in the school playground. The road was little used on the council estate where very few owned a car and the milk and bread floats crawled along at walking pace.

The pavement outside our house had a permanently chalked Hopscotch grid, re-etched after rainfall. We could whip a top to spin and jump into the air as it was lashed up and down the road.  If we were not throwing double or triple balls at the brick side of the house, we were ‘tissing up’ (doing handstands) and could walk down the wall into a backbend to walk, crab like. Rollerskates were the only form of transport unless you were lucky enough to have a bike.

We walked to and from school twice a day, and constantly ran errands. My school friends lived two miles away. The walk was often in vain if they were not home. That being the case, one turned around and walked back to call for someone else.

It is fair to say that our constant movement found us strong and without a spare ounce of fat.

The post war drive on child health helped us to thrive. Free milk at school, cod liver oil (ugh) and wonderful school dinners, all provided insulation from the bitter cold winters. Our clothing was barely adequate. Skirts or short trousers for the boys, ankle socks that became soaked when deep snow overflowed into wellies.

We wore socks on our hands that were soaked after a few snowballs had been thrown. I envied the children whose mothers had sewn gloves to elastic and threaded them through coat sleeves so they were never lost. I was also seriously jealous of girls who wore a liberty bodice. These girls were usually an ‘only child’ among my friends.

Each house had one open fire, if you were lucky. Less fortunate neighbours would follow the coal lorries, picking up dropped lumps of coal as the driver hitched the cwt bag onto his back whilst also negotiating kerb and steps into the back yard coal shed of the recipient.

During summer the long hours spent in the sunshine never resulted in sunburn. Back then, sunscreen was unheard of.

These activities now just a happy memory, my vice is denied the continuous energy burn. Fuel in, is mostly left in situ. The excess now gathers around the abdomen and thighs and join me on the sofa to watch the TV. How I envy people who can open a pack of toffees or boiled sweets and eat only one. Am I the only one to eat all five chocolate biscuits in a pack when two or three was ample, in order to destroy the evidence?

Perhaps nowadays my vice is not such a close kept secret?

Carolyn Wheatley

The Village Awakes

The village slowly beings to shake off its slumber and come to life.

The mothers are the first to stir, leaving the warmth of straw-mattressed beds to hitch up night clothes and squat over porcelain nightjars, emptying their bladders.

Shivering in the dawn chill they lace coarse woollen dresses over petticoats and descend to the kitchen to coax the fire into life, pushing a heavy blackened kettle across it. Next come their husbands, tumble-haired and granite-faced, accepting the bowl of steaming gruel held out to them and eating in flinty silence.

They’re joined at intervals by children, ranging in size and wakefulness, alert and chatty to sleepy and yawning, called to the hearthside by the aroma of simmering pottage and the voice of their mothers, prompting them downstairs to prepare for the day ahead. Young girls, miniatures of their mothers, tie on aprons and smooth down caps, take over the slicing of bread doorsteps or the shovelling of food into infant mouths.

Brothers pull heavy nailed boots over thick socks, take oilcloth-wrapped sandwiches from their sisters’ hands and clatter from the houses, their young voices shattering the frosty morning air. They join the throng heading for the pithead, and so the morning begins.

The streets return again to semi-quiet, to become the domain of the women and infants until the work of the day is done.

Alison Mott

This snatch of writing was first created at a session of the Informals Writing group in March 2016. It was prompted by a memory my mother-in-law had shared of watching her grandfather prepare for a day's work at the pit in West Hallam, Derbyshire, in the 1950s (but I gave it a historical twist).

Twelve Days of Christmas

The vortex of interminable depression and hopelessness had me in its grip. Day after day the depths of blackness increased. My eyes were dead, my mind seized up, thoughts whirling round unformed, I was incapable of any action however small and necessary. Communication impossible. The ward staff were watching my every move as I was looking for a way out.

One morning a bright, cheerful voice rang out at the reception desk. A lady, not in uniform, was talking about Christmas. My heart sank several feet lower but I couldn’t avoid hearing that there was to be a competition for the best decorated ward, themed on Christmas, which was 4 weeks away.

Over the next few days a tiny spark began to ignite the part of my brain where the fire had died. I began to create images in my head which morphed into doodles on scraps of paper. A couple of the ward staff noticed my sudden new interest and commented on my drawing. Finally I was asked what I was drawing and who was it for.

“It’s the Twelve Days of Christmas,” I said

“That would be a great idea for decorating the ward,” was the reply

“Well, it’s too much for me to do,” was my excuse.

The staff started to talk to us all about getting involved and brought paper, paint, brushes and even scissors. They even brought in books with pictures to copy, and by the end of the week there was a small group of patients getting out of bed and gathering round me, some observing, some drawing, painting and cutting out.

I became aware of my skills and those of my fellow patients. Conversations began and I was able to encourage some of them to discover those skills.  It wasn’t all plain sailing, The lords leaping, pipers piping and ladies dancing were not quite as I had envisaged, and some days, I would tear up or paint over my work  or cry over it and make the paint blurry. But the results were generally quite pleasing and the efforts we made seemed to make us all feel better. Three weeks later, the Twelve Days of Christmas was up on the walls starting at the reception desk with the partridge in a pear tree, and a cheer went up when we won the competition.

JT

 

Making Things

I enjoyed making things when I was a child, but because we were short of money - a large gaggle of children squeezed into our council-owned home and too many outgoings squeezed from Dad’s factory wage - there was little money spare to indulge that enjoyment. 

And so the things I created were largely made from materials other people had thrown away: home-made newspapers hand-drawn on the backs of computer paper rescued from bins when Mum was cleaning at the Uni; pine trees and Christmas angels made from the cardboard cone-interiors of knitting yarn from the hosiery factory a neighbour worked in and dolls clothes from scraps of fabric rescued by another neighbour who was a machinist in a garment factory. Then there was the Sindy furniture made from shoe boxes and cereal packets, and acorn people with pins for arms and legs who slept in button-fronted matchbox beds.

We were creative children, resourceful, and what we didn’t have to hand we used a workaround to do without. No paints or glue guns or staplers or craft scissors for us, but a sharp knife is excellent for slicing folded paper, flour and water a doable adhesive when there's no wallpaper paste to be had, and a needle and thread an adequate substitute when neither of these are available. And there was that time Mum was given some pinking shears, in the brief sewing phase of her motherhood, though they blunted surprisingly quickly when used to cut up cardboard and couldn’t be guaranteed to’ve been put back in a place you’d easily find them again.

Nothing much in our house was discarded (except, in the end, for our father, though someone else would go on to make use of him), and there were old things we managed to turn into something useful with our unique brand of talent and skill. The stepdad was a difficult workaround, though, as was the heap of aggro that came with him from Mum bringing him home for repurposing in the first place.

It explains why I became a hoarder myself, though, with a tendency to hold on to things long after I should let some of them go.

AM