Early Christmases

Gary Blinco sent me a piece written by his uncle Frank who lives in Hucknall near Nottingham. It evokes memories of festivities in the 1920s in a not-very-well-off mining community in the English Midlands:

‘As a child the first signs of Christmas were seeing shop windows being brighter with a few decorations in the form of strings of tinsel and articles surrounded by coloured paper, Christmas selling did not start until long after the clocks were put back from Summer Time. Some shops did start to run Xmas Clubs known as twelve-week clubs, in which customers could pay a little each week to purchase items at Christmas.

Even as a small child I remember the preparations; baking increased, puddings and cakes were made. Two puddings in their basins with the white cloth wrapped over each, the cake, dark with fruit, black treacle and brown sugar, in which a sly finger dipped when mum gave a blind eye; tarts and mince pies stored in biscuit tins.

Nearer to the time a chocolate roll was bought, covered with white icing sugar and a robin, saved from year-to-year, perched on top of this Yule Log; at the same time the cake was brought out and covered with white icing to make a winter scene. Small pottery figures of Santa Claus and eskimos on sleighs or snowballing were available and, once bought saved each year, wrapped carefully after washing.

Decorations were not put up until well into December. Paper flowers were made, tissue paper shawls draped over mirrors and picture frames, garlands strung across the rooms — a fairyland of our own!

The market day before Christmas was not to be missed. The market was always a special treat to us children, especially in winter, because it kept open later in those days. The stalls were lit by kerosene and gas lights, which gave everything a golden glow over the goods. The fish and chip stall at the front stayed in business until the last of the people came out of the Scala Cinema whose rear entrance was nearby.

All the stall-keepers made a great show of seasonal goods. Poultry, a rare luxury to the working class, now hung in rows and had to be looked at. Hares and rabbits were commonplace, for each area had its local supplier, either a farmer or the local rabbit-catcher (i.e. poacher!). The Christmas cockerel always came with feathers on, and what an event the plucking was! The wing and tail plumes became Indian head-dresses and I remember a neighbour who made pictures with the breast and hackle feathers.

The Christmas tree was decorated, an artifical one with tiny candle holders on the end of the branches with tiny candles (only to be lit on Christmas Eve and after tea on Christmas Day). The holly- bough was not forgotten, this was hung and decorated with sweets and sugar pigs, mice, etc, to be removed one by one to each child through the twelve days of Christmas. All this to be ready for the Big Day!

Christmas mornings all seem to have merged into one in my memories. I cannot remember being asked what I wanted for until I was around twelve years of age; yet I always seemed to get the things I wanted. My parents must have been good at guessing my wants! The excitement of finding “Santa has been”; delving into the packages and reading who had sent the them to Santa for you, was a delight that I still remember with a feeling of longing.

There were some items that never changed: a bag of your favourite toffees, an apple, an orange, and a handful of mixed nuts in their shells, right at thee bottom of the stocking. There were filberts and peanuts and nuts of a kind that we never saw at other times: almonds, brazils, walnuts — just magic!

Meals had to be taken, of course, but foods now appeared from story books! Two kinds of meat to be carved: beef, pork or mutton, a roast bird; l ater a pork pie and boiled bacon, very rarely, ham. We lived on the remains of these in the form of stews or sandwiches for days afterwards, but what luxury! Mince pies and tarts cakes and chocolate roll, sweets and chocolate, fruit and nuts, to children it was wonderland!