Christmas Day 1954

A Present From Aunt Norma

Cowes Isle of Wight

Some of the happiest moments I spent as a boy were Christmas holidays at my Grandmother’s house in West Cowes.  Even my mother seemed relaxed and less fraught as she, together with Aunt Min and Gran, busied themselves with the preparation for the big day. The ‘Bird’ was delivered by Mr Eastman, my Grandmothers butcher in the high street, together with ham, pork and pounds of chipolata sausages. The ‘Bird’ was always a large Capon and had after close inspection and group admiration been placed upon the top shelf at the back of the steel mesh fronted meat safe which hung high on the outside wall between my Grandmothers neighbours Mr and Mrs Day and her back yard.

The long high street in Cowes was a winding  thoroughfare for summer days, sailing crews, carnivals, and the strong smell of beer drifted through open pub doors instead of which now a blustery wet Christmas Eve chill pervaded the dark dank streets. Last minute shoppers spilled through the brightly lit shops as they tightly grasped brown paper carrier bags filled with silver tinsel, coloured glass baubles for the tree and last-minute paper wrapped parcels containing tins of talcum powder, bottles of Eau de Cologne and initialled handkerchiefs from Woolworth’s.

The preparation for Christmas Day at home was a Herculean task as my Aunt, Mother and Grandmother stood together in pretty flowered pinnies in the tiny scullery at my Grandmother’s house. They had rolled up their sleeves in readiness for the onslaught midst bowls of  potatoes, Brussels sprouts, parsnips, and horse chestnuts whilst other saucepans already containing carrots and cabbage were in water lined up on the outside back steps to the yard and covered by tea cloths. The Christmas cake and mince pies had long since been prepared, the large cake was packed in greaseproof paper with just a kiss or so of brandy then finally completed with a covering of marzipan and icing sugar fondant  and tightly fastened into a large round lidded tin. Plans were being made for an even earlier start on Christmas morning when the ladies of the house would steal quietly down the stairs to ensure that the little gas cooker was turned on. The awaiting capon would be prepared in its wrapping of butter, bacon rashers, and seasoning together with a stuffing of a large onion and freshly chopped sage. The small gas oven was set to enable the capon to cook very slowly, awaiting it’s accompaniment of chipolata sausages, parsnips and roast potatoes. The black range in the small back room was lit by a bright coal fire and beside it the side ovens were used for warming and additional cooking space while its hissing spitting hob spluttered with boiling vegetables and rattling enamel saucepan lids.  One particular large saucepan was also slowly heating throughout, that containing the Christmas pudding, my Grandmother having made it and loaded it with a few sixpenny pieces several days before.

Always locked and never utilised in this tiny house the ‘Front Room’ was always opened on Christmas Eve, the ladies busied themselves by arranging the Christmas cards, decorations of paper chains which were laboriously gummed together and then swung and attached from every corner of the room, finally adorning the mirror which hung over the mantlepiece. The small coal fire once lit heralded the start of the official festive event right through to Epiphany. A small tree was purchased and dressed in the contents of two old shoe boxes that contained swags of glittering tinsel and ancient glass baubles which together with a battered painted wooden star would help to adorn the new tree. The pungent smell of apple and brandied cake was all pervading, year on year that air of ‘Christmas’ was part of the very fabric of that cosy little room.

In a constant state of Christmas holiday readiness my Grandmother had arranged to have her wireless radio valves and battery levels checked in order that the various carol services and most importantly the Queen’s speech were not missed. Since the delivery of the topped-up batteries the volume on the radio was always turned up, doleful presenters and crackling yuletide songs played loudly throughout the house, all of which were enthusiastically accompanied by my Mother, Aunt Min and Grandmother in various keys and versions all of which resulted in a  noisy strangled alto soprano. I was given the job of edging the windowpanes and picture frames with cotton wool and soon after was asked to run up the road to Jim Maughns the green grocery shop for coloured hundreds and thousands, tinned fruit, Carnation milk and a small round tin of pipe tobacco for my Grandmother’s brother Bert, who would be visiting us on Christmas morning and staying for his lunch.

Uncle Don (Min’s husband, my Mothers elder brother) was home ready to enjoy a break from his job as a sailmaker where he earned a wage sitting cross legged six days a week up in the high rope loft at Ratsey and Lapthorn stitching canvas for sailboats and racing yachts. He had been injured in combat during the war, evidently he had been a ‘Desert Rat’, which suited him, I mused, as he had always had the look of  moustached rodent. ‘Ratty’ Uncle Donald had been invalided out of the army due to being wounded in action, even now at home he suffers blinding migraines and the ‘shakes’ my Mother would often tell me, however I had always put it down to his regular visits with Min to the Commercial Inn in town. My Mother told me that Uncle Don had a steel plate in his head, placed there by surgeons who had fought to save his life in a hospital in Alexandria. After a long convalescence he was returned to ‘Blighty’ in the serving hospital ship SS Queen Mary no less, to a hero’s welcome and the open arms of Auntie Min.

 Don was always charged with the duty of Christmas drinks provision and leaving soon after his evening meal returned with his friend Eddie some hours later, having fallen through the door. They were both pie eyed, smelling of cigarette smoke and beer. They did their very best to carry boxes of dates and nuts, a case containing a bottle of Whiskey and Rum together with a couple of bottles of Eggnog, Green Ginger, Cream Sherry and a number of Watney’s bottled beers. Another small wooden box contained Babychams and soft drinks and a bottle of Martini Rosso, my Auntie’s favourite tipple, which in truth was anything warm wet and alcoholic.  Earlier that same afternoon Min had given me a small bottle of concentrate to make ginger wine by adding hot water and stirring until mixed.  Once cool I filled a large stone jar which was kept year on year strictly for this purpose. Before covering the concoction with a plate and to ensure a successful brew I added four or five heaped spoonful’s of demerara sugar together with a pinch of cinnamon, taking care to stand it upon the work bench in the air raid shelter at the bottom of my grandmothers garden.

The bedroom in which I slept was the small back bedroom in this equally small middle terraced house built high out of town above the reservoir on the hill known as Moorgreen Road. ‘Heatherwood’ which was Number 67 Moorgreen Road had been the family home of my Mother and her Mother and of course my Mother’s sisters and now the home of my Grandmother, Min and Donald.

The curtains were pulled tight in lit bedrooms across the narrow yards that separated us from our neighbours. This is where Mary, who was about my age, Margaret and their youngest sister Marilyn, would be undergoing the same butterflies and the ever-present parental threat and fear.

 ‘Santa only comes to good children who lie quietly and go to sleep’

My Grandmother made it very clear to me prior to my last kiss goodnight and spoonful of Friar’s Balsam, for my chest, that I would suffer an empty stocking and worse no presents at all if I were to be found by Santa out of my bed or still awake when he and his snorting reindeers chose to call.

Sleep quickly overtook me until the coldness stirred me, I had the use, if it grew too cold during the night, of an old army great coat which had belonged to my Grandfather and worn during the first world war.  It was kept on a hook upon the wall beside the faded sepia photograph of my Grandfather Samuel, standing to attention as the Company Regimental Colour Sergeant, dressed to the ‘nines’ in his Hampshire Regiment uniform.  I had never met my Grandfather due to him dying of mustard gas poisoning in 1927. Although the coldness in the small room was uncomfortable and Christmas morning was dancing in my half sleep I quickly forgot the fear of leaving my bed as the darkness held a far worse fate so I curled into as tight a ball as I could until morning, Christmas morning.

An hour or so late having rifled through my stocking, which was as always at the bottom of my bed, I was still beneath my blanket but now sucking on the pips and bitter peel of a tangerine followed by a couple of pieces of Fry’s Five Boys chocolate whilst dealing a hand of miniature playing cards into my pillow by the tiny light of silver pen torch.

Although still six or seven hours away from dinner the smell of ever cooking vegetables had leached into my bedroom despite the door being shut and soon I was officially woken, hugged and kissed by one and all, a very Merry Christmas, a very merry Christmas indeed.

Everyone that is but my Uncle Don, who was sleeping in late, due, said my Grandmother, to a very bad migraine which drew dark  and brooding looks from Min, who hissed a whisper under her breath that it was the only migraine she knew of that came out of a bottle.

Toast and tea in the apple fresh front room with presents for all beneath the small skinny tree that was doing its best to glitter and shine for Christmas morning.  Gifts of knitted jumpers and gloves and boxes of snow-white linen handkerchiefs were in great abundance together with book Annuals and a boxed game where a magic magnetic quizmaster robot swivelled around upon a small mirrored plinth, always able to point to the correct answer after placing him upon any question of your choice. My little gifts to my family were appreciated and held in great esteem by my three charges who cooed and ahh’d  telling me that I shouldn’t have spent my pocket money on them. What faces they might have pulled if I hadn’t bothered I thought. My shaking hands excitedly tore at the jolly wrappings as gift after gift was passed to me and the label read aloud and then ceremonially put to one side for a written reply of thanks. Then came the unwrapping of a large box,

‘To Iain

From Auntie Norma’ 

Love and kisses and a very merry Christmas xxx

Beneath me, amidst the colourful layers of torn gift paper and discarded ribbon laid a pair of canary yellow fringed leatherette cowboy chaps. Under another layer of tissue was a bright red waistcoat upon which was fastened a bright and shining Texas Marshall Silver Star. I lifted this item carefully from the box to expose curled like a snake at the bottom of the box a brass buckled cartridge belt with leather holsters, wherein snug as a bug were two six shooter pistols finished in gun metal blue with white Mother of Pearl handles. Beneath this parcel was yet another smaller box which held a soft felt black cowboy hat and wrapped carefully inside in tissue paper was a red kerchief. Lastly, but not least, a pair of tie-on plastic spurs with ting a ling cat bells attached which were tied to a small package containing a dozen rolls of pistol caps.