Tales of Christmas Past

With the arrival of the Yuletide season, the mind often wanders back to those childhood days when we looked forward to Christmas with a mixture of excitement and anticipation.

I didn't hail from a religious family, so for us the season meant good food, parties, games, songs and the hope of a present or two.

We didn't have much - in fact we'd never had much, so anything the season brought our way was reason for rejoicing.

Dad was a bricklayer and when the colder weather arrived work was always scarce. He'd hope for snow to provide the opportunity to make those few extra shillings shoveling the storefronts and drives of the upper class families in town.

Somehow my parents managed to provide a present for everyone in our large brood. I'd always be happy to receive the Bumper Book for Boys Christmas annual.  It was a wonderful book, full of short stories, games, jokes and sports trivia. One year I was thrilled to get a football (that's soccer ball for you North Americans) and we'd all find an orange in our sock, which was considered an exotic fruit and especially mouthwatering treat.

Best of all was dinner.  My mother had a well-earned reputation for being a fabulous cook who made a wonderful Christmas pudding.  We never dined on goose (too expensive) or turkey (distinctly North American fare). No, we had stuffed capon - in other words, a great big castrated rooster!

Mum was also a great baker and every year she'd carefully place a sixpence in the Christmas cake. While only one child had the joy of finding the cherished coin, the cake was so delicious the rest of us didn't mind the loss.

I would repay Mum for all her efforts by lending my voice to my cousins' caroling team (nobody noticed I sang off-key) and using the coppers thrown in my direction to buy her a small bottle of Evening in Paris cologne for Christmas.  She was the best smelling Mum in town.

We didn't decorate our house for the holiday season, but would have a small evergreen tree with candles glowing on the branches during the evening.  We'd make sure to blow them out before going to bed, but it still amazes me more houses didn't go up in flames. 

We thought it fortunate that Dad was a veteran of WWI, because that meant we'd be invited to a Christmas party put on by the local Legion.  We'd enjoy tasty treats, play games and receive a token gift such as a pen.  

Once I signed up with the RAF and was sent overseas for the duration of WWII, my Christmases in Burma were quite different from those in England.  For one thing, the fare consisted of the usual curry, but we took great pleasure in the tradition of our sergeants acting as waiters and serving up our meals.

That's not to say we didn't partake in some festive delicacies. The best Christmas pudding I ever tasted was while in India, sent to a fellow airman from his family in Australia. We also received parcels of goodies from the Red Cross and the Salvation Army.

Players tobacco company gave out tins of cigarettes and as a non-smoker, I would trade them for bottles of beer gifted by Burton Brewery.  Local tea plantation owners would hand out little wooden crates of tea and one year I posted mine to the girl next door who would eventually become my wife.

Around Christmastime entertainers came out to the jungle to put on shows.  I particularly remember George Formby, who brought his wife along with his ukulele. He received cheers for insisting that the officers sit at the back of the theater and the lower ranks up front. I also recall a visit from Hollywood actress Paulette Goddard, but we didn't get to see her beauty up close since she chose to dine with the officers. 

On Christmas day we'd all participate in a squadron football match, which was invariably played in either sticky heat or rain and mud, but we'd quaffed sufficient Burton's beer by then that the weather didn't bother us in the least.

I'll always remember my first Christmas in Canada with my wife after having joined the Metro Toronto Police Force.  We were missing family back home, but my father-in-law managed to cheer us up. Rationing had finally ended in England and he sent over in the post a small tin of Quality Street Chocolates, which made our day.  In fact my wife still has that little tin.

That first year I was invited to a Turkey Shoot at the police firing range. No doubt they were unaware I was a crack shot back then and I imagine some were quite surprised when I came away winning three turkeys.  I wrote back home that our first Christmas in Canada had been particularly "fowl".

Happy Christmas!

Ed
 

My best boyhood chum

Back in the days before WWII, my best chum was Dean Higgot. We got along great and spent a lot of time together, even though we came from different backgrounds. I lived in the working class section of our town and Dean hailed from a more posh area, but all kids – rich, poor and middling - went to the sole primary school in Carshalton at the time. 

It wasn't until later, when it was time to write 11+ exams, that longstanding friendships often drifted. Children from better off families wrote their exams and went on to secondary school, while most working class kids sought jobs to help family finances and, in my mind, pass time until old enough to join the war effort.

So, it was in our early years that Dean and I were inseparable. We were both mad for airplanes - in fact I still am. Our favourite activity was to ride our bikes to the Kenley, Biggin Hill and Croydon RAF Air Fields. I would guess it was about a 30 mile round trip. Our parents would have had conniptions had they known we were going so far afield, but that wouldn't have stopped us.

All we wanted was to watch the pilots perform their training circuits and bumps. We were thrilled when our heroes would acknowledge our presence by waving at the two awestruck lads on bikes at the end of the runways. That's when Dean and I vowed we'd join the RAF and become airmen ourselves.

We were 14 years old when war was declared, which was very annoying seeing as we couldn't sign up until the age of 18. Equally annoying was school not closing down immediately. Instead, provisions were made for our safety by performing regular air-raid evacuation practices and putting up shades on the windows to protect us from errant shrapnel.

I can't remember if we had heard our parents talk about the prospect of war and we weren't paying much attention to the newsreels at the cinema - we were more interested in the Buck Jones serials - but certain songs written in 1939 had ominous overtones. I do remember kids singing this in the schoolyard:

We're going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line
Have you any dirty washing, mother dear?
We're going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line
'cause the washing day is here.
Whether the weather may be wet or fine
We'll just rub along without a care.
We're going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line
If the Siegfried Line's still there.
 

Another schoolyard song perhaps foreshadowed future delicacies (we would be eating a lot of rabbit in the upcoming years):

Run rabbit – run rabbit – Run! Run! Run!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Goes the farmer's gun.
Run rabbit – run rabbit – Run! Run! Run!
Don't give the farmer his fun! Fun! Fun!
He'll get by without his rabbit pie
So run rabbit – run rabbit – Run! Run! Run!

My future father-in-law (who was my next door neighbour on Stanhope Road) was outraged when a particularly large chunk of shrapnel took out his backyard rabbit hutch resulting in furry casualties. 

The days flew by and next thing I knew it was time for exams, meaning Dean moved on in his academic pursuits and I went off in search of a job. While our lives were taking different paths, it didn't spell the end of our friendship.

Dean's mum worked full-time in a London office and Dean became very close to my mum, often dropping by to visit when I wasn't home. He was a talented pianist and we had a piano for a short while (until Dad discovered it would require regular tuning - he'd have no part of paying for that). Dean would play and mum would sing along while baking.

Luckily for me an opening came up at Rawlinson's, a factory at our old haunt Croydon Air Field.  It was a few miles from home; in other words, just a short bike ride away. I could hardly believe I was being paid to be among airplanes, airplane mechanics and pilots all day. I was in my glory and Dean was green with envy. Being a mere 14 years of age, the only position open to me was errand boy, but no one could have worn their "Rawlinson's" emblazoned jumpsuit with more pride.

The only thing that bothered me was not being more directly involved in the war, so I was excited at 15 to be put in the Home Guard on anti-aircraft guns (which most people called "the ack ack", mimicking  their sound). One night we experienced the thrill of shooting down a Dornier Flugzeugwerke enemy aircraft.

The neighbourhood mothers were more sympathetic to the enemy. When a German plane became disabled and had to land near the Grove, the pilot, uninjured but nervous, was  the beneficiary of cups of tea and sandwiches until the military police arrived. I suppose the mums hoped the same consideration might be shown to their sons by German mums.

When my 17th birthday rolled around I was becoming anxious that the war may end before I had a chance to do actual duty (little did I know war and post-war activities would keep me in the Far East for several years to come).

By that time you could easily fudge your age at recruiting centres as they weren't much bothered with checking birth dates. Now was the time for Dean and me to realize our earlier boyhood dreams!

To my delight I passed the RAF admissions and was chosen to train as a rear air gunner. Poor Dean didn't make it, although he didn't begrudge me my luck and happily signed up with the Navy. To his misfortune, it was a disappointing venture as he had an accident going down the hatch and was invalided out.

I was soon shipped out to the Far East until 1946 and that's when Dean and I lost touch, although I did hear he'd become a firefighter and moved to the north of England. On leaving the RAF, I became a London bobby, then immigrated to Canada after five years on the London force, putting even more distance between us.

Amazingly though, we eventually managed to locate each other and arrange a happy reunion while I was on a trip back to England. We hadn't seen each other in fifty years but picked up right where we'd left off.

It was an especially poignant visit, as Dean passed away shortly after that last meeting. I'm still grateful to have had that opportunity to catch up after so long and reminisce about the happy boyhood days we had shared.