Christmas Fireside Stories
Page 2
‘You’ll do no such thing, you’ll take care: those roads are icy,’ Agnes chastised as she bent to take her first batch of baking out of the oven.
‘Back just about dinnertime, Mum. We’ll have a houseful when we’re all at home.’
‘Aye, and I’m no way near ready. Damn, that hurt!’ Agnes put the tray down quickly on the table and licked her arm where she had caught it on the hot oven.
‘Are you all right, Mum?’ Carol stood in the doorway putting her fur-lined boots on.
‘Yes, get gone and then I’ll crack on while you are away. Once these are made and this apple pie, I’m winning. You can help decorate the Christmas cake when you return, if you want?’
‘Yes, I’ll do that, Mum.’ Carol skipped out of the door and followed Bob, who had already started the van’s engine and was waiting for her.
Carol gazed out of the van’s windows at the countryside flashing past. The snowy heights of Whernside, Penyghent and Ingleborough lay like sleeping lions under the blanket of snow, and the magnificent arches of Ribblehead viaduct spread out across the wild moorland of Ribblehead and Batty Moss.
‘It’s a bit bleak today, our Carol.’ Bob smiled at his sister as she peered out of the windscreen. ‘Soon be in Dent and then there’ll be fun. Aunty Brenda never shuts up, does she?’
‘No, and she will insist on kissing me. Uncle Tom’s all right though, he tells me stories of when he was in the navy and makes me things.’
The van pulled up outside the whitewashed house that was Aunty Brenda’s and both Bob and Carol rushed up the slate steps to the green door with a fox-head knocker, shining in the weak morning sun.
‘I heard you pull up, there’s no need to knock on the door. Come in, you must be frozen.’ Aunty Brenda stood fussing on the doorstep before they could even lift the fox-head knocker. ‘Mmm . . . Come here and give your Aunty Brenda a kiss; just look at how much you’ve grown.’ Brenda bent down and kissed Carol, leaving a print of her bright-red lipstick on her cheek. ‘And you, Bob, are you courting yet? You are a handsome lad; they must be flocking at your feet.’
Carol wiped the lipstick off her cheek and Bob muttered something about taking her bags as he blushed with embarrassment.
‘I bet your mother’s running around like a headless chicken.’ Brenda picked up her bags and looked around her, checking that the cooker was turned off and the back door locked, and with that she happily locked the front door behind her.
‘More like a headless turkey. She’s plucked and dressed nearly thirty this year. I don’t think my father’s in her good books.’ Bob put the bags into the back of the van and Carol climbed in along with them.
‘I’d be telling him what to do with his turkeys, they’d ruin my nails. Am I in the front? Uncle Tom will have to be a back-seat driver with you, Carol.’ Brenda could hardly bend down in her tight pencil skirt as she climbed into the front seat of the van. ‘There, let’s get going, can’t wait to see our Agnes.’ Brenda smiled at Bob and urged him onwards.
The next stop was in the cobbled village of Dent. The van rattled over the cobbles, passing the still-running fountain and carrying on to the far end of the village. This time Bob just hooted the van’s horn. He knew his Uncle Tom would be ready waiting for him and sure enough he was.
‘Are you all right, lad, did you have an easy journey? There’s a bit of ice on the road, you’ll have to take care.’ Tom bent down and puffed on his pipe. ‘Now then, Brenda, am I in the back with Carol?’ Without waiting for an answer he went around to the back of the van, opened the back door, put his small leather case with washing tackle in and climbed into the back with Carol. ‘Now then, Carol, two bits of rubbish together, eh!’ Tom laughed and slammed the door behind him, sitting flat on the van’s floor, still puffing his pipe.
‘Tom, can you put that pipe out, it’s filling the van with smoke,’ Brenda spluttered.
‘Sorry, Brenda, never thought.’ Tom damped the pipe with the end of his finger and Carol watched in surprise as his finger seemed to be unscathed by the heat. He put the damped pipe in his pocket and then winked at Carol.
Carol loved her Uncle Tom. He was soft and gentle and always had time for everyone, and he smelt of his favourite smoking tobacco, Kendal Twist. She smiled as he leaned forward and whispered, ‘I’m in trouble already.’ She giggled quietly.
‘I can hear you both. Like peas in a pod, you two are. Bob and me are the sensible ones, aren’t we, Bob?’ Brenda smiled at her nephew.
‘Aye, if you say so.’ Bob was just keen to get his relations home as soon as he could and for his mother to take control.
‘Come in, come in.’ Agnes opened the kitchen door and welcomed her guests with hugs. ‘I’ve got the kettle on and made some sandwiches. There’s a leg of lamb in the oven for tonight and a trifle or apple pie in the pantry, so we aren’t going to starve.’
‘You always feed us too well, Aggie.’ Brenda kissed her sister and took her coat off.
‘Aye, we never want for owt when we come to Briar. How are you, Agnes? You look well.’
‘Thanks, Tom. Aye, we are all well, shattered after Bert and his turkey venture, but, as he says, it keeps a roof over our heads.’
‘I don’t know how you do it, our Agnes. I said to young Bob, you wouldn’t get me with a hand up a turkey’s bum.’
‘Mmm. Come on into the front room, I’m sure Carol wants to show you the Christmas tree she decorated last night and her paper chains. I’ll bring your drinks and sandwiches through.’ Agnes had managed to forget that she and Brenda were completely unalike, that Brenda thought herself a lady whereas she just hadn’t time to think of painted nails and the latest fashion.
‘I’m sure it will be beautiful, pet.’ Brenda and Tom followed Agnes and Carol into the welcoming front room, where a fire was blazing and Bing Crosby was crooning ‘White Christmas’ from the wireless on top of the sideboard.
The Christmas tree stood in the corner of the room with glittering tinsel on its branches and glass baubles reflecting the light from the blazing fire. From corner to corner and pinned up in the centre of the room next to the main light, paper chains made with different-coloured paper festooned the ceiling.
‘Carol, it’s beautiful, and did you make that angel on the top of the tree?’ Brenda squeezed Carol tightly as she beamed at the compliment and nodded her head.
‘Aye, it must be Christmas and we are all safe and well and another year’s nearly over.’ Tom sat in the comfortable chair next to the fire.
‘Yes, we’ve a lot to be thankful for, a bit older and a bit more battered by the world.’ Agnes smiled at her guests. ‘Now let me get you them sandwiches.’
‘Go on up them stairs, Father Christmas won’t come if he knows you are down here with us old codgers.’ Bert smiled at his daughter as she squashed the last crumb of Christmas cake into her mouth, before bed.
‘But Dad, I want to stop up with you and Aunty Brenda and Uncle Tom just a minute longer,’ Carol pleaded.
‘He’s in London already, he’ll soon be up here, and if you aren’t in bed, he’ll not leave you anything.’
‘All right, I’m going, but I’m too excited to sleep,’ Carol protested.
‘Come on, give your old aunt and uncle a kiss and in the morning you’ll wake up to find Santa’s been.’ Brenda held her arms out as Carol kissed everyone goodnight and went reluctantly to bed.
‘Tomorrow you can stop up as long as you want, I know you like listening to all of us talking.’
‘Really stay up? And have supper with everyone else?’
‘If you can stay awake that long. Now come on up them stairs.’ Agnes urged her excited daughter up the stairs and quickly put her into her pyjamas and pulled the eiderdown over her, tucking her into bed and telling her to go to sleep quickly.
‘Look, it’s starting to snow, Father Christmas must be on his way. It’s coming down quite heavy so I’m glad we are all safely at home. Looks like it’s going to be a white Christmas.’ A
gnes kissed Carol, smiling as she squeezed her eyes tight shut in the happy knowledge that the following morning there would be presents at the end of her bed. Agnes sneaked out of the bedroom, leaving the door slightly ajar for a chink of light to shine into the darkened room, and Carol was left to dream of the morning.
It was still dark when Carol awoke; she was never awake that early, but this morning was different. In the light from the landing she could just make out the shape of a bulging pillowcase full of things that Father Christmas had brought her at the end of her bed. He’d been! He’d been! He’d not forgotten her! Even though her bedroom was freezing and the outside window ledge was piled high with snow, she leapt out of bed and hauled the pillowcase with its contents onto the bed with her. After putting on the light, she carefully took out each and every present, looking at the labels and feeling each one before unwrapping the colourful paper. There were tangerines and a bag of gold chocolate coins, but most interesting of all, there was a large oblong-shaped present that looked the exact size of the doll she had wanted from the Co-operative. She tore off the paper to meet the blinking eyes of the latest Rosebud doll, the one with dark hair that she had wanted so much. She couldn’t believe her luck.
‘Well, ’as he been?’ Carol’s mother and father stood in the doorway, having been woken by the noise from her adjoining bedroom.
‘He has, he has! Look at all these things.’ Carol ripped open more of her presents. A box of dominoes, snakes and ladders, and right at the bottom of her pillowcase was a present from Aunty Mary and Uncle Harry: two knitted outfits for her new doll.
‘How did Aunty Mary know that Father Christmas was going to bring me a doll?’ Carol was amazed.
‘He probably wrote and told her and said what size it was, seeing you’d been a good girl all year.’ Agnes smiled at Bert. A little white lie wouldn’t hurt at Christmas.
‘He’s amazing, is Father Christmas. He knows what I want, where I live and he even talks to my friends and relations, and he makes it snow so that he can land his sleigh!’ Carol carefully removed her new doll from its box, and gasped in amazement as it said ‘Mama’ in a small voice.
Agnes and Bert watched their daughter’s delighted face.
‘Happy Christmas, darling, I’m glad he brought you all you wanted, and your father and I love you dearly.’ Tears filled Bert and Agnes’s eyes; children made Christmas for them and their baby was growing up too quickly. How many more years would Father Christmas be believed in?
‘Happy Christmas, Mum and Dad, I love you too.’ Carol jumped out of her bed and hugged them both tightly. She loved them more than a thousand dolls from out of the Co-operative window and always would.
Wishing all my readers a very happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.
Uncle Percy – A Christmas Memory
DIANE ALLEN
When I was young my Christmases were always made special by a visit from my father’s eldest brother, Percy, who arrived on Christmas Eve and stayed with us into the New Year.
My brother Jack would bundle me into the back of our old grey Austin van and we would go and pick up Uncle Percy from the small hamlet of Gawthrop, just outside the village of Dent. This was an adventure in itself as he lived a good twenty miles away from our farm in Austwick, and I loved the long journey alone with my big brother.
Uncle Percy was a veteran of the First World War. He had been left for dead in the trenches of the Somme, until the Germans had found him and taken him prisoner of war. He was a quiet man who still bore the signs of being shell-shocked, and his legs were pitted where shrapnel had entered them. He never spoke of the war to anyone, but you knew he had been through hell. After the war he had travelled the country, odd-jobbing.
I suspect what he saw over in the Somme made him restless and weary of his fellow man and caused him to question what life was all about. Eventually he came back to the dale where he was born to become the local postman. His one love was his garden, where he’d grow dahlias and chrysanthemums, winning medals at all the local shows.
Christmas started with the arrival of Uncle Percy. He’d bring a jar of pickled onions for the Christmas table, a box of Turkish Delight for my mother and a ten-shilling note that was more money than I’d seen all year, for me. In return I’d give him an ounce of Kendal Twist for his pipe and my parents would give him a warm home and a loving Christmas. He’d sit by the fire and talk to my father, and I’d listen in as tales were told of days gone by and relish the fact that I could stay up long past my bedtime because Uncle Percy was staying. During the day he’d teach me the names of great battleships, flowers and plants, and play games of dominoes or draughts with me. For exercise he’d stretch his legs by walking around the garden and farmyard of our sprawling farmhouse up in the fells, his gait awkward from the pain he suffered in his legs. I didn’t understand any of the things he’d been through then; I was young and naive, and all I knew was that Uncle Percy had come to stay and it wouldn’t be Christmas without him. He was a quiet, gentle soul who I loved dearly.
Sadly, Uncle Percy died a month before I got married. If he was alive today, I think he’d smile when the traditional box of Turkish Delight and jar of pickled onions are bought at Christmas. It’s the little things that count at this special time, and the memories of those we love who have passed on and the love of the ones that are still with us as we celebrate Christmas together.
Kate’s Miracle
Rita Bradshaw
THE NORTH-EAST OF ENGLAND, 1919
‘Now you be a good lad and help Ellie look after your little sister, all right, Harry?’ Kate Finlay stared into her son’s big brown eyes. He nodded solemnly, and she reached out and patted his silky curls, saying in as bright a tone as she could dredge up from the deep despair within, ‘I won’t be long, hinny.’
Picking up the heavy parcel of washing wrapped securely in brown paper and tied with string, Kate turned to Ellie, her neighbour’s twelve-year-old daughter. ‘Thanks for watching them, lass. I’ll be as quick as I can.’
‘That’s all right, Mrs Finlay, and take your time, the pavements are treacherous.’ Ellie’s voice was soft with sympathy. Everyone knew how hard it was for Mrs Finlay since her husband had died nearly a year ago, leaving her with two little ones and no means of support. And her so bonny too, with her golden hair and blue eyes. She’d heard her mam and da talking one night about Mrs Finlay; they hadn’t known that she was sitting on the stairs in the dark, earwigging. Her mam had said it was even more of a tragedy than most, Mr Finlay dying, because his parents were the sort who wouldn’t give you the drips from their nose, and Mrs Finlay was an orphan. She remembered her da had said something about Mrs Finlay and her bairns ending up in the workhouse, and her mam had gone for him good and proper, calling him Job’s comforter. She didn’t know what that meant but it wasn’t good, if her mam’s tone of voice had been anything to go by. Poor Mrs Finlay . . .
Kate squared her shoulders as she opened the back door and the raw north-east wind hit her. It had been snowing for a week, but today, Christmas Eve, there was a break in the relentless storms that had swept the North. Nevertheless, the back alleys, roads and pavements were lethal in places, with snow packed hard on the ground. The grey sky lay low over the town of Sunderland and the wintry gloom predicted more snow before too long. At eleven in the morning it was as murky as twilight and bitterly cold.
She stood for a moment on the snow-covered flagstones in the yard, steeling herself for the walk from Wear Street in the East End, where she rented two rooms in a terraced house, to Park Place West which was a stone’s throw from Mowbray Park in Bishopwearmouth. Although only half a mile as the crow flies, the big terraced houses of Park Place West were a world away from the overcrowded, disease-ridden tangle of mean streets that made up much of the East End.
She had to get going, she couldn’t stand here all day. Hitching up the carefully wrapped package of washing in her arms – which were already aching – she left the yard and walked a
long the back lane. She hadn’t reached the end of it before her feet were cold and wet from the great holes in the soles of her boots. Even though she’d stuffed the holes with squares of cardboard, her feet were numb before long. But it wasn’t physical discomfort that pulled her mouth tight. It was fear. Fear of what was going to happen to Harry and Rebecca; fear of the shadow of the workhouse, which was looming more ominously in the last few days than it had done in the long hard months since Timothy had been gone.
She had tried so hard to keep the three of them together, she thought, slipping and sliding on the icy ground that was like glass in places. She couldn’t let it all be for nothing. From the day Timothy had succumbed to the deadly Spanish flu that had swept the country, haemorrhaging blood from his infected lungs and frantically clutching her hands as he had fought to breathe in his death throes, she had worked for anyone and everyone.
Besides caring for Harry, and baby Rebecca, who had only been six months old at the time of her father’s death, Kate had taken in washing, gone out cleaning, even tried her hand at paper-hanging and painting ceilings, but the fact that she had to drag two small infants with her had made folk wary about using her services. Eventually, with so many men unemployed now that the war was over, the work had dwindled to just the washing she was able to take in. At the best this brought in only a few shillings a week, and the rent each Friday was half a crown.
She nearly went headlong as her feet slipped from beneath her, and performed a kind of pirouette to stay upright, wrenching her back with enough force to cause her to cry out. Leaning against the wall of a house, she shut her eyes and took some deep breaths, the gnawing in her stomach reminding her that she hadn’t eaten for two days. The three of them existed mostly on broth and on the bread she baked with cheap inferior flour, but even so there had only been enough for the bairns over the last forty-eight hours. And in spite of walking miles to the slag heaps at the back of the tram sheds – Harry trudging manfully at her side and Rebecca perched on her back – where she joined the destitute foraging for cinders and fragments of coal, they were weeks behind with the rent.