Christmas Past

Christmas Past

Copyright Oggbashan November 2018

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

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"Sometimes I felt jealous of my brother," Granddad said, "because Ellen was so perfect for him. But other times? I was sorry for him. His mother-in-law was a real pain, expecting perfection, and Albert was never good enough for her daughter."

That was ten years ago. We were sitting in the bar of the hotel the evening after Ellen's funeral. Apart from our still active Granddad, Great-Aunt Ellen had been the last of that generation of the family. She had married Granddad's youngest brother Albert. Albert had died ten years earlier. Ellen had thrown herself into even more community activities once she was a widow. The funeral had been attended by hundreds of people, representing almost every family in the village that had been Albert and Ellen's home for fifty years.

Granddad rarely talked about the history of the family. Yes, he had given a speech at Ellen's funeral but that had been mainly about Ellen, not our wider family.

We thought that the gathering of the family for Ellen's funeral might have been sad. Ellen had made sure it wouldn't be. She had known for months that she was dying but that didn't stop her from organising everything including her own funeral. The cremation had been a very private affair weeks ago. The funeral service and reception was a celebration, not just of Ellen, but of the whole village and her impact on it.

At the service and at the reception afterwards there had been choral singing by the church choir; the male voice choir started by Albert; the Women's Institute choir started by Ellen; the school choir; the three Barbershop quartets from the three public houses (Albert); and the choirs from the Roman Catholic church and the two chapels. Even as we sat in a private room in the village's only hotel we knew that the Rugby and Cricket clubs (Albert) were in the sports club hall singing rude songs in competition, washed down with beer paid for by Ellen's executors.

There had been Morris dancing outside the church; maypole dancing in the school playground; and old-time dancing tonight in the village hall.

Several people were recording all the events in professional standard video. The whole day's events would be kept in the archive in the village's museum and edited to a single DVD for people to buy at cost. Even this evening in the bar was being recorded on several cameras.

The family, none of whom now lived in the village now Ellen had gone, had decided to leave them to their revels and meet as a family. We had so few opportunities now that we were widely separated. Weddings, Christenings and funerals were the usual events when we met.

+++

Granddad made a surprising statement.

"Of course, Ellen always was part of the family. She had been since she was born, long before she married Albert."

"She was?" I queried.

"Yes, Robert, she was. I don't know exactly how we were related. Maybe Chloe will find out in her research into the ancestors. Have you found Ellen yet?"

"No," Chloe replied. "I wasn't looking for Ellen. I didn't know she was a blood relation. So far I've been looking at the direct line. There are so many children in each generation that I haven't started on the siblings yet."

Chloe had an open reporter's notebook in which she had been making notes all day. She had been scribbling frantically until granddad spoke directly to her.

"I think," Granddad continued, "that Ellen was the daughter of one of my mother's cousins. She was a close enough relation to attend the family Christmas gatherings in the 1950s before she became engaged to Albert. She was distant enough to be well clear of the rules on relations marrying."

"You've mentioned those Christmases before, Granddad," I said, "but not in detail. I know, we know, that they were important for the family. Several of your generation regretted that they didn't continue..."

"I didn't!" Granddad said indignantly. "I hated them for the first few years. Even later they were an ordeal for me. But most liked them. Get some more drinks and I'll tell you about them."

He handed me a few twenty- pound notes to top up the account at the private bar. I ordered for everyone. They were delivered efficiently. The video camera was on its tripod recording Grandad.

+++

The Family Christmas Gatherings

"I think the first one I remember was probably in the late 1940s. At that time there was no television, or if there was, very few people had one. Recorded music was on a wind-up gramophone with 78 rpm records that lasted four minutes. Most middle-class families, and we thought we were middle class even if we weren't, had a piano and several other musical instruments as well. We made our own music at home.

We might listen to the radio but not as a group. When we met together we made music together. Most families did then. That's why I hated the parties. I couldn't play any instrument and everyone else could. I wasn't a good singer. Everyone else was.

My father and his brothers would sing Victorian and Edwardian ballads that had been popular with their parents' generation. Gilbert and Sullivan and Offenbach were a usual part of their repertoire. No gathering was complete without a rendering of 'Trees' or 'The Three Gendarmes'. The aunts would sing 'Indian Love Lyrics' including 'Pale Hands beside the Shalimar'.

Uncle Cyril, his wife Dot and their children would perform as a string quartet usually early Mozart but getting more daring as the children became older and more competent.

Almost any adult could play the piano well enough to accompany any song. We sang many carols even before going to the midnight service to sing more carols, and on Christmas Day itself the service of twelve lessons and carols meant more singing.

Uncle Barty always brought a supply of his home made wines and illegally distilled spirits. The men were usually drunk before the midnight service, much to the disgust of Aunt Elaine.

Uncle Harold played his trombone or a trumpet or almost any wind instrument. Uncle Cyril and Aunt Dot could play most stringed instruments. Uncle Barty played guitar or ukulele. The older children were competent musicians for their ages at the time. But not me. I was unmusical as a performer. I could enjoy music but not produce it on anything.

So I did recitations – The Boy Stood On the Burning Deck; The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God – that sort of thing. I could do them but I hated being the centre of attention while I performed. I preferred to sit in a corner to listen and watch. Once I had done my item I was reasonably happy. Before? I was very nervous.

Cousin Ellen was too young in the 1940s. So was my brother Albert. They were sleeping upstairs watched over by one of the older girls who took it in turns to miss the party for half an hour at a time.

I didn't mind Cousin Ellen when she was old enough to take part. I felt sorry for her. She and I used to complain to each other about our parents' insistence that we perform. Ellen's mother Nellie was impossible. You've seen re-runs of the TV show Bread? Titular Aunt Nellie was Hyacinth Bucket decades before the first script was written. She wanted to be taken for being much superior to the rest of us. So Ellen must perform to perfection. My recitations could be awful but no one cared. Ellen had to show that Nellie's daughter was wonderful. It was too much to ask of a shy child.

Poor Ellen would be wearing a frilly pink dress, handmade by Nellie just for the family Christmas. It didn't matter which year it was, Ellen had a new dress each year. They didn't suit her. Ellen was a podgy child. Puffed out with pink frills she looked even fatter than she was. Her repertoire was from Shirley Temple films – The Good Ship Lollipop – supposed to be sung exactly like Shirley Temple. Ellen did her best but she wasn't Shirley Temple.

At the end of her performance Ellen was shattered. At the end of the second year's act she came across to my corner and hid behind me crying silently. What Ellen went through was worse than my ordeal as a reciter. Everyone else, except Nellie, was sorry for Ellen.

Ellen and I found out that year that our parents lied to us. It was a shattering revelation but helped both of us. Nellie had told Ellen that I was a school prodigy, top of my class in everything, and despite my lack of musical ability I was brilliant at every other subject. Why couldn't Ellen be more like me?

My parents had told me almost the same about Ellen. For example, even those she was several years younger she could read anything I could and was better at mathematics than I was. Why couldn't I be more like Ellen?

In our corner, whispering to each other, we found out that neither of us was as good as our parents had said the other was. We were more than competent at school but not outstanding. From then onwards we treated each other as almost brother and sister. Whenever we met we could complain about our parents' unrealistic expectations. It was more true for Ellen than it was for me. Nellie continued to expect Ellen to be a swan when she was still a shy gawky duckling.

Apart from the unreasonable expectations for the two of us, the Christmas gatherings were enjoyable. As the years went past and we two became older we began to know that the family members supported each other. Ellen and I were just a small part of a wider network.

Through the 1950s the family became more mobile. Instead of always meeting at one house that was easiest to get to by bus and train we met in different houses each year. Those who hadn't got cars were collected by those who had. The only family home that wasn't used was mine.

My grandfather's farmhouse was furthest away. Apart from the barn which was then full of farm machinery and had an earth floor, there wasn't a large enough room for the family to meet. Now? The barn is weatherproof, has a suspended wooden floor, a kitchen and toilets. But then it was leaky, draughty and cluttered.

The 1950s parties still had the traditional singing and musical performances. The younger generation used to participate and then go to another room to dance to pop music 45s on an electric record player. The door had to be kept shut and the volume reasonable. We couldn't drown the singing of The Three Gendarmes or Trees.

By the 1960s some of the older generation had passed on but the songs hadn't become more modern. The traditional songs were still performed if by younger people. Any time traveller from pre-1914 would recognise the music. The younger generation were performing the traditional songs. At times they might parody them but straight versions were preferred when the older members were present.

The dancing in the 1960s became more energetic. The younger women, now adults, were wearing the late 1950s and early 1960s large skirts puffed out with layers of petticoats. They often sat on their male relations, spreading their skirts wide to conceal whatever might be happening underneath. That was usually probing fingers. Ellen showed a marked preference for Albert and sat on his lap whenever she could.

So far I have mentioned Ellen more than others because today is the day to celebrate her life. But there were many more characters and incidents at the family Christmas gatherings..."

Granddad paused to drink some beer. When he resumed he introduced the names of people that were unfamiliar to us. As he spoke they seemed to live again. Chloe was delighted to record so many anecdotes of people she only knew from their dates of birth, marriage and death.

Later in Granddad's talk he persuaded us to re-enact some of the party games and he did his full recitation, with actions, of The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God. He did it first as a straight performance with the recommended accompanying actions and repeated it as he parodied it for later years. At the end most of us were helpless with laughter. We knew that Granddad had found his role as the family comedian. We just hadn't appreciated just how good he could be.

+++

That recitation was written in 1911 by J Milton Hayes. The full text is:

The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God, J. Milton Hayes

There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,

There's a little marble cross below the town;

There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,

And the Yellow God forever gazes down.

He was known as "Mad Carew" by the subs at Khatmandu,

He was hotter than they felt inclined to tell;

But for all his foolish pranks, he was worshipped in the ranks,

And the Colonel's daughter smiled on him as well.

He had loved her all along, with a passion of the strong,

The fact that she loved him was plain to all.

She was nearly twenty-one and arrangements had begun

To celebrate her birthday with a ball.

He wrote to ask what present she would like from Mad Carew;

They met next day as he dismissed a squad;

And jestingly she told him then that nothing else would do

But the green eye of the little Yellow God.

On the night before the dance, Mad Carew seemed in a trance,

And they chaffed him as they puffed at their cigars:

But for once he failed to smile, and he sat alone awhile,

Then went out into the night beneath the stars.

He returned before the dawn, with his shirt and tunic torn,

And a gash across his temple dripping red;

He was patched up right away, and he slept through all the day,

And the Colonel's daughter watched beside his bed.

He woke at last and asked if they could send his tunic through;

She brought it, and he thanked her with a nod;

He bade her search the pocket saying "That's from Mad Carew,"

And she found the little green eye of the god.

She upbraided poor Carew in the way that women do,

Though both her eyes were strangely hot and wet;

But she wouldn't take the stone and Mad Carew was left alone

With the jewel that he'd chanced his life to get.

When the ball was at its height, on that still and tropic night,

She thought of him and hurried to his room;

As she crossed the barrack square she could hear the dreamy air

Of a waltz tune softly stealing thro' the gloom.

His door was open wide, with silver moonlight shining through;

The place was wet and slipp'ry where she trod;

An ugly knife lay buried in the heart of Mad Carew,

'Twas the "Vengeance of the Little Yellow God."

There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,

There's a little marble cross below the town;

There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,

And the Yellow God forever gazes down.

"Casabianca" is a poem by the English poet Felicia Dorothea Hemans, first published in the New Monthly Magazine for August 1826.

Casabianca

The boy stood on the burning deck

Whence all but he had fled;

The flame that lit the battle's wreck

Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,

As born to rule the storm -

A creature of heroic blood,

A proud, though child-like form.

The flames rolled on - he would not go

Without his Father's word;

That father, faint in death below,

His voice no longer heard.

He called aloud: – 'say, Father, say

If yet my task is done?'

He knew not that the chieftain lay

Unconscious of his son.

'Speak, father!' once again he cried,

'If I may yet be gone!'

And but the booming shots replied,

And fast the flames rolled on.

Upon his brow he felt their breath,

And in his waving hair,

And looked from that lone post of death

In still yet brave despair;

And shouted but once more aloud,

'My father! must I stay?'

While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,

The wreathing fires made way.

They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,

They caught the flag on high,

And streamed above the gallant child,

Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder-sound –

The boy – oh! where was he?

Ask of the winds that far around

With fragments strewed the sea!–

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,

That well had borne their part –

But the noblest thing which perished there

Was that young faithful heart.

This Christmas we are doing both recitations for the family Christmas party in memory of our grandfather who died five years ago. We'll play the video recording, now transferred to a hard drive, of his recitations ten years ago, and then the whole family will perform both with the appropriate actions as a chorus.

Maybe our grandchildren will still be doing them in fifty years' time? Who knows.