Nostaligia Comp...A Letter.

I hadn’t meant to join the Nostalgia competition, my last musings on the past were not well received, though they were true memories. I was born in 1952 and the UK was still recovering from the war. I still had a ration book which is among my many treasured possessions. My mother was married at 17 and widowed at 23 with only one son surviving from her three wartime children. My eldest brother was brought up by my own father and never considered as a half-brother until years later.
My own father was rough and ready. He was down the mines at just thirteen and although keen to fight in the war he was an excellent driver and mechanic. He spent the war loading vehicles onto the ships going to the war zones and I think he felt the difference only when he married my mother. His own marriage hadn’t survived the war and he had two children from that marriage. I don’t think he felt that he ever lived up to my mother’s dead husband, who was always counted as a war hero. Until the day my father died there was always a photo of her first husband on display, complete with a red poppy.
My elder brother was twenty in 1962. My elder sister was fourteen, I was ten, my younger sister eight and my little brother was three going on four. It was the winter that was to go down in history as one of the longest and coldest.

I usually write to my siblings over Christmas, in particular those I don’t see very often. Why I thought about the Christmas of 1962 I don’t know, but the following is part of a letter that I have sent to my younger brother, who was fortunate enough not to experience as much hardship as the rest of us did. Some of the narrative may be obscure, but I felt it didn’t need any explanation. You lived those times and hoped to get by. That we did was testament to my mother’s strength of character. My Dad was a compulsive gambler, though he made up for this when he became a father and granddad to my daughter, following my divorce. The letter starts after an interval of courtesies.

‘This is Xmas 1962 or 1963, I can never remember the year. Only that the usual things happened around Xmas. Chronically short of money as always, mum made a Christmas pud and cake back in November. It was my favourite time of year as somehow I was around and got the first lickings from the bowl. Later on there would be visits to a shop near to Beechwood Park. I knew then that Mum was putting money down every week to buy Christmas presents for us all. That year I was getting a pair of Roller skates and Wendy was getting one of her huge jigsaw puzzles. Did you know that even then she could fit them backwards? No wonder she became a mathematician!
Mum must have gone somewhere else for Noel and Nicky, as I kept that card for her with the weekly payments on it. You would have been three that year and if memory serves correct you were getting a Fort and soldiers as your main present.
Do you remember that we took it in turns every year to get the main present until dad started work at Llanwern? He was working at the paper mills on the docks that year. I know because me and my friend Linda would sometimes go on the lorry with him and would filch bits of paper to make drawings with?
From early childhood I remember mum and those weekly payments. I never know how she made them year after year when Dad gambled his earnings away. Each Christmas one of us would get a main present that cost more and the others would make do with a stocking full of the usual. Always an orange or apple in the toe. They were not cheap either. Next would be a colouring book and some crayons. ( I would trade my fruit for more crayons). I don’t remember sweets at all. I suppose we did have them sometimes, but not when I was under 11 years old.
There would be one big box that we all opened on Christmas day. It came from Granny Spicer in Bath. (Noel’s Granny) . That one big box would be full of little things, but it was so exciting to open.
There were lacy handkerchiefs for the girls. Toy soldiers and card games for the boys. Things that made mum sad…though I never found out why. Once a bag of chocolate coins and then some sugar mice. There would be a calendar and sometimes knitted mittens. A scarf, a book, a collection of odds and ends, but we loved that box.

I doubt you remember this, but mum loved to sing. She would sing while she worked, her hands raw red from putting clothes through the mangle. She put red polish on the front door tiles and black polish on the kitchen range. Sometimes Noel would come home from work and pick her up in his arms and whirl her about. She laughed then. Can you remember mum really laughing? I do.
So this particular Christmas it was freezing cold. We all longed for snow on Christmas day, though I think Mum was dreading it. Christmas Eve we did the usual. This is no cheap pretend thing, we did this year after year. Mum would put up a little tree, bought from a greengrocers van. Once dad’s son Johnny pinched a tree from Wentwood forest… it was chopped down by Noel years later in Somerset Road after it grew to 20 foot.
Anyway, we were all gathered around this tiny tree and playing paper combs while Mum sang carols. She had a lovely voice. No snow fell that night, but dad came home early and brought a flagon of still cider with him. It was huge, maybe a gallon, it’s hard to say. But the main thing was that he’d come home and not gone to the betting shop. I saw him give Mum his whole wage package and only now I know why that made me feel so good.
I don’t know when the first flakes started to fall. I only know that I was looking forward to using my new skates on Boxing Day. I hadn’t had a big present since I was seven and I was so excited.
Why then, in the morning did it seem so bright behind our cheap curtains? The paraffin stove had gone out overnight and my breath was pluming in the morning air. It had snowed overnight and I looked out on a scene from a Christmas card. Suddenly the drab houses seemed magical and the nearby wasteland was a winter wonderland.
We took you out that day .Do you remember it? Nicky was in charge and we wrapped you up well with mittens, a bobble hat and green Wellington boots. We walked around the park and threw some snowballs, I can still feel the ice on my face and my nose starting to drip. My mittens couldn’t keep out the cold but what did that matter? It was Christmas and it was still snowing! We bundled you up and put you back in the pram, though you still wanted to play.

I think the best bit was getting home and smelling all the good things we would eat.
You wouldn’t know, but chicken was expensive in those years. Turkey was for rich people. We were still in the Common Market then so beef and lamb were still fairly cheap. But that year we had chicken for Christmas Dinner.
You were so excited and I remember thinking that I would always remember that day. I guess I did and so this is my Christmas present to you.
You were our little brother who finally arrived after three girls and dad was so chuffed to have a boy.
Remember we were only girls. “Split arse mechanics” dad called us. But we all loved you and we still do.
Happy Xmas Little Brother.

Love LisaXXX

P. S. The winter of 1962 to 1963 lasted until March when it finally started to thaw. It was a good time, until hunger set in. Maybe I’ll tell you about that another time. After all, you are the Historian in the family…I’m the one that keeps the memories intact. ‘