Christmas in the fifties

This is the longest in my series, so may I politely suggest you make a nice cup of tea/coffee, sit down and relax for five minutes while I attempt to take you back to a wonderful fifties Christmas.

Christmas in our house was – I suppose – the same as it was in every household pure magic! It was a special time of the year that was emblazened in my young mind forever which is why I am able to recall them today. With eight siblings, my Gran and Mum and Dad in the house it was always going to be a bit overcrowded.

Christmas at school

The festivities began in earnest at school, usually two weeks before the big day, although every other child I knew would start their countdown after November 5th. Around the end of November we would start pasting all those endless coloured paper chains together, looking back it was a bit tedious, but to young eyes they looked magnificent strung up from one corner to another, at home we would do the same but we used a mixture of flour and water for a glue. Story time in the class was always about the baby Jesus and we loved every minute of it! We were encouraged to make our own Christmas cards to take home as well, but the main thing that sticks in my mind from the age of five was the Nativity play.

Even at the tender age of five or six there was always a lot of competition to play the part of Mary and Joseph, I sadly never made it (apparently Joseph was huge and didn’t have stunted growth) I was always a shepherd and not even one that visited Jesus in the stable, so, for almost half an hour I stood robed in a striped bath towel and one of mums best tea towels around my head. Inevitably as with all youngsters mistakes were made, One year the donkey fell off the stage, another year Mary fainted, and there were always long drawn out silences as children were prompted to remember their lines. There was also a very embarrassing incident concerning myself and a pair of soiled trousers when I was five, but we won’t go into that!

Then before the Nativity play we always had the Christmas party, I can’t recall where all the food came from, I am pretty sure it didn’t come from the parents as it would today in some schools, but that didn’t matter, what I do remember is that a long table had crackers, hats and plastic tumblers in each place, we were then treated to such delicacies as Jelly and custard, blancmange, yule log and fairy cakes, all washed down with orange squash, the best thing was of course being waited on by the teachers. After a bit of a clean up (tables and faces) the games would begin, Musical chairs, pass the parcel, pin the tail on the Donkey and so on, but the highlight of the party would have to be the arrival of Santa, it was the most exciting time I can remember in my childhood, I now suspect he was the school caretaker as I’m sure Father Christmas didn’t smoke or drink whisky, but this was what I always got a whiff of as he asked me what I would like for Christmas, Then the present was handed over, If I recall correctly it was always the same for the boys and girls and was usually a reading book to aid schooling, a book like Janet and John.

And that was the end of school Christmas, we broke up a couple of days before Christmas eve after the Nativity play usually, this depended on which day Christmas fell, Working parents finished work on Christmas eve, usually around midday and after the inevitable passing around of the drinks.

Pre- Christmas

So for a couple of days we were left to fend for ourselves as mum was always busy in the kitchen making mince pies etc, her Christmas would have started weeks before with the cooking of the Christmas pudding in the burco copper, this was always done at night while we were in bed (less hassle for mum) but the smell that filled the whole house was beautiful. Like most mums of her day she would also make her own mincemeat for the pies on the day. I seem to recall that she always made her own Christmas cake and pudding as well, complete with a couple of sixpences mixed in, this wasn’t available to buy unless of course you ordered it from Fortnum and Masons lol!

I remember there was a chap down the estate that used to keep chickens, and about 2 days before Christmas his son invited myself and a few friends to his house, we had only been there a few minutes in the back garden when his Dad came out carrying an axe, he immediately grabbed one of the chickens, lay it on a log and chopped off its head! The chicken ran around headless for what was probably only a few seconds but seemed like an age, my friends and I ran off with the screams of laughter ringing in our ears, that lad and his dad had set us up! We got our own back next day when we asked him out to play, we covered him from head to toe in itching powder, he had to have his first bath for a month and was probably red raw by Christmas day lol!

There was also the inevitable carol singing, we would go from house to house sing a carol and always end with –

‘We wish you a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year

We would knock the door and await payment, sometimes no one came but mostly we would get paid, a favourite song to sing was ‘When the herds were watching’ as it was quite a short hymn and got you to the next house a lot quicker. I remember one year I hadn’t had a particularly good evening moneywise so I plucked up the courage to call in at the Queens Head pub on the way home, one old fellow who was worse for wear with drink made everyone shut up as I burst into ‘Away in a Manger’, as I sang he took off his flat cap and went around the customers, I left the pub to rapturous applause and almost twelve shillings richer!

Throughout the year mum had all her Vegetables delivered by a chap called Fletcher who would bring his van around the streets and people would buy from the back, so on Christmas eve he would turn up with the biggest Christmas tree we had ever seen, it would have a log attached to it so we didn’t have to put it in a bucket, he would struggle in with it and every year we would have to cut the top off to get it into the room. Fletcher was a really nice man and appreciated his loyal customers, so he would bring a very large wooden case about five foot long, three foot deep and two foot wide crammed full of apples, oranges, bananas, nuts and of course the inevitable dates in an oval casing. This case was always placed at the side of the TV but God help you if you touched any of it until next day, I am pretty sure Fletcher never ever charged its full worth either.

The turkey was also fetched fresh the same day, for such a large family it had to be a large bird and was always around 20 to 24 pounds in weight, Mum knew what size would fit into the gas oven – but every year it was a struggle!

The eve of Christmas

Christmas Eve in our house was always really busy, The turkey had to be stuffed, the bachelors dried peas put into a saucepan to soak overnight, sprouts had to have outer leaves removed and those crosses cut into the stems to aid cooking, and an endless amount of spuds to be peeled, I can’t think of how my poor mother coped. On the evening Dad would be down the pub till about 10.00pm.

Meanwhile we would be decorating the tree with glass coloured baubles, sprigs of holly, loads of tinsel and little chocolate figures in wrapped in foil, the crème de la crème would be the switching on of the tree lights, they were quite dim compared to today’s lights but we loved them, they had to plug in to the main ceiling light, this meant of course that apart from their light and the soft flickering of a lovely hot coal fire there was no other light in the room, it created a wonderful cosy atmosphere in the evening.

Then the chain garlands were pinned around the room usually on the picture rail, this would be followed by the tallest child standing on mum’s best chair and pinning balloons to the ceiling. The final act would be a long piece of string on the door to drape the Christmas cards over.

With all preparations completed it was off to bed for us over excited kids, We didn’t have Christmas stockings or pillow cases, we had my eldest brothers long socks (recently washed I hasten to add), Myself and three brothers slept in one room and my three sisters (two more babies yet to come) slept in another room.

So with smell of mince pies mingling with the paraffin heater on the landing we went up the wooden hill with our hotwater bottles vowing to stay awake till the early hours to get a glimpse of the jolly overweight fellow who’d bring us our presents, needless to say that never happened! I would tell my younger brothers stories until they finally nodded off (this was to become a regular thing but more about that in the sixties) then I would snuggle down under the blankets with my torch and read comics.

Christmas day

Next thing daylight was creeping through the chinks of the blackouts in the room, the batteries had run out in my torch but nothing mattered, our bulging stockings were awaiting at the bottom of the bed and great excitement ensued, an ordinary child today would have been disappointed and tipped the contents out onto the patchwork bedspread, but not us, everything had to carefully taken out to prolong the excitement, firstly a red rosy apple, followed by an orange and perhaps a pear, sometimes a banana, as you neared the bottom the excitement grew to a crescendo, there would be something like a twopenny chocolate bar or perhaps one of those white or pink sugar mice, then right at the bottom would be two brand new shiny pennies.

(Did you know why the traditional Christmas stocking had to have shiny new coins? It all began with St Nicholas the 4th Century Greek saint.

Nicholas liked giving presents to people who were less fortunate than him. He preferred to give gifts anonymously. He heard a story about a local nobleman who had lost both his wife and his money. The nobleman had been forced to move into a peasant’s cottage with his three daughters, all of whom were of marriageable age. At the time, a bride-to-be needed a dowry to offer her groom’s parents. Sadly, the nobleman couldn’t afford to feed his daughters, let alone give them a dowry. St Nicholas knew that the nobleman would be too proud to accept charity. So when he spotted that the girls had hung their stockings to dry on the chimney ledge, he decided to climb down the chimney and put a bag of silver coins into the oldest girl’s stocking. The next day, St Nicholas climbed down the chimney again and placed a bag of coins into the second daughter’s stocking. The day after that, St Nicholas tried to do the same for the youngest daughter but the nobleman was hiding in the room and caught St Nicholas in the act. St Nicholas begged the nobleman to keep it a secret but word got out and soon everyone was hanging stockings on their fireplace. So our new shiny coins are supposed to represent the gold!)

That was our waking hours, we would sit there gleefully tucking into what remained of our stockings with no thought about spoiling our appetites, or to the fact that our mum had already been up a couple of hours ago to put that gigantic turkey into the oven. Unlike the kids of today we wouldn’t have dared run into the parent’s bedroom jumping on the bed to wake them up – they would have killed us!

We waited patiently till we heard mum downstairs, she would be savouring the short spell of silence. As soon as we heard the slightest sound that was our call to go quietly down the stairs to the best room and discover what lay under the tree.

As I said we weren’t well off but Mum always made sure that every one of us had something to open no matter how small, the presents usually comprised of Compendium sets, which basically was a box of games including Draughts, snakes and ladders, ludo and the impossible tiddlywinks, I can’t ever remember getting that damn tiddly into the cup and even to this day do not believe it possible lol!

There may have been a box of paints, thankfully we didn’t have carpets in those days – just linoleum – because the mixture of coloured water in the jam jar would inevitably end up spewed across the floor! There may have been toy lead soldiers or cowboys, the other favourite for boys at that time was the ‘Magic set’, this comprised of a magic wand and a host of tricks that never worked, you would always lose one of the main parts before the day was over, perhaps the only thing that survived was the squirty flower which you got someone to sniff as you gave their face a dose of cold water. Another favourite was the cowboy outfit complete with cap gun, the only problem was mum would always forget the caps ( a bit like forgetting the batteries today) the shops weren’t open for another three or four days either, so you sat forlorn at dinner wearing your cowboy hat with an empty gun and not a cap to be seen.

My sisters might have a nurses outfit, or maybe a doll that could be dressed and undressed, things like dolls prams, dolls houses or bicycles were always well out of Mum’s price bracket, but then, there was always some lucky child in the street who wanted to show off and eventually share theirs.

Christmas lunch was a bit of a strange affair, try as I might I can’t for the life of me remember us all sitting down to a table to eat it, perhaps we did, I remember my dad always went to the pub at lunchtime (as did every other father I knew), he would come back at around 2.30 after we had all eaten.

Television

Christmas TV throughout the fifties was a bit of a dire affair in the first half of the decade, BBC had a monopoly on what was shown, presenters in evening suits and wearing dickie bows would introduce the programmes. The day would start with Carols from a famous place like St Pauls, this would last an hour and then television closed down until the afternoon. A film would be shown at 3.00pm and then a close down for 45mts, children’s TV would come on for 90mts then – yes you’ve guessed it – a 45minute shutdown. At 7.30pm there was a show called Christmas party with the BBC true to form showing snippets of programmes and stars who had appeared throughout the year, this was then followed by a farce (comedy play) usually involving the BBC favourite Brian Rix.

Closedown was at 11.15 with the national anthem and the screen closing to a white dot.

And that was basically it every year until 1955 when ATV began broadcasting.

Their Christmas offering in 1955 included Sunday Night at the London Palladium with the ever popular Beat the clock, this would be followed with a thirty minute playhouse presentation and a comedy like I love Lucy or Sergeant Bilko with Phil Silvers.

By 1957 ITV were wiping the floor with the BBC in the ratings by showing shows like Take Your Pick, (Micheal Miles) The Army Game, The Larkins, (with Peggy Mount and David Kossoff) and Life with the Lyons (Life with the Lyons featured a real American family. Ben Lyon and his wife Bebe Daniels had settled in London during the Second World War). The BBC at the same time offered a mixture of Ballet, Opera, sport and a feature film.

By The end of the decade the BBC still hadn’t learned from their mistakes and were very rarely seen in the ratings. Things were beginning to change on commercial TV though, parents were beginning to get bombarded by their children for popular toys they had seen in advertisements – sound familiar? Not of course in our house – we knew better than to ask – and we knew how hard mum struggled to get us anything.

It would be 1957 before her Majesty the Queen gave her first televised speech, although both ITV and the BBC broadcast her speech previously but without pictures.

After lunch

So we were left to our own devices in the afternoon, Compendium sets were played with but try as we might we never got our parents to play, Jigsaws were set up on the table, While Mum and the eldest girls washed up we made our own fun.
Then we’d all settle down to watch Billy Smarts circus on BBC usually followed by Billy Cotton’s Christmas show.
My Mum had hardly been sat down five minutes when she was up again preparing the tea, this would normally consist of cold turkey sandwiches followed by tinned fruit with carnation condensed milk poured over it.

All too soon it was time for bed, the familiar pyjamas, the hot water bottle – it was like Christmas had come and gone in a jiffy, all those weeks of excitement over in just a few hours!

Boxing day

The next day was always a bit of a non event, children would be out in the streets on their new trikes or bicycles, fathers would be off down the local sporting their new jumper and a sort of quiet would be descend on our house, young eager eyes would scour the Christmas tree looking for a last chocolate that may have been missed, while others would be searching for the most important part of the compendium box – usually the dice – which had gone missing in the excitement of the previous day, or the final piece of that jigsaw which had been mischievously hidden somewhere.

The eldest girls would help to tidy up, the tree was already beginning to shed its needles! TV was a no-no as it was always horse racing or some skiing from a mountain no one had ever heard of, basically Boxing day was a bit of a let-down, it was another 364 days until we could do it all over again.

By December 27th the only thing left in that massive box of fruit was a packet of dates, no one was ever hungry enough to eat those things, they would be kicking around for weeks until finally ending up in the dust bin. There would also be a few nuts left, the ones that even dad couldn’t crack open! But apart from the inevitable pile of pine needles beneath the tree, Christmas was well and truly over for another year and there was nothing to show that it had ever happened!

I hope you have enjoyed my visit to the fifties and my childhood, but don’t forget, I was only eight years old in 1960, so hopefully I’ll see you in the New year with a memorable trip through the sixties – God willing!

A very happy Christmas and a Happy New year to you all.