Nostalgia with Margaret Watson: Memories of Christmas past

Margaret Watson writes: I have used the picture on this page before and I will probably use it again because it is one of my favourite Christmas photographs.

It reminds me of the women in my life, like my mother and grandmother, my older sisters and aunts and the women who lived up our street.

This little group of ladies all worked at Mark Oldroyd’s Mill and had been given permission by their foreman to knock off early because it was Christmas Eve.

Every year it was a tradition for them to have tea at the Playhouse Cafe and then nip across the road to the Great Northern pub for a Christmas drink.

Sadly, both the Playhouse Cafe and the Great Northern are no longer with us, the Playhouse having been knocked down to make way for Wilkinson’s, and the Great Northern converted into shops and offices.

But at least we still have this happy picture of the inside of the Great Northern to remind us of the classiest pub in town.

When you look at these happy smiling faces, I hope it will remind those of my generation of the days when life was so much simpler.

The women I grew up with in the 1940s all worked in local mills and rag warehouses but they still had homes to run and families to take care of.

Despite this, there wasn’t anything like the stress we find in most families these days in the run-up to Christmas.

We hadn’t to worry about those we’d forgotten to send a Christmas card to, because the people we grew up with didn’t send Christmas cards in those days.

Well, why send cards to the people you lived with and worked with and who we were able to wish happy Christmas to personally?

Neither had women to queue up in crowded supermarkets for their festive food because they were able to get it from the many local food shops and butchers on their doorstep.

The other day I was talking to friends about Christmas past, and we all agreed our memories of Christmas were the same – few presents but lots of love and laughter.

The only Christmas decorations I can recall were sprigs of holly and bunches of mistletoe, and a new “pricked” rug in brilliant colours placed in front of a blazing fire on Christmas Eve.

Everything in the house had been scrubbed and polished so well, the whole house sparkled, and every visitor, including the insurance man and rent man, were given a piece of spice cake and glass of sherry.

Buying presents, sending cards and hanging trimmings around the house were never part of the Christmas scene in our house, but we always had lots to eat.

Mother made sure of that by joining Christmas clubs throughout the year, putting a shilling or two in each one every week.

The chocolate club enabled us to buy luxuries which we never saw in the house any other time, like boxes of chocolates and Liquorice Allsorts.

And the toy club made sure everyone of us got a little toy – even though it wasn’t the one we’d asked Santa Claus for.

The festive dinner on Christmas Day was never a turkey but a piece of pork or a stuffed rabbit, paid for out of another Christmas club.

I remember one year we had a goose, not sure where it came from, perhaps dad won it in a raffle, but its arrival on Christmas Eve caused a bit of a sensation, with neighbours and friends being called in to look at it.

The cooked goose was so big it lasted over a week and it seemed that the more of it we ate, the more was left.

Even the poor cat, who along with us had feasted on it all week, was glad to see the back of it.

Our Christmas Eve tea was always the same: stand pie, pickled onions, mince pies, spice cake and a lump of cheese.

Mother would then get on the piano and play her favourite carol – “Silent Night” and just for me the “Holly and the Ivy” which was my favourite carol and still is.

On Christmas morning, the children of the family went to Ebenezer Chapel on Longcauseway where a Christmas party for poor children was held every year.

We were Catholics but mother let us go anyway, even though going into a Protestant Church, especially on Christmas Day, was the worst blasphemy we could commit in those days.

But she knew it would have broken our hearts if we hadn’t been able to get our present from Father Christmas, and the orange and sixpence that went with it.

The breakfast was always delicious with potted meat teacakes and mince pies and steaming hot mugs of tea in the pots we’d brought ourselves to save on washing up for the helpers. No paper cups in those days!

No distinction of creed was made that day in the issue of invitations to those Christmas breakfasts, the only qualification being that the recipients were children in need.

I still marvel at all those kind men and women, who waited on us children that day hand and foot, sacrificing their Christmas day to give us a good time, and their children also helped.

The memories of those Christmases past will always live with me because they taught me so much.

They taught me to appreciate what others did for us throughout our lives to make us happier and more fulfilled.

I remember them all at Christmas and say a silent prayer of thanks to them all for such happy memories.

Mrs Preston for her trifles, members of Ebenezer Chapel (now Longcauseway Church) for their goodness, and, of course, my mother, who lit up so many bleak mid-winters for us all.

The photograph above was taken on Christmas Eve in the Great Northern public house before it closed down to be replaced by offices and shops. The picture was kindly loaned to me some years ago by Elsie Healey, who lived on The Flatts. She is the young woman in the white turban seated third from the right.