Christmas has gone. Again

Christmas seems to last a long time these days and suddenly its over.  Last Christmas was like no other and for many is best forgotten.

 I can't say that I have many memories of the Christmases of my childhood. Just a snapshot here and there. My earliest is perhaps not a particularly happy one. I was quite young and was given a chocolate policeman. What I do remember is that were always taught to share so when my Dad asked for a taste of my chocolate policeman I offered it to him not expecting him to actually taste it. I burst into tears when he bit the head off tthe policeman. I never forgave him for that

I appeared in the Christmas pantomime at primary school . Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the panto you have to guess which dwarf I was. I won't go into any further detail except to say that I left the stage part of the way through as in those days and for a long time after I had difficulty in controlling my bladder

At the Infant School in Wapping the children were given a Christmas present which were all laid out on the table and the children could walk around and choose something.

I chose a toy cowboy cap gun which was immediately confiscated as soon as I got home as my dad was a pacifist and did not approve of guns as toys

Midnight mass  everyone went to midnight mass in Wapping. I don't know the proportions but most of people near where we lived were Catholics and so there was always a big crowd and even the children went and on one occasion my older brother Tom rushed home and played practical joke by dangling a lighted skull from the roof of the block of flats where we lived .

 In our house Christmas dinner was one o'clock sharp and everyone had to be there. The main thing I remember about those dinners was the overcooked Brussels sprouts and cabbage..

My first Christmas away from home, apart from the evacuee years was the first one of national service When I finished my Military Police training we were just given a short home leave but had to return to Barracks the day before Christmas Eve. Christmas was spent in the barracks and there was some kind of silly tradition there that the sergeant brought round cups of coffee laced with rum which I found quite disgusting

My second Army Christmas was in Moascar in the Suez Canal Zone. It was free booze all day long and then there was an evening meal. The cook Sergeant fancied himself as something of a chef and laid out a really tremendous feed. However in the middle of the table there was this enormous salmon which he had decorated with coloured piping of some kind, possibly mashed potato.

I took one look and went straight outside and brought back up all the free beer I  had drunk during the course of the day. 

What we learned doing National Service

National Service - what we learned

Every now and again after some particular outrage by a young person, student, hoodie, longhair  or what have you, then some armchair ex-colonel or even someone more important like a former Lance Corporal,  will come out of the woodwork and suggest that National Service should be re-introduced instead of sending young men to university.

I have been thinking of writing a book about my National Service days sixty odd years ago, and will call it something like "Learned to drive and learned to skive".   Haven't got round to it yet but when I do......

The Chapters will include:

How to pretend to be busy by carrying a clipboard

When in a barracks, walk quickly looking straight ahead so that it would appear that you have some purpose and remember to walk around the parade ground and not across it.

All the verses of  bawdy rugby songs, even if you have never played rugby.

Swearing  in Arabic, 

 How to darn socks

Marching without kicking the heels of the guy in front so that a whole platoon is not brought down like a row of dominoes.( Never really mastered that one)

Spend long hours doing nothing either on your bed or in the Naafi if there was money left.

If it stands still paint it, if it moves salute it.

Play brag and solo whist

Get drunk, if you can afford it on ten Bob a week

Smoke by buying five Woodbines at a time.

Fire a rifle, sten gun and pistol (not a revolver!)

And most importantly....

Bite your tongue when being given orders by jumped up little squirts with upper-class accents and no brains.