Not a few letters remembering, with warmth, Christmases of the past, and regretting the present hurtling pace and money-mindedness of today. Two of them from Belfast. Christmas morning and the pillow-case hanging over the end of the bed with some books for the young boy. Often by R. M. Ballantyne, a sort of lesser Robert Louis Stevenson with tales of pirates and shipwrecks, nothing like the real thing with Long John Silver, parrot on his shoulder chanting "pieces of eight". What did he give his parents? An Edgar Wallace paperback for his father, maybe. Yes, they did have paperbacks in the Thirties. For his mother powder or perfume on the advice of the chemist. Then the short ten o'clock service (it must have been a Church of Ireland house) and a walk over one of the lovely hills that surround the city, before the big midday dinner of turkey; the bird always bought from friends in the country. Fourish or fiveish, the mile or so to the grandfather's house, where the old man sat in state on the sofa in the parlour, looking restlessly at his half-hunter watch: "Is the tea not ready Maggie?"
It came uncomfortably early after the dinner, but both his unmarried daughters had worked to make it something special. Cold goose, and salad, trifle and Liz's special Sunday spong-cake are the memories of our friend. (The only strong drink in the house was a little whiskey in case some one got a weakness). After tea there was hymn-singing, the pianist, Liz, also having a fine contralto voice. "Not so loud", the old man would say, "it's a holy day." A cousin who sang in the choir of what was regarded as a fashionable downtown church, would spend some time upstairs grooming himself. Then maybe, after gratefully receiving half a crown from the grandfather (two shillings and six pence or one eighth of a pound) in addition, to various presents our man went to visit a school friend, maybe, take a stroll.
Happy placid memories? Not entirely. How many people you knew were dying of tuberculosis. His mother used to visit, on behalf of the parish, several women dying of what seemed then practically incurable disease. And relatives in the country reported the same - and worse - from the complaint. Workless men walked the streets, thin suits, hardly a decent winter coat among them. Then came rumbles of war and with them work in the shipyards and engineering firms. The coming of the big war, Arthur Campbell was quoted as writing here recently "and ironically it raised our living standards." In the country relatives went to the well for water and trimmed wicks of oil lamps daily. It seems as far off as RLS's desert island.