Books by Mildred Masheder

 

 

Christmas in the country...

Mildred Masheder at 90 remembers childhood Christmases of the 1920s in the Oxfordshire countryside.

(Illustrations by Susanna Masheder / Copyright Mildred Masheder)

Christmas was the most eagerly anticipated event of the year for us children and preparations for the great day started weeks in advance. There were puddings to make to replace last year's ones, which would be at their peak for the great day. The making of the mincemeat and the cake soon followed to allow a certain maturing, aided by a nip of the one precious bottle of brandy. This all entailed a massive shopping expedition in the carrier's cart, which was our only means of transport to get to Oxford. Three carriers made their way from the next village every Wednesday, market day and Saturday. The carts were rather like the covered wagons in old Westerns; they were made of wood and could squeeze as many as ten people on the hard seats all round the sides.

I looked forward to this early Christmas shopping; it seemed to me that suddenly money was no object, although we alighted from the cart at Cowley which was the cheapest shopping area. It was always the same: special muscatel raisins, which would have to be stoned for the pudding, a sticky job always allotted to me: currants, glace cherries, orange and lemon peel encrusted with brittle sugar, almonds and raisins, figs, Turkish delight and a box of crackers. I was always fascinated by the dexterity of the Home and Colonial staff as they sliced off exactly a pound of best butter from the huge block and proceeded to pat it up into an elegant criss-cross pattern. Heavily loaded, we would proceed up Oxford High Street to Webbers for the widest ribbon for a special bow for my hair for Christmas. What intrigued me was the way in which the money was put in a little tube and hoisted on to a line above our heads where it ran along into a hole and after a minute or so it would miraculously return with the correct change and receipt.

Most of the preparations took place on the farm: we children were sent wooding to collect fair-sized Yuletide logs, holly and ivy with berries and mistletoe, which was usually too high up. A speciality was the spindleberry with its bright scarlet and deep-pink berries. We would go down to the woods with my father to choose the best Christmas tree ever; one that we could just manage to carry home between the three of us - Father, Monty and me. It was hard work digging it up with its roots intact so that we could plant it in the garden afterwards, hung with goodies for the birds. There was no question of whether this was allowed; we rented the fields and the Lord of the Manor owned the woods. It was lit up on Christmas Day with lots of candles all placed so that nothing would catch alight. All of the villagers were busy doing the same things; piling up logs and digging up Christmas trees, and. as every family had killed and salted a pig, it was time to cut and boil a ham for Christmas breakfast. We all went carol singing, for the fun of it, fortified by hot mince pies and cocoa from the manor and the parsonage.

Back at home there were last minute preparations, helping with all the cooking involved. This was a time to give way to temptation in the form of 'tasting' and once, after a glorious session of licking out all the icing tubes, my brother and I were sick on Christmas Eve, but made a miraculous recovery on the great day, to the enormous relief of my mother. She and my father had been run off their feet on the previous days. Some years we had our own turkey which had to be killed and plucked and dressed. Any turkey we had seemed to regard me as fair game and would attack me by trying to fly up to my face, except that he could only land on my fleeing heels as I ran for dear life. I didn't have any mixed feelings on eating it on Christmas Day but preferred our tender hens, full of flavour through being able to roam in the fields and grain-strewn yards.

The highlight of Christmas was undoubtedly the discovery of the stocking; it was usually by candlelight as we couldn't possibly wait till dawn. There were always two stockings: one of my mother's woollen pairs, stretched to the utmost, and a 'boughten' one of white canvas. There always had to be two. How did they manage to buy and hide them? How important it was to have the regulars: tiny story books, beautifully bound and illustrated two inches square; a chocolate Father Christmas and always a tangerine in the toe. When I was quite young I woke up and saw that it was my father instead of Father Christmas. I carried the secret for several years; I felt that I had to keep up the pretence, otherwise it might hurt his feelings. We had all the parcels at the same time; Monty had his Meccano sets and I had my dolls and fairy stories. We had one standing commitment to spend Christmas Day with Granny and Grandpa, together with all the uncles and aunts and cousins. I was always reluctant to leave the treasures and toys found in my stocking, but I had no choice. Our one extravagance was to go by Mr Gatz's taxi and I thought that this time he couldn't mistake the day as he had on a previous occasion. On one occasion we spent all Christmas Day rehearsing a knock-about - invented play with the cousins. I was full of apprehension and excitement at the idea of performing in public, but our plans were dashed to the ground when Granny decided that there was no time for our play. I was indignant - why did the grown-ups always decide? But I couldn't protest. I couldn't help thinking that there had been lots of time for my aunt to sing a whole series of Christopher Robin songs: 'Hush, hush, whisper who dares, Christopher Robin is saying his prayers' and 'Halfway up the stairs is the stair where I sit. There isn't any other stair quite like it' and many more, which I considered rather soppy.

Besides the family celebrations there were the two village Christmas parties: one by the widow of the previous Lord of the Manor and a more elaborate one from the present Lord, John Buchan, and his family. The parsonage celebration was prized for a whole distribution of Christmas cards set outside on a row of trestle tables. There was a complete free-for-all as we jostled and snatched as many cards as we could, while Miss Parsons presided over us smiling benevolently. The tables cleared as if by magic and we were ushered into the beautiful Georgian dining room carrying tightly our trophies. We munched our way doggedly through the dainty cucumber sandwiches and tiny iced cakes of pink and white until there was not a crumb left - rather like a swarm of locusts. Then Edith, the buxom cook, rolled down an orange for each child the length of the long table.

The Buchans' Christmas party was a more elaborate affair at the school with a huge Christmas tree ablaze with candles, which once got out of hand and managed to burn a few top branches. Otherwise, it was very orderly, unlike our Christmas-card scrum, with each child called up one at a time to receive a present. The hierarchy was well in place and I, as a tenant farmer's daughter, had a choice of two gifts - a story book or a packet of note paper - whereas the farm labourers' children had to take what they were given.

Bessie Phipps had a sewing kit as she was told publicly that she always had a hole in her stockings and Agnes Warner always had boys' adventure stories.
They regretted giving me the choice, however. and as I dithered endlessly the rapturous bonhomie of the benefactors gave way to ill-concealed impatience.

Long before my time, around the turn of the century, the largesse distributed by the Lord of the Manor reflected the serious poverty of the labouring class and a more dictatorial attitude by the gentry. In old Mr Parson's day, the gifts were quite specific. Men, women and children all had to go to the manor to receive their presents. The women received dress pieces, a length of calico or flannel and they were allowed to give their choice. The married men received shirting, sufficient to make two shirts (another job for the women). House- holders all had a leg, loin or shoulder of mutton depending on the size of the family, and single men had a breast of lamb and presumably no shirting.

By the 1920s the regime with John Buchan as our Lord of the Manor was much more egalitarian and the offerings took the form of a pair of sheets for each of the farm workers' families. They were always of unbleached calico and, although they looked brown, in the end they bleached in the sun and became softer as time went by.

For us children Christmas was truly a joyful occasion. There was the traditional food that could compare favourably with the highest cuisine. There was plenty of fun in the fresh air to wear off the effects of overeating and there was good entertainment: singing round the piano, drama. games and snow- balling and tobogganing on our own tin trays. It did snow more often round about Christmas. All of these activities were of our own making as we were left very much to our own devices. Today we would miss the internet, TV, DVDs, CDs, mobiles and even the radio, but what you don't have you don't miss!

(This article can be seen in the December 2007 edition of The Countryman: www.thecountryman.co.uk

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© 2007 Gant