At this time of year, yours truly is a sufferer of BHS – ‘Bah Humbug Syndrome’

HERMIONE insists that the longing has never left her. Dear, iron-willed, darling Hermione is entitled to boast that she has not been a smoker of tobacco, or of any other substances, for almost two decades now. She decided that our children must spring from a nicotine free womb and then that they must grow up in a nicotine fee environment. So she simply finished one final pack of twenty and never replaced it, sternly casting all ash-trays into outer darkness and jettisoning the lighter from her handbag.

It was a triumph of cold turkey, achieved without resort to patches, hypnosis or chewing gum. There was no question of gradual weaning: one day she was a practising addict, the next day she was an ex-addict. Such a turnaround was no small achievement and it is one she never expects to renege on, more power to her. Yet it is a move which continues to leave a teensy-weensy morsel of primitive regret in her otherwise resolute mind.

Yes, all these years later, she really does insist that the longing has never quite left her – which makes her steadfast abstinence from cigarettes all the more commendable. There are occasions such as times of loss or stress when she realises that she could so easily reach out for a fag in response to a long abandoned routine. Or the summons to revert to horrid habit may strike on the calmest of summer evenings as the scent of someone else’s Stuyvesant lingers tantalisingly in the still air.

As one who has never smoked, my role is confined to cheering Hermione on from the side-lines. Nevertheless there is an element of fellow feeling as I too have moments when I break out in a cold sweat. I also experience episodes of formless anxiety and unrelieved yearning. My difficulty is not so much one induced by cravings for a once sweet narcotic as by the effects of a seasonal allergy. I cannot help it. I do not know how to fight it. But this is the time of year when the aversion strikes, leaving me engulfed in formless, helpless, suppressed rage. Let’s call it BHS–‘Bah Humbug Syndrome’.

And let’s be clear that Medders is no Grinch. It’s just that I cannot abide all the gormless cheer of Christmas songs played over and over and over for weeks in advance of the big day. BHS is a condition which particularly affects retail staff who must endure an endless loop of Yuletide muzak broadcast by their employers throughout shops in a bid to loosen customer purse-strings.

Please have some sympathy for these put-upon employees if they do not greet you with their customary wit and warmth at the checkpoint when Michael Bublé is burbling ‘ have a jolly, holly Christmas’ for the umpteenth time since they clocked in.

I am exposed to the depressing effects of BHS since my office is located within all too easy earshot of a loudspeaker attached to the Our Town public address system. So there I am beavering away on the early afternoon shift when Noddy Holder intrudes with his primeval roar: ‘IT’S CHRISTMAS!’ Oh not it’s not Christmas, my rebellious spirit responds – it is only November 25 – as a wave of nausea washes over me.

‘It’s all a dream, an illusion now,’ croons Johnny Mathis in sickeningly cloying tones as he succeeds Slade on the play list. If only it really were a dream rather than an insistent, unbroken nightmare that comes to grate like a toothache. I love Cliff Richards. I believe that Michael Jackson was probably some sort of deity. Elvis Presley really will always be The King in these eyes and Bing Crosby must have been a saint. It is scarcely the fault of these pop giants that shopkeepers, deejays, radio presenters and town clerks insist on pumping out their Xmas hits again and again and again.

Four weeks of unrelieved chestnuts roasting with Nat King Cole and pumpkin pie served up by Kim Wilde is a diet daunting beyond belief. Even the wonderful ‘Fairy Tale of New York’ loses some of its lustre with ceaseless repetition, especially when played on a tinny tannoy through a blare of traffic noise.

Small wonder that the allergic reaction has kicked and my skin has turned blotchy with yearning for a time when the ‘ Twelve Days of Christmas’ was taken as holy writ.

Twelve days and no more.