Security bedrock of every happy family

MONEY can’t buy love and it cannot be used as a substitute for it. My grandparents’ generation expected to find fruit in Christmas stockings, my parents’ a toy or a new jersey, my own, several toys and games and now it is a pile of technology. In my childhood the decorations went up on Christmas Eve and came down on Twelfth Night and the shops did not start their Christmas stock in September. There was a choice of just two television channels.

Yet there was one thing the overwhelming majority of us took for granted: family. We just assumed that mums and dads would always be together.

A lot of us had grans living with us or just round the corner. If there were strains or worries among the grown-ups then the grown-ups hid them from us. We had, by and large, an enormous sense of security which we took utterly for granted.

Now, that is exactly what so many children cannot take for granted. Mum and Dad split up, re-partner and sometimes do that all over again. Christmas is shared out between the parents, as are weekends. Even where splits are amicable, there is an impact on the child.

Give a child a choice between hundreds of TV channels and the latest computer gadgets or no presents but a guarantee that their parents will always be together until they themselves are grown up and most children, perhaps after a moment’s temptation, will want the family intact.

THAT brings me to the Royals. The Queen has already held a lunch at Buckingham Palace for all her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and the family is now at Sandringham, mounting a determined display of unity. It is widely rumoured that William was previously proposing to spend Christmas Day chez Middleton and I can see why. William grew up with divorced parents and the normality and cosiness of a family home must have been very appealing, when set against the alternative of a cheerful but formal, rule-bound gathering, with umpteen changes of clothes and traditions set in stone right down to the order of arrival. But some things never change and some poor mites will have had a rotten Christmas. Perhaps their parents got drunk and rowed or they were abused by a family member or they were injured in some terrible accident or Granny died on Christmas Eve. I can only pray 2019 will bring them some happiness.