IN LOCKDOWN Ghosts of Christmas past remind us of times both good and bad
It’s been a Dickens of a year and Anton Rippon draws on the words of the Victorian storyteller to see it out...
“HAPPY, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveller back to his own fireside and quiet home.”
When it comes to Christmas, no one has better summed it up than Charles Dickens. This time of year does indeed bring our memories into the sharpest focus.
Not all of them are happy ones, of course. Beside warm thoughts of Christmases past – childhood noses pressed against the window of Ratcliffe’s toyshop; the crepe-paper decorations inexpertly crafted at junior school but still received with unbridled glee by tactful parents – there are the reminders of harder times, of loved ones lost. Especially so in 2020.
Lockdown got me rummaging through my old school satchel – I’ve still got it, the leather now as brittle as an autumn leaf – recalling all those fresh young faces, futures unmapped, fates unknown – how could we have known? – making friendships that would last a lifetime.
Sixty-four years ago, now, that first year at grammar school. It was memorable, not least because it coincided with Derby County winning the Third Division North championship. That might sound daft to some, but I always associate the 1956-57 school year with Ray Straw equalling the Rams’ individual scoring record for one season.
Right at the bottom of that old satchel, underneath a physics exercise book that I must have treasured because it carried unusually good marks, there was a dog-eared sheet of paper on which were the details of the Bemrose School carol service held at St Luke’s Church on December 17, 1956.
All the familiar carols are there, together with readings from the Bible, given variously by “a boy from Form 1” – his name was not recorded – as well as the school captain, Mick Allen, and the headmaster, Eric Bennett.
It’s all still fresh in my memory, not least afterwards walking home as dusk gathered, down Stockbrook Street with my pal, Stuart Clay. Another lifelong friendship. We started infant school together, he was my best man, and now, during lockdown, he does some heavy shopping – big bags of cat litter mostly – for us.
Another old pal from those days, John Cheadle, called round the other day to collect a book. “Are you coming in?” asked Mrs R. Then: “Oh no, of course, you can’t.” Just for a moment one forgets about lockdown. But not for long.
It’s remarkable, how what was once a routine trip now takes on the feeling of a major undertaking. Another old pal, Dave Hannah – we first met during our newspaper days in Burton – said that, when he and wife Sandra went out to the shops for the first time in ages, “it felt like we were setting out on holiday. On the A38 we enjoyed our first traffic jam in ages. Bliss! Sitting there with the heater on, waving to other wonderful drivers, it really warmed the soul. Even the driver in the broken-down lorry near the Markeaton island looked happy as we passed him, honking and waving our greetings.”
Another friend was caught up in a traffic jam on the ring road and it was 10 minutes before he realised that he was unwittingly queuing for McDonald’s. Strange, what constitutes an essential journey for so many.
Meanwhile, I must catch up with the price of things. I needed 80 second-class postage stamps. I’m standing there with a £20 note expecting some change, and then the always pleasant Mickleover subpostmaster asks for £52. He must have thought me rude when I exploded: “How much?”
Then again, the average cost of a pint is now £3.94, an increase of four times the rate of inflation, apparently. It almost makes you grateful that the pubs are shut.
Well, it’s almost here. I’ll leave the final words to Charles Dickens: “A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy new year to all the world!”
Anton Rippon’s local books are available from www. northbridgepublishing.co.uk