A ‘proper job’ as the Christmas fire roars
In a special nostalgic country story for Christmas, writer David Hill recalls a Devon Christmas past
TWELFTH night, and this was when Christmas officially ended in my farmhouse tree, (the name as a child I gave the ancient farmhouse, as in my young head it was as old and as large as an oak tree in East Furze Close hedge). On that night, the fire in the inglenook fireplace, which had been burning for the twelve days, was allowed to burn out in style.
The greenery of holly and ivy was stripped down from the walls, where it had decked the large picture frames containing family photograph-portraits and was thrown into the flames to burn with a snap, crackle and pop. A large slab battery, which had powered the wireless and had run out of juice, as my dad termed an old battery, and which had been saved back specifically for the burning was thrown into the flames.
Within seconds, much to our delight, a peacock’s tail of sparks and multi coloured blue and orange feather-flames was fanning out and roaring up the three feet wide chimney.
“A proper job” said Aunt Nell from her chair in the corner of the fireplace, the warmest area in the draught filled room, “a free firework display.” All that was left in the morning were a few metal pieces from the burnt out battery. My mother toasted bread with a handed down brass toasting fork, and Aunt Nell smeared on golden wedges from the home churned pat of butter, with homemade raspberry jam giving the finishing tasty touch.
“I dearly love raspberry jam, but the dang ole pips do get up under my top plate,” said Aunt Nell as she removed her top false teeth and wiped off the offending rogue pips with the corner of her handkerchief. As we munched away we played a game of Riddle Asking.
When you had answered correctly you asked your own riddle. My parents and Aunt Nell asked old riddles passed down through their respective families, while mine were from a recent comic I had been reading. “Thirty White horses upon a red hill, now they champ, now they stamp, now they stand still.” Answer - Teeth.
“I washed my face in the water,
‘My mother toasted bread with a handed down brass toasting fork and Aunt Nell smeared on butter’
that neither rained nor run: I dried my face on a towel that was neither wove nor spun.” Answer - Dew and sun. “From house to house he goes, so sure and yet so slight. And whether it rains or snows, he sleeps outside all night.” Answer - A Lane. I was never allowed to forget one riddle “Which is correct? “The yolk of an egg is white, or the yolk of an egg are white.” I thought it was a grammatical one and replied “Is.” Loud laughter greeted my answer.
One of my comic ones was “What’s the difference between an organist and a cold?” Answer - One knows his stops and the other stops the nose?”
Approximately a hundred years before the riddle night, my farmhouse tree was almost no more, when on one old Christmas Eve a fire ripped up through the trunk. Over the following months a large part of my farmhouse tree was made up of new branches which were grafted to the original stock.
A local newspaper ran the following story. NORTH DEVON JOURNAL ......JANUARY 12th 1853. On Thursday night, shortly after after the family had retired to rest, a fire broke out at Eastacott which was in the ownership of the occupier Mr James Webber. The front part of the house was completely destroyed and more than £300 (approximately £36,000 today) in notes and cash, together with the furniture, a quantity of wool, a dozen hogsheads of cider (approximately 600 gallons) and other property to the value of several hundred pound...
“Only about £10 of the money according to the latest accounts, had been recovered from the ruins. It appears that the inmates had been enjoying themselves over an ashen faggot, it being old Christmas Eve: after the family had gone to bed, the servant maid hung a quantity of wet clothes around the fireplace to dry, when some of them caught fire and thus originated the fire.
“One of the men servants awoke in the night and said, ‘The fire is still burning.’ When to his astonishment, the flame almost immediately burst into his room, and they were all obliged to fly with nothing on but their night clothes.”
Needless to say my parents and Aunt Nell who knew of the catastrophe which was made much worse owing to the fact that there had been a fire in the house a few years previously and for some reason Mr Webber, a distant relation, had let the insurance lapse, always put out the inglenook fire before going to bed. This was achieved by tilting the iron kettle hanging over the fire from an iron handy maid, and allowing a small trickle of water to pour out and douse the remaining embers. The end of Christmas for another year... A merry Christmas.