Nanny Robbie is Mrs Robinson and our elderly next-door neighbour-but-one, who lives two doors down on the left. She told Sis and I when we met her on the very first day at our new home in 51 Crescent Road, that we could call her Nanny as we had left our own Nanny far away in Tenerife when we moved to England (see post Toast And Television). Sis and I are very grateful to Nanny Robbie for her kindness, we both feel very alone here in England and can do with all the love and affection we can get. Mama tells me that Nanny Robbie came by today to deliver her gifts for Sis and I, and that this one is marked for me. Mama also tells me that I am already nine-years-old, and that we both know that Father Christmas and The Three Wise Men are wonderful stories, but that the Christmas gifts are really from people that love you very much and want to remember you on this special day. We must just not share this critical piece of knowledge with Sis who is only four and playing with her dolls in the next room. She is still captivated by this story, so we must tell her that Santa, just like The Three Kings, is a very busy man and needs all the assistance he can get to deliver his incalculable number of gifts to all the children of the World and all at the same time. This is an exhausting job, and kind neighbours like Nanny Robbie giving a helping hand by helping to deliver some of the gifts, is extremely appreciated.
I am not really listening to Mama’s prepared explanation for Sis, because I have already ripped open my gift: It’s a cook book! The Children’s Learn To Cook Book. I keenly scan the pages and am in paradise. It’s full of photographs of wonderful cakes along with a thing called a recipe telling you how to bake them. This recipe gives you precise instructions on the quantities of ingredients you must use, how to mix them, and the oven temperatures you must use. No wonder I have been unable to turn out a decent cake in spite of my multiple attempts during my many afternoons at home alone after school (see post Home Alone)! All along I had just been randomly mixing together flour, sugar, milk, eggs, putting the gooey mixture into the oven at whatever temperature happened to take my fancy at that particular moment, and ending up with no cake, rather an equally gooey, but just hotter mess. With The Children’s Learn To Cook Book in my hand, things will now be different, I smugly tell myself. Suddenly I have forgotten about not receiving a single Christmas card from my class mates. The singular kindness of an elderly neighbour has helped to lift the lingering sadness of rejection earlier in the day.
But the ubiquitous Christmas Cards tradition permeating every nook and cranny of England on this Christmas month will not go away, because this infectious ritual also contaminates Papa in a most unpleasant way. He later comes home with his own pile of recently-purchased Christmas cards and excitedly informs Mama that he will send them out to a carefully memorised list of work colleagues. Papa wants to impress his co-workers with his intricate knowledge of all customs English, but there is a teeny problem standing in the way: He has never been to school, and neither for that matter has Mama, therefore making him unable to write out these greetings in English, nor in any other language for that matter. Papa says no-one must know this shameful truth, so I am to write out the greetings for him, and there and then I am handed a pile of cards with a pen for the execution of this task. An excited Papa sits next to me, besides himself at the thought of the wonderful cards he will soon be able to hand out on the ward to his work colleagues when he appears for his morning shift tomorrow, and each with their own personalised greeting.
But I have never carried out this task before and end up in the most terrible mess. Papa has no written list of recipients, and I have never heard of most of these strange English names; Roger Penrose, Philip Whittaker, Sheila McCarthy, Lesley Cloony, so I misspell most of them and end up having to throw away those cards and start again. When I do finally get the names right, I misspell the greeting. Soon there is a mountain of cards piling up on the desk, and all full of either spelling mistakes or incorrect names. This pile easily outweighs another one besides it containing correctly written cards. This is too much for Papa who explodes in a fit of fury: Now looks what’s happened! all the cards have been used up and I still don’t have enough to hand out tomorrow. I can’t even go to the shop to buy some more because it’s past closing time! Can you do nothing right? What do you learn at this English school, if you cannot do something as simple as write out a greeting on a Christmas card! How can you be so useless? And I fall silent with shame as I listen to the tirade emanating from Papa. A Papa is meant to look after you and help you write out your cards, not the other way around as he is expecting me to do. I am beginning to hate Christmas cards, and I am also beginning to hate Christmas. At that moment, I decide that when I am grown up I will never, ever send a Christmas card to anyone. I will simply tell them to their face, Merry Christmas. And if I do not get the opportunity to do so, when we finally meet I will wish them A Happy New Year.
To be continued........
Next post Sunday, January 3rd 2021 : Little Bird
Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some additions from private family archives.
