Shropshire Star

Peter Rhodes on Christmas Past and Present, a cats' tale and the perils of being candle-unaware

Read today's column from Peter Rhodes.

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National treasure Ruth Goodman

The repeat showing of Tudor Monastery Farm (BBC4) rubbed home the message, delivered by that great national treasure Ruth Goodman, that Christmas Past was a damn sight more special than Christmas Present.

We are immeasurably wealthier than our 16th century forbears but the price we pay is a Christmas pretty much like any other day. The Tudors prepared themselves body and soul for the 12-day festival. For weeks beforehand they worked hard and went hungry. They hoarded rare spices and raisins. So on the day the meal was bigger and tastier than anything they had seen all year. Today, Christmas dinner is just one more blow-out in a year-long succession of blow-outs (or blows-out, for you pedants). Next year, I promise the fasting will begin on December the First. Apart from mince pies, naturally.

We of the babyboomer generation are probably the last Britons to associate special tastes with Christmas. The zest of a tangerine takes some of us straight back to 1950s yuletides because that was the only time of year you saw such delicacies.

We are also the last generation to remember real Christmas lights, tiny wax candles clipped to the tree and lit by a grown-up. The reason we didn't all perish in house fires is that people back then were what a fire chief described after a tragedy a few years ago as “candle aware,” In other words they treated naked flames with respect, knowing that heat goes upward and that a candle can set fire to objects many inches above its visible flame. You placed candles above a certain level and would never dream of putting a lighted candle on the floor. Today's candle-unaware generation think a nest of candles on the carpet is dead cool and learn the hard, hot way.

To a casual, non-political reader, one thing leaps out of the Wikipedia entry on Emily Thornberry who is contesting the Labour Party leadership. It is the curious tit-bit that when her parents split up and her mother was left penniless in Guildford, “she relied on free school meals and food parcels, and their cats were euthanised to save money.” How strange. Was there no Cats Protection or animal shelter in the area? Euthanasia does not come cheap; my old moggie's final injection cost us £60 a couple of years ago. So who paid for the Thornberry's cats to be put down? None of this was the young Emily's decision and it certainly shouldn't reflect on her now. It's just odd.

Weather forecasters regularly warn us that predicting the weather accurately is difficult more than five days ahead and virtually impossible more than 10 days ahead. And yet this doesn't prevent the Met Office this week from predicting that 2020 will be one of the hottest years on record. They may be right. And if they are, they will certainly remind us of it 12 months from now. If they are wrong, expect a deafening silence.