Cate Devine
The smell of the elephants heralded the start of Christmas for us children of the Sixties. The Kelvin Hall Menagerie, part of the annual festive visit to Glasgow of Bobby Roberts’ circus, comprised a muddy hall of caged circus animals that you could pay to go and see in between shows. For my two sisters, my wee brother and me, this was the most magical place on earth. We’d get to touch the hoary hides of the huge grey animals as they waited their turn in the ring, and this was a real and scary thrill – because for the rest of the year, we only ever got the dead stare of the ancient stuffed elephant greeting us at the entrance to Paisley Museum. But at Kelvin Hall we were entranced by the damp, acrid smell of the animals’ trampled hay, mixed with the vanilla-sweet scent of candy floss wafting in from the Carnival next door, and we’d walk around to spot the tigers pacing their cages, and the lions gingerly napping.
Our boisterous boy cousins would come with us and we would squeal at their daredevil attempts to get the lions to wake up behind our mothers’ backs.
It would be pitch dark outside the Kelvin Hall, and the street lights would be twinkling, which made this special after-school outing with Mum and Aunt Cathy all the more exciting. A trip to Glasgow was a rarity in those days and when the words Kelvin Hall and Circus were mentioned, it meant only one thing: the countdown to Christmas had begun.
A trip to the theatre to see Francie and Josie was also part of the ritual, but I don’t remember enjoying it because being the youngest I didn’t get any of the jokes and felt a bit frightened of Jack Milroy and his short trousers and funny facial expressions. Much more memorable was a special trip to the Citizens’ Theatre to watch a ballet performance of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. My sisters and I went in a coach with primary school friends who all attended Miss Niven’s ballet class in Paisley. The mums would be all dressed up, though none could compete with the luxurious fur coat, stiletto heels and Chanel No5 worn by the poshest among them.
There was not an empty red plush seat in the theatre that magical night, though it was only after the performance that Mum discovered I’d been sitting on top of an unfolded seat for the duration. I didn’t know we were meant to pull down our seats, but I hadn’t noticed any discomfort. When we got home Dad asked if I’d enjoyed the ballet. I’m told I replied, “Yes, the sweeties were great,” a comment which was met with barely suppressed sniggers. But the sweets WERE great. They were big chocolate fruit creams, an expensive rarity in our financially challenged household.
On Christmas trips to Glasgow, Dad would drive us in his big bouncy Morris Oxford, whose dark and pale green colours were separated by strips of shiny chrome . This being before the Clyde Tunnel or M8 motorway were built, we’d travel from Foxbar to Paisley Cross, along Glasgow Road and Paisley Road West, past Bellahouston Park, across the Jamaica Bridge, left into Argyle Street at Boots’ Corner and beyond. Glasgow was like a different country to us, and the car journey there was long and exhausting. We children in the back seat had to press the tartan family travelling rug to our noses to stop the petrol fumes from making us feel nauseous. Mind you, that car was better than his previous one, a black Austin ,, which had to be pre-heated with the paraffin heater from the house for an hour before setting off.
Occasionally dad would turn right into Argyle Street and past Lewis’ department store. He’d slow right down to let us see the fabulous window displays, each depicting a different scene from the Christmas story. Lewis’ took up a whole block and there would be a queue of children waiting to see Santa that stretched from a side entrance of the store and all the way down the street. Lewis’ food hall at Christmas time was unspeakably thrilling because of the sight of baked hams, and the smell of spiced biscuits blended with fresh ground coffee beans. The toy department was on the fourth floor, and we loved getting to go on the only escalator in town – albeit a noisy wooden one.
A ballet exam at McLellan’s Galleries, where we each had to perform a mime in a huge sparse room, earned me a reward of going with my aunt to see Santa at Daly’s, the upmarket department store in Sauchiehall Street. (Mum was a teacher so couldn’t accompany me.) On the way upstairs to his Grotto I remember admiring the gilt upholstered chairs on each landing, the black and white striped wallpaper and the elegant, elongated necks of mannequins wearing exotic hats in the millinery department. This was a different class of Santa but by the time we got to the top of the queue he was clearly exhausted. After a cursory chat to find out what kind of gift I wanted (a baby doll that was soft and cuddly and not made of horrid hard plastic, since you ask), he told me to wait a moment until he returned with a gift-wrapped something special. I wasn’t allowed to open it until I got home - so when I discovered that he’d given me a boy’s toy gun and holster it was too late to take it back.
Christmas shopping in Paisley with Mum always meant a trip to the poshest department store in town, Cochrane’s [demolished just last month] for boring things like good-quality clothes, gloves and scarves. Then – joy of joys - we’d head along Gauze Street, past the Old Jail and the Town Hall, and down St Mirren’s Brae to the toy department at PCMS, the big Paisley Co-op Manufacturing Society store. I always wanted but never got a Meccano construction set because I thought that out of the punched metal bars, screws and nuts you could build a robot, like the one in my favourite 1960s sci-fi tv show, Lost in Space.
When Christmas Eve finally came along, Dad assured us he’d put out one of Mum’s homemade mince pies [not mince pieces!!] and a glass of milk for Santa, and a carrot for the reindeer, while we children would be packed off to bed early. We’d sleeplessly will our eyes to stay closed because we’d heard that if we actually saw Santa he’d deposit a sack of ashes on our beds instead of presents. So we’d piously think of the baby Jesus in the manger instead.
Suddenly it would be 2am and my brother’s excited announcement that Santa had been.Our winceyette pyjamas were no match for the freezing, fireless bedroom of our single-storey council house but we didn’t notice the cold as we ran to meet up with our two sisters in the coal-black hallway. It was an unwritten rule that none of us was allowed to go into the living-room first, so we’d stand together in a clump, count to three and burst in together.
There would be crumbs on the mince pie plate, the carrot would have been nibbled, and the glass of milk would be empty. Four neat piles of carefully-wrapped presents would be laid out on the sofa, each with a name pinned above it. A train set is unwrapped, soon to be joined by a pair of pink sparkly plastic stilettos with elastic safety straps, scooters, teenage dolls (there’s no such thing as Barbie) and a pack of BetaBuilda building bricks.
After about an hour, our bleary-eyed parents would come in and valliantly feign surprise as we’d rush to show them what Santa had brought us. We’d be told to go back to bed - though we’d each be allowed to take one present with us. I remember choosing my black wind-up faux-bakelite tin telephone, which had a button you could press to make it ring, and innocently proceeding to keep the entire family awake all night.
Some hours later, we got dressed for Morning Mass at the newly built St Paul’s just down the road, where my artist father’s framed stained glass Stations of the Cross hung on the walls. I liked that we sat near the altar on the right hand side, because that’s where I could see my favourite image of Jesus being taken down from the Cross. The purples and greys Dad chose for this were very restful. And at Christmas it hung just above the Nativity with the cute wee BabyJesus and cartoon-like animals.
A fine-knit bottle green woollen dress with a cream checked intarsia neckline was my special Christmas outfit. We all dressed up, mum in her velvet and necklace, dad in his best teacher’s suit, and the rest of my siblings in their Sunday best. We weren’t allowed to take any toys with us to church, or to play with our friends on Christmas Day.
Nobody had central heating. Our house had only one coal fire in the largest bedroom and one in the living-room. So the frost would form inside the thin metal framed windows, and we’d scratch out pretty Christmas shapes and wait to see whose would melt first.
In the living-room, the heat of the coal fire competed with the steamy cooking going on in the kitchen, so that we listened to Christmas carols and classical music to the hiss of the pressure cooker. Ravel’s Bolero, the grand march from Verdi’s Aida and Tchaikovsky’s Sugar Plum Fairy, all played on the Dansette record player, would keep us amused as we played with our presents and waited for lunch to be ready. Telly was not a feature of the big day until evening. A year later my older sister’s first Beatles EP, Twist and Shout, would join the musical line-up.
Mum kept her good dress on under her pinny when preparing the meal, which was a gorgeous chicken soup with rice, scattered with chopped parsley from the garden, followed by a roast chicken with Brussels sprouts and mash. Chicken was expensive in those days, and as such was a true celebration. Dad would ceremoniously carry it in from our tiny kitchenette to the table. How mum got a small chicken to feed six of us, including enough for leftover sandwiches, is a miracle to me when I think about it now. Sausage meat and sage and onion stuffing probably helped eke it out. There was always a trifle, then sickly truffles made with cooking chocolate and coconut, made by one of us as a Christmas present for Mum.
Christmas Day was the one day of the year that our parents had wine with their meal. It was always a Graves, and the bottle was of the palest green glass, with a concave bubble at the bottom that fascinated we children just a little more than the sharp smell of the wine itself. A parental afternoon siesta meant we could finally open our treasured Cadbury’s selection boxes. Our wee brother got a chocolate tool box, with a chocolate hammer, saw, pliers and chisel.
In the evening, we’d all watch Capra’s It’s Wonderful Life with the armchairs and sofa pulled close round the fire. I’d be sitting on mum’s knee and my brother would be on Dad’s, though I remember glancing fearfully and a little too often to the shadowy space behind the sofa where my sisters sat, sure that menacing Daleks from Dr Who lurked there.
The need to leave this warm and cosy family group to answer a call of nature was unmitigated torture, because it meant enduring a chorus of reminders to shut the living room door against the draught, suffering a blast of freezing air in the hallway, and having to sit on an ice-cold toilet seat. Demons always lurked in the shadows behind the bedroom doors, so it was a quick dash back to the living room door and the happy warmth within.
A big supper tray of chicken and stuffing sandwiches, with slices of homemade Christmas cake, then family prayers before bed, ended our day.
Boxing Day was always spent at home: the concept of rushing out to the shops to catch the sales had not yet been thought up.
One more day of wearing our Sunday best for visiting relatives, then it was back to old clothes and porridge - until Easter Sunday.