Last of 2005

I suspect that most people of my age and generation spend the final hours of the old year thinking about people from days gone by. Today I am remembering my Mother’s ploy to get the Christmas spirit to last a bit longer. She taught me from a very young age to bother my Father for a “Ne’erday”. Being Scottish, she probably thought, gave her an advantage in that she could invent a tradition whereby she was given an extra gift at New Year. She added me on as a favour and to placate an intrigued child. But it was my Father who was at the receiving end of the bothering……or the giving, to be more exact. Only to be expected, I suppose, as he was the wage-earner in that immediate postwar time. As the years have gone by I have felt more and more guilty about it, as if I had connived in some sort of deception. In retrospect, I see that it was her way of staving off the homesickness and pain of living four hundred miles south of her roots.  As for him….well, he indulged us both. And he tried to make her happy in a strange sort of way by observing Scottish New Year tradtions. Things like cleaning the house during the evening of Hogmanay, emptying out the ashes before “the bells”, first-footing (he was good at it because he had black hair), hammering on the doors and for once being welcoming to all and sundry. These were very much a part of my growing-up, long before they became more widely imported into English custom.
Forgive the ramblings…….I am going all Alan Bennett.