Holiday Reads 2019

THE CITY AT CHRISTMAS A remembrance by Henry Hudson I am seven years old. It is Christmas Eve. The year is nineteen-sixty. I am living with my father and mother on the top floor of a tenement house opposite Dominick Street church. It is evening.

Da sits by the fire studying the racing pages of the Evening Herald while Mam and I sit together and grate bread crumbs into an enamel basin.

In the morning they’ll be mixed with herbs and sausagemeat to make stuffing for the turkey. Glowing coals in the fireplace bathe the room in a rich, warm light and the smell of spiced ham drifts from a pot that bubbles quietly on the gas stove in the corner of the room. Then from the hallway, three floors below, comes a wheezy, bellowing call.

“Are ye up there, Har?” Da goes out onto the landing and calls down into the darkness.

“Good man, Flash! I’ll be down in a minute!”

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