Richard Wyatt.qxp_Layout 1 23/11/2021 15:24 Page 1
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Richard Wyatt: Notes on a small city Columnist Richard Wyatt looks back on Christmases past, including bouts of flu, carol singing and painting snow on the Christmas tree, and decides to keep things simple this year
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I’ve grown to dislike the idea of chopping down a living tree for just a couple of weeks of dehydration in a centrally heated home
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feel like a three-star brandy. I have been triple-vaxxed against Covid and more recently received my annual flu inoculation. I have to say the injection for my booster – delivered with finesse at the Church Rooms in Combe Down – was so expertly done that I literally felt nothing. They must be making mighty fine needles these days, not like the basic hypodermics of painful times gone by. Mind you, I am so ancient I can remember the days before a dentist’s drill was water-cooled. Ah the sweet smell of burning! Back in the pre-pandemic days when I inhabited a younger and more disease-resistant body, a dose of flu was not an easy thing to bear. I am sure many will empathise with a week spent aching, wheezing and feeling like death while that nasty influenza virus did its worse. With Christmas in mind, I came across a photo taken many yuletides ago of Yours Truly recovering from a bout of flu at home in his Flax Bourton cottage. I was unable to join the rest of the HTV West crew helping the west country in its countdown to 25 December and I think I made up for this by recording a greeting to all our loyal fans from my sick bed. HTV News developed its own seasonal traditions with recordings of various choirs singing carols for transmission each night. On the night nearest to the big event we’d all gather in the studio to wish viewers the compliments of the season and then, with cameras still rolling, go out to the front car park at Brislington to welcome in the Bristol Carol Bus. One year, as the Western Daily Press and Press Gazette reported, we shared out a few Dickensian top hats and went off to Temple Meads station to sing carols to travellers. It must have given some impetus to the speedy boarding of trains, but we raised some cash for local charities, too. The older I get, and with all our current difficulties over empty supermarket shelves and the threats of seasonal scarcities affecting Christmas gifts, the more I think about the need to pare down exorbitant spending and to search out the true meaning of this explosion of love and bright lights at the darkest time of the year. When my elder sister and I were children I remember our parents mixing white washing powder granules with water and painting it on
the fir tree branches where it dried and gave an impression of snow. It required plenty of patience, as did the placing of what seemed like hundreds of strands of shiny silver lametta tinsel on top of every ‘snow-dusted’ branch. These days putting up and decorating the tree can be both quick and simple. An artificial tree can be bought as an all-in-one, complete with frosted branches pre-set with countless LED lights and assorted ornaments. In the past, I always tried to go for a small tree with roots and have left behind me several gardens with firs still shooting upwards. Meanwhile, I’ve grown to dislike the idea of chopping down a living tree for just a couple of weeks of dehydration in a centrally heated home. My nod to my parent’s frugality – with their washing powder paste snow effect – is to wrap presents in newspaper. We take the weekend edition of a daily that’s printed on pink paper. The supplements soon mount up to provide enough Christmas wrapping and it’s all recyclable. I will exchange gifts with my sisters this year but intend to leave it there. While wishing all my relatives and friends a joyous gettogether I will be making a donation to a charity helping refugees. What has coming home for Christmas meant for them? Christmas – or Christ’s Mass to be precise – is an annual festival that is also a public holiday in many countries. A celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ for Christians and a winter break for everyone else. December 25th also happens to be the date of the winter solstice in the Roman calendar. The shortest day of the year in which darkness rules supreme but then each day onwards gets brighter and brighter. I hope that is true for all of us everywhere around this troubled world. While we’re talking of Christmas presents, do remember, the greatest present we have IS the present. Use it wisely. n Richard Wyatt runs the Bath Newseum: bathnewseum.com
14 TheBATHMagazine
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DeCeMber 2021
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issue 226
