A family group admire the lit Christmas Tree in Church Street after a fresh fall of snow circa December 1954. 

Photo by Liverpool Post and Echo Archive/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images

Read more: ‘To hell with Christmas’

We are perhaps used to seeing idealised images of Christmases past, as the tradition of decorating trees, exchanging cards and gifts was popularised in Britain during the Victorian era. However, as we all know, the difficulties of living up to the vision of what we think Christmas should be like is challenging and this was especially true of those struggling with financial hardship in the early and mid-twentieth century. Christmas was a time of heightened emotions and increased the burden of poverty even more for many working-class communities. As such, we can see the ways in which working-class memoirists point to Christmas as a moment in their lives when they were acutely aware of the deprivation they experienced. As Helen Forrester described in her account of her family’s adjustment to a life of poverty in 1930s Liverpool following her father’s bankruptcy: ‘Christmas loomed near. I did not mention it…’ She explained that she overheard the hushed whispers of her younger siblings who spoke of it in secret and who had not been invited to participate in the school nativity: ‘it was clear that none of them had any hope of our being able to celebrate the birth of Christ.’[1] This emphasis may well have been more acute for those who experienced relative affluence or better standards of living in their adult life and perhaps compared the Christmas they experienced as children with that of their own children. Writing in 2011, the writer and activist Harry Leslie Smith described in his 1923: A Memoir, described his profound misery as he awoke on Christmas day in 1930, ‘On Christmas morning, I awoke with an overwhelming hunger which ate away at my belly. I jumped from the bed and began to cry that it was so unfair that Father Christmas didn’t give a damn about us and never stopped to being presents to our attic bedroom.’[2] It must have almost been unfathomable for those who enjoyed better living standards in later life to think back to the hardship and hunger of the 1930s and the sparse Christmas that many would have endured in their youth.

Working-class memoirists often portray Christmas as a period of heightened emotions and turmoil, as the pressures of poverty and its negative impact on family life came to the fore amid the additional burdens of the festive period. For example, Harry Smith’s memoir described how his parents’ relationship ended just before Christmas in 1930, ‘in an explosive confrontation when my mother announced to my father that her lover was to join us in this hellish boarding house.’[3] Harry depicts his father’s devastation, emasculation and his ‘the final shame’ of being told that his wife was moving another man in. He writes, ‘My dad after sixteen years of marriage, after the loss of his birth right, the death of his first born, his physical infirmity, his unemployment and his poverty finally snapped and displayed his long, mute suffering for the first and last time’. Attacking Harry’s mother with a knife until she struggled away, his father was left ‘alone on the floor like a wounded animal, quivering and shuddering off adrenaline and spent anger.’[4] For Harry, this awful and traumatic incident encapsulated his domestic unhappiness and the poverty he experienced, what he saw as his mother’s sexual immorality, and his father’s emasculation.

Harry’s mother had wrongly convinced a man named Bill, described as a womaniser, that he was the father of the child she was pregnant with. Thinking that Bill would better provide for her family than Harry’s father, an unemployed miner who suffered from physical ill-health, Harry’s mother moved Bill into their rooms and forced Harry’s dad to share the attic with Harry and his sister, Mary. For Harry, that Christmas was a particular low point in a difficult and poverty-stricken and emotionally fraught childhood: ‘By Christmas of that year, the anxiety and despair in the doss was overwhelming for me and I fell into a deep depression. My downcast mood was not improved by the fact that despite father’s replacement as the head of the household Bill seemed intent to see us starve.’[5] The family’s implosion at Christmas was, for Harry, a symbol of the lack of domestic care and emotional warmth that he received from his mother.

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Coal Picking at Sheffield During The Coal Strike c. 1911 via Getty images.

Harry Leslie Smith grew up in poverty after his father, a coalminer, was no longer able to work. His mother would send Harry and his sister out to search for coal scraps and his memoir depicts the severe deprivation and familial unhappiness he experienced growing up.

Harry reflected on the difficult relationship he had with his mother, particularly her violence, neglect, and her numerous extra-marital affairs, and acknowledged: ‘Perhaps my mother did hold back that financial tidal wave that threatened our survival, but at what cost to her or us? Even though I abhorred her, I still recognised that there were a thousand tiny hairline fractures in her soul from enduring so much pain and so much disappointment in her own life.’[6] Nevertheless, it is perhaps no surprise therefore, that as soon as he was old enough, joined the RAF three days before Christmas 1940 and chose to spend the festive period with his closest friend: ‘That year, I spent my Christmas at Doug Butterworth’s house because I couldn’t stomach my mother’s drunken antics over the holidays, I reasoned this might very well be my last Christmas, and I may as well enjoy it with a real family… I saw Mary and I brought her a present of fresh meat… which she was overjoyed at receiving, as she had recently wed a lad’, home from leave from army for Christmas.[7] This account showed Harry’s deliberate rejection of his mother – whom he associated with poverty, unhappiness and pain during Christmas – in favour of his friend, his ‘real family’ where he felt safe, secure, and wanted. It is also telling that in delivering meat to Mary, Harry took on the role of provider and enjoyed the opportunity to bring some Christmas joy to her life, knowing she had so little. For Harry, Christmas epitomised the lack of familial care he felt growing up and was used to convey the neglect he felt by his mother. Subsequently, his eagerness to provide his sister and himself with alternative experiences of Christmas as soon as he was able was part of a wider attempt to create a new life for himself that was not only more financially comfortable but was also associated with sharing his resources as protests against his parents’ inability to care appropriately for himself and Mary.

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Christmas presents for poor children of Southwark, December 1932. Image Via Getty Images

Poor children often received presents or food boxes at Christmas from charitable organisations, but these were not necessarily the happiest festive memories presented in memoirs.

Christmas was not necessarily an unhappy time for working-class memoirists, however. One theme that emerges prominently is the unexpected moments of happiness, prosperity, food or gifts. Again, Helen Forrester, who could not bring herself to acknowledge the idea of spending Christmas in such horrendous deprivation, recounted the miraculous moment when an unexpected Christmas box – gifted by charities or even by the Council to poor families, was delivered on Christmas Eve. Her account conveys the sense of magic and otherworldliness of seeing such rich and nutritious food after months of near-starvation:

It was a very large parcel, addressed to Father, and it took the combined strength of Father, Alan and me, to carry it up to our top-floor rooms.’, struggle to open it, when orange falls out. ‘An orange! An exquisitely perfumed, golden fruit was sitting right in the middle of our floor. We all gaped at it, and then renewed our frenzied opening up of the package… We disinterred a turkey of proportions generous enough to have pleased a king, a large plumb pudding in a bow, a bag of potatoes, more oranges, and a box of sweets. sweets! We were nearly hysterical with excitement.[8]

However, like Harry Smith, Helen’s recollections are marred with the lingering resentment she had towards her inadequate parents and especially her mother, who struggled to achieve the resourcefulness and tenacity that enable families to survive hardship. In this case, the family’s lack of oven, or even a fire, looked to thwart their ability to enjoy this feast. Fortunately, a kind neighbour who lived in their building offered the use of an overnight, before she cooked her own turkey. Helen described how, unable to sleep with excitement, she and her brother Alan fetched the cooked turkey in the middle of the night: ‘“To hell with Christmas,” Alan said bitterly, an hour later, there was only a white skeleton left, scraped clean by small clawing hands and teeth. Even Mother came alive, after devouring nearly a whole leg with the gulping enthusiasm of an ex-prisoner of war. We ate … every scrap. We slept.’[9] For Helen, this moment of having a stomach full of nutritious, warming, rich food must have felt like a miracle and provides one of the occasions of contentment within her memoir of extreme hardship and hunger.

These unexpected moments might also emerge through less legitimate channels. Johnnie Woods, Growin’ Up: One Scouser’s Social History, describes the hunger and poverty his family experienced in the 1930s Scotland Road area of Liverpool. With his father at sea over Christmas 1936, his mother had been left penniless as they waited for his wages to come in and there was little to eat at home until a parcel containing a rabbit and big piece of beef mysteriously appeared on Christmas Day. Later in life, he heard from a man, near death, that he and three others robbed the butchers on Christmas Eve, and had tied sacks around cart wheels to stop clatter. They had ‘helped themselves to as much meat and poultry as they could grab, loaded the cart and one kept watch as the others pushed silently…. at 3am on Christmas Day these erstwhile Santas distributed food parcels to the needy.’[10] My work on stolen goods in working-class neighbourhoods in cities such as Liverpool explains the offence as a way for those in poverty to challenge and to protest the deprivation and social inequalities they experienced. Johnnie’s account supports my understanding of the function of stolen goods: ‘There are those today who would moralise tediously about stealing from shopkeepers but these men had only the best of intentions and put themselves at no small risk for no personal gain; in better times they would never had dreamed of such action. I later made a special point of attending all their funerals as a mark of respect from a young lad whose belly was full at Christmas. If there is a God, I am sure he has forgiven my Robin Hoods.’[11] For Johnnie, the young men who stole the meat may have committed an offence in the eyes of the police, but they had certainly not transgressed the locally defined boundaries of morality. Their crime would only have been considered to have been deviant or problematic in this neighbourhood if the youths had not shared the meat to other families!

I like Johnnie Woods’ anecdote because it reminds me of a story my own grandmother told me. She grew up in the same area and her home and elder sister are featured in Johnnie’s memoir. Her father was a street bookie and one Christmas he had terribly bad luck and was cleaned out by punters. Like Johnnie Woods, Harry Smith and Helen Forrester, my grandmother and her siblings faced a miserable Christmas until, to their delight, one of her father’s friends, who had some very good fortune with the horses, turned up with a huge turkey and wads of notes stuffed inside it. This story has stayed with me, and I think that there is something important about the psychological and emotional impact of a Christmas being rescued for children and how it shapes the narratives of their childhood later in life. Like the Robin Hoods who transformed Christmas for Johnnie Woods and my own grandmother’s miraculous turkey, memoirists note the impotence of kindness from neighbours in alleviating poverty and assisting in times of hardship, which again had greater significance at Christmas. Tim Brannigan’s Where are you Really From?  depicts his childhood in 1970s Belfast, born to Belfast Catholic mother who had an extra-marital affair with a Black junior doctor. His mother was born in 1933 near Shankill road area where her parents owned the local chippy and shop and were known for their kindness to others. Brannigan explains: ‘It was a poor area, but the Brennans had a little money and a lot of respect. Granny Brennan worked hard and was committed to helping others.’ Her commitment to others emerged prominently at Christmas: ‘Granny used to cook about twenty turkeys and chickens for the neighbours in the run-up to Christmas, charging only a tiny sum for the gas. “Kitty Brennan fed half of Carrick Hill,” said one neighbour years later.’[12] It is easy to understand why neighbourly bonds remained strong in times of hardship as the support and assistance from within the locale was valued and appreciated in contrast to the hostility felt towards state intervention or charitable donations.

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Christmas in Liverpool, 1941, via Getty Images

Whilst children were often very pleased to enjoy a rich, plentiful Christmas dinner, the small, more personal gifts and gestures and the kindness of family or neighbours are depicted as having made them feel loved and safe.

Like we saw with Harry Smith’s description of his deprived Christmas with the lack of maternal care he received, he also narrated a moment when he felt loved and cared for through the impact of a treasured gift from his father. We saw his profound unhappiness in the aftermath of his parent’s separation but this was remedied by a powerful act of love from his father: ‘My father rose from our bed and hugged me and said “Go into my trouser pocket, it’s not from Father Christmas and it’s not much but it is from thy dad.”’ There, Harry found a two little packets ‘I opened mine and beamed because it was a few bits of penny sweets that I ate for my breakfast.’[13] I find this passage particularly moving because it shows that Harry understood the sacrifice and care that it must have taken his penniless father to be able to find the money to buy penny sweets. It is a small but highly significant gift that told Smith that he was loved and valued. The material value of the gift did not matter to Harry because its meaning – his father’s love – was what he craved the most. We can compare this affectionate and sincere moment in Harry’s memoir with his account of the Christmas dinner he received in return for attending Catholic Mass, provided by the Church ‘for indigent children… There were long bench tables where we sat and ate over Christmas goose and pudding, we were told to pray, and we, the poor, the destitute, the unloved and unlucky, gave thanks again to the ever watchful Jesus… After the meal, a Father Christmas appeared, with a tubular cough, and presented to each child an orange and a pair of socks.’[14] Harry depicts a cold and uncaring experience, which he felt was primarily aimed at reinforcing the Church’s hold on the poor. When we compare this transactional experience – prayers in return for food – with the small but valued gift from his father, which had required genuine sacrifice, we can see how the importance of Christmas for working-class children was about feeling safe, loved, and valued over being showered with gifts and toys. I think this message holds ever more significance today and our memoirists have much to share about the importance of Christmas in their lives.

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References

[1] Helen Forrester, Twopence to Cross the Mersey (London, 1974), 147.

[2] Harry Leslie Smith, 1923: A Memoir (Burley Hole Press: Belleville, 2011), 47.

[3] Smith, 1923, 45.

[4] Smith, 1923: A Memoir 45-6.

[5] Smith, 1923: A Memoir 47.

[6] Smith, 1923: A Memoir, 99.

[7] Smith, 1923: A Memoir, 108.

[8] Forrester, Twopence to Cross the Mersey, 148-9.

[9] Forrester, Twopence to Cross the Mersey, 149.

[10] Johnnie Woods, Growin’ Up: One Scouser’s Social History (Carnegie Oress: Lancaster, 1989), 21.

[11] Woods, Growin’ Up, 23.

[12] Tim Brannigan, Where are you Really From? (Blackstaff Press, Belfast, 2010), 5.

[13] Smith, 1923: A Memoir, 47.

[14] Smith, 1923: A Memoir, 48.