At Christmas time, when I was a child, my dad used to take my sister and me to see old people.
He had a system for deciding which old people they would be, I assume. I never asked.
He was a GP, and the old people were his patients. We'd go and see a few elderly women in the run-up to Christmas.
I don't know who instigated these visits. Were these women on particularly friendly terms with my dad? Did he offer to bring his kids along? Did they ask for it? Were they clamouring for a glimpse at youth? Was it a treat for them? Was it a treat for us? Was it a treat for my dad?
Tonight, I'll phone him and get to the bottom of it.
Here's how I remember it (he may have a different, and more accurate, recollection):
- I didn't particularly want to go, but also didn't hate going.
- I was partly motivated by the possibility of a Christmas gift (A £5 book token! Just for showing up! And a card!), but this wasn't the only reason I went.
- I was reasonably bored and reasonably polite.
- I found old people's homes a bit weird, but interesting.
One of the perks of visiting an old people's home was that we got to use the lift.
Children don't have much use for lifts. Most of their doings are ground floor doings. There are stairs of course - they were fun to sit on and fall down - but no lifts. There are occasional ladders (bunk bed, tree house, adventure playground), but no lifts.
There weren't many lifts in the 80s.
So to have the chance to press buttons that made slidey doors go all whoosh and clank was a delight.
The women's flats were full of Christmas cards. In the run up to Christmas, this is a joyful sight. If those cards remain up in July, the whole thing takes on a melancholy air.
They had Christmas decorations, too. These were weird. They were all different to the ones we had in our house. Different. They had a slightly different style of tinsel. Weird.
There would be photos of family members. There might be old sepia-toned snaps of men in hats and women in hats and hatless 70s holidays.
The women would ask us how school was (probably), and we'd answer (eloquently). My dad might get given a Christmas present. It would usually be a bottle of alcohol that he would never drink. But it's the thought that counts.
I wonder if our presence lightened up their day, or simply interfered with their schedule of Duck Hunt and amphetamines.
It was probably just a nice gesture. Christmas must be the worst time to be lonely, especially in an old people's home. We were a breath of fresh air and fresh blood.
I suppose they're all dead now.
***
Woo-hoo!
What a delightful way to begin a blog post! It's not seasonal, it's not a proper piece of writing, it's not researched and it's as gloomy as Eeyore's funeral.
But it's interesting to revisit things that happened to you a long time ago. Uninteresting things. Time makes interesting anecdotes of us all.
It's been quite the week here in Diamondbadgeria (which sounds like a disease, but it actually an allegorical country)!
On Monday, I did something.
On Tuesday, there was the rained-off England match.
On Wednesday, there was the England match.
On Thursday, there was the blog post about the dead Christmas old people.
On Friday, there was a mistake with tenses. And Armageddon.
But you have to keep a stiff upper lip. No point in moping around, just because the working week saps your spirit and you have nothing to hope for but an exciting coma.
People underwent greater hardships during any of the wars. You've got to puff out that chest, raise that chin, but your back into it (your chin), and keep working for Queen and Country.
It's a blessed time to be alive. In this place. It's tough elsewhere in the world, but here I am, in quite the privileged position. No need to be downhearted! I'm white and male and middle-class. I own my own shower radio in the shape of a penguin, that might still work for all I know!
Let's all be very thankful for the bounty that chance has dropped through our letterbox. Eat the free mango and ham and fruit buns that constitute that bounty. Eat them, appreciate them, and use them to fuel bounty-droppings of your own in the future! Kindness creates kindness. In much the same way as Frankenstein creates a monster that people often call the same name as his name!
I think you've been juiced up enough. Here's some proper content:
Proper Content
by
Paulo Fungi
Lance Corporal Nicholas Julian Sinclair Reynolds Chatham Davies-Wright
Used humour as a defence mechanism
Whilst serving in Iraq
His commanding officer noted,
In a wise and heartfelt eulogy,
That Nick's hilarious "slags on a lifeboat" bit
Was not an adequate substitute
For a helmet
I have no interest in metre.
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