Bleaker Christmases in times gone by

Sir, – When Pauline Glass (‘The Northern Scot’, January 13) pleads for us "to go back in time and allow families to enjoy an extended Christmas", I have to assume that she is either of a different generation from me or hails from furth of Scotland.

On December 25, 1963, I was out of my bed at 5 o’clock in the morning, not to open my presents but to be able to report for duty at 6 o’clock at the Gorgie Road sorting office in Edinburgh for the final postal delivery of my student holiday job. The regular postie had already sorted the mail into the walks and in order of delivery, thank goodness.

I set off through the underpass that led up to Dundee Street and began the Christmas Day delivery. That day was the last time that the Royal Mail in Scotland worked a weekday Christmas Day as a Saturday. On Mondays to Fridays there were two deliveries every morning, but there was only one delivery on a Saturday.

Since that delivery took twice as long as usual, I was constantly being asked in for a cup of tea and a piece. My mother, a former GPO clerkess, had warned me this would happen, and had threatened me with dire consequences if I accepted any money gifts. These should go to the regular postie.

My late mother-in-law was a clerkess with St Cuthbert’s Co-op before the Second World War. She worked Christmas Day as an ordinary working day, and that was the regular situation throughout Scotland. I am sure that many of your older readers will have other instances and examples.

Christmas was not a particularly noteworthy event in Scotland, despite Dickens and the Prince Consort. I should imagine that it was the presence of so many men from south of the Border during the Second World War which raised the profile of Christmas, just as they introduced the notion of Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night.

If we were to go back in time, I am afraid that Ms Glass would find fewer holidays, fewer presents, a lot less food, a lot more snow and ice and, generally speaking, a much bleaker Christmas for the very great majority of the population, and not just in Scotland. – Yours etc,