Not So Merry Christmas

Well, it's Christmas again. You probably don't need me to tell you that – you've no doubt noticed the odd trapping of the festive season that has crept into our high streets and onto the media, tipping us the wink that Santa is on his way. It's not a good time for me – for whilst I enjoy the fun of the actual day itself (that's December 25th for those of you who aren't sure), it's the 'build up' to it all that I find so difficult to tolerate.

I remember a particularly dismal Christmas I once spent in the company of my Great Aunt Dolores (the one who was run over by a lorry but survived, and who later took up playing the xylophone before accidentally killing herself by going over Niagara Falls in a barrel). She'd promised me a sumptuous and opulent festive holiday when she'd invited me to stay with her friend (and erstwhile lover, so she claimed) the Earl of Maugersbury. "A country house Christmas, boy," she'd said. "You can't beat it. Servants on hand to do all the messy stuff, nothing to do but eat and drink, and then go out to bag a few birds on Boxing Day. A real English Christmas."

Hmm, if only that was how it had turned out (although despite her expected protestations, I was privately determined not to join the shoot, nor the Boxing Day hunt for that matter). Sadly, the reality of that Christmas was very different indeed. Sumptuous and opulent it was most definitely not.

It all started when Lord Maugersbury telephoned my aunt two days before the event to announce that the west wing of Broadwell Hall (the ancestral pile) had been destroyed by fire the previous evening. "Not to worry", he had apparently soothed. "We'll all retreat to the lodge and have our Christmas there. It's a tiny little place though, only eight bedrooms, so I've had to tell Lola and her gang that they'll have to stay away. Hope you don't mind, old love?"

When we arrived at the lodge on the morning of Christmas Eve, it was obvious that the place hadn't been used for years. There were dust sheets over everything, there was nothing to eat in the pantry, the cellar was empty, and the heating obviously hadn't worked in decades. Dolores and I were the first to arrive, to be greeted by Maugersbury's "man" Enstone. He informed us that his Lordship had been called away but would be back later, and that we were to make ourselves at home. The place was freezing cold, dripping with damp, and smelt like the inside of a grave. Next to arrive was some Foreign Office chum of the Earl's who introduced himself as the Hon. Algernon "Cricket" Balls. He seemed a bit phoney to me, and talked such rubbish that Dolores nicknamed him "Loada Balls" within five minutes. We were then joined by a loud-mouthed twenty-stone American woman in a fur coat, followed by a handsome blonde Norwegian youth accompanied by a sparrow-like Italian girl who seemed incapable either of speech or hearing, and who simply stared at us from under a thick fringe of frizzled black hair.

Nobody removed their coats, and for a while we all sat around in chairs (without removing the dust sheets) and waited for our host to arrive – no doubt loaded up (as we were hoping) with hampers crammed with Christmas delights, cases of wine, cartloads of logs for the fires, and a retinue of faithful retainers in tow to attend to our every whim. As we sat shivering in the grey light of that dismal day, we soon realized that we were in for a horrible shock. Enstone was nowhere to be found, and when I checked the telephone, it was dead. It was lunchtime by this point, and we were all cold, hungry and thirsty. There wasn't even so much as a glass of cheap sherry or a box of dates to be had. What on earth was to be done?

To be continued.....