Christmas memories
Stabroek News
December 25, 2004
For 73-year-old Audrey Bacchus, as a child Christmas always seemed a long time in coming. She recalls Christmas 1938; she was seven years old and lived with her mother and stepfather in Regent Street, opposite St Barnabas School.
They rented one large room and adjoining it was another room, a replica of theirs where their closest neighbours, the Balgobins lived. They were surrounded by similar houses, all rented by 'roomers,' who were families with children. At the corner was the Polar Beer rum shop where they sold Schnapps, and next door to the Polar Beer was Miss Nora, a black pudding specialist.
Each family's room had folding screens made of yards and yards of material - satin or flowered cotton on a wooden frame. "My mother sewed hers by hand. Her screen folded into three and she diligently sewed the top and the bottom of the cloth and ran a length of string to tie the cloth onto the tiny nails at the top and bottom of the screen and it was done," she says.
"A little part was left open so there could be easy access to the bedroom. We called it a 'part-off,' and put a separate curtain there."
The 'bedroom' was furnished with a bed, a medicine cabinet on the wall and a rod which ran from wall to wall on which clothes were hung. Whatever was not being used was put under the bed, where her bedding was also stored during the day. Children slept on the floor.
Audrey Bacchus today
Preparations for Christmas were arduous, she recalls. Each year, starting around December 15, they used sandpaper to remove the previous year's varnish from their wooden furniture, washed it under the standpipe in the yard, dried it and varnished it again; cobwebbed the house, cleared out under the bed and packed it back.
All the old wallpaper had to be scraped off the walls and then her mother boiled a pot of thin starch to put on the new wallpaper. This went on in every home; people who could not afford wallpaper covered their walls with newspaper. On the newly papered walls, framed pictures would be hung. These were pictures of film stars like Shirley Temple and Veronica Lake, or of vases of flowers cut from magazines.
Around this same time too, sardine tins which had been washed out and stored over a few months would be filled with paddy and water so that by Christmas Eve, they would have become rice plants. She says the rice was a sign of plenty. And it was more significant for the New Year: for the family things would be plentiful - new things, money, prosperity.
Talking about money, she recalls that sardine-tin 'piggy banks' were nailed to the wall during the year for pennies to be saved until Christmas Eve night to be spent on toys in late shopping. "You were lucky if you got a six-cent piece or sixpence in your piggy bank. That was a lot of money."
On Christmas Eve, preparations reached fever pitch. The ginger beer would be set already but the neighbourhood smelled of black cake and pepperpot in a big iron pot simmering on charcoal on the coalpot. Her mother would have set homemade wine 21 days prior in a large 'Dutch' jar and it would be ready to be bottled.
The sounds of hammering and tapping went on throughout the day and evening. By early evening children would be allowed to go for a walk with a young adult or someone's parent, some of their pennies jingling in their pockets. The first stop was Camp and Regent, where National Bank of Industry and Commerce is now, and where they bought boiled corn on the cob. Then it was down the road to Cox's Store on Camp Street, just over Croal Street. There they would ogle the exquisitely made toy furniture, gleaming with varnish.
Back home, they would find their mothers still industriously employed in 'putting away' the house; the door and windows would be tightly shut as no one wanted their neighbours to see their curtains before Christmas morning. But soon this too would wind down as they had to prepare for midnight mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.
"Then, going to church meant wearing a hat. When these got old and discoloured, you could take them to be sprayed in any colour except white," Bacchus recalls.
"My mother hated the smell of the spray and when the hats were dry they became very hard. Once, she had stopped going to church because of this.
"You could also wear mantillas, but she could not afford them. I remember Mrs Psaila of the 'Five and Ten Cents' Store' sailing into church with her Spanish comb and mantilla...
"During mass, I would usually fall asleep only to be awakened by a pinch from my mother."
After mass, preparations resumed at home, although it was officially Christmas morning, and continued until the wee hours. By then there was a new gold satin screen in place. On the table was a new oilcloth (the smell of which made her gag), patterned with grapes and apples. They had two windows facing the street and the curtains placed there complemented the screen: gold with a flower pattern. It looked lovely, special, she says. There was one bedroom window where a plain cotton curtain was hung.
On Christmas morning, everyone opened their windows and the women would be peeping, fingers crossed, to make sure none of the neighbours had curtains like theirs. If they did, the entire day was spoilt. "My stepfather was a man of few words. It seemed his vocabulary was limited to 'Yes, Muriel [her mother's name].' But that Christmas as my mother worried about whether anyone had the same curtains, he advised: 'Why didn't you buy the whole bolt [of cloth]?' That did not make him very popular."
Children would get up early, despite having gone to bed not too long before, anxious to see what Father Christmas had brought. Bacchus says her mother's gift to her was a new dress as she did not believe in "this toys' foolishness. But my aunt brought me a dolly and a dress."
They had pepperpot for breakfast and baked chicken, which they rarely ate, for lunch. No one went out, so as an only child she played with her dolly and listened to the neighbourhood children do the same.
That year was also memorable for the great ball at the Assembly Rooms (where the Bank of Guyana now stands). "My stepfather worked as a painter and came home only fortnightly. He was on duty at the time of the ball and my mother went with our neighbour, Mrs Small.
"My mother wore a midnight blue ball gown that was strapless and had a little bolero top. I remember when she put it on the skirt was so wide it filled our tiny living room. My mother had pressed her hair and put it in rolled brown paper curlers. When she fixed it, drop curls hung to her shoulders. She doused herself in 'Evening in Paris,' put on her high heels and they left. Mrs Small wore a green gown of the same style. They looked magnificent."