What were your favourite Christmas memory of your life growing up in Ushaw Moor and Deerness Valley ?
Share your Christmas Memories with us here.
How has your Christmas changed ?
Some Christmas Quotes :
- Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. Calvin Coolidge
- Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!
Charles Dickens - Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time. ~Laura Ingalls Wilder
- A Look back at some old entries on the BLOG with the Christmas theme http://ushawmoormemories.wordpress.com/?s=christmas
Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year Paul Clough
First of all, i am glad to see that it says~Deernes valley.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in the small original village of Broompark. I attended primary school at Broom, but then went on to Ushaw moor at St Josephs and later to Ushaw moor secondry.
My memories of Christmas is collecting holly and the beautiful soft snow. Snowflakes so delicate as they landed on your hand. Making snow houses by rolling a snowball into a huge mound and then digging it out and sitting in there at night with candles lit. The slides we would start in the main street which grew longer and longer the more people used them, and old buggers that kept throwing salt on them lol. I left there in 1962 to come to Australia so i obviously havent had the snow experience here (39 Celcius).
The joy of Christmas back in those days was for a child~ the element of surprise. A Christmas wish for a present was taken care of by the parents. But all other presents was a surprise.
You dont seem to have that surprise anymore here in OZ as the parents seem to dictate what you buy for their kids.
The Christmas cakes and puddings where you had the sixpences in them. (not allowed now-Choking hazard).
My Grandfather made a very special Christmas drink ~Blackberry and Ginger wine. Very alcoholic and i often pinched a bit from his under the stairs secret brewery.
Christmas caroling.
Those were the days.
Merry Christmas from an Aussie Geordie.
In the sixties, Christmas in USHAW Moor was not official until the Salvation Army Band started to do the rounds. The small contingent of hardy souls, braving the elements regardless of the weather, playing carols and wishing all the compliments of the season, really announced that Christmas had definitely arrived. (This was usually the last Sunday before Xmas)
ReplyDeleteThey were usually frozen and sometimes soaked to the skin, and yet they always seemed to be beaming and cheerful.
The local Churches organised carol singers to visit the Aged Miners cottages and Chestnut Grove. - Midnight mass at St Josephs and St Luke's were standing room only.
It was also a time to raise the pocket money with the mandatory carol singing calls to the usual houses were donations were guaranteed. It was usually good manners to give a few pennies to the kids "Shouting" Good King "Wenslerless" and we Wish You a Merry Xmas and a Happy New year in the most profound and tone deaf howling imaginable.
The village centre was alive with people milling about from the Big club, the Bush, The FLASS Inn and the "Proper" fish and chip shops right up to midnight.
On the big day morning there was the obligatory football match going on, on every available "Green" (All those new football boots and balls had to be tried out) as well as the girls walking the new prams and the really lucky kids with the new bikes) Poor weather was never an obstacle to hours of energy burning.
Now it seems as though the streets are deserted as the technology revolution bites hard into the community spirit.
There is probably more money spent now on the electric bills than the entire cost of the presents for Xmas then!
Anyone agree?
Dave Clarkson
Great read Dave-) thanks for sharing:-) was a wondrous time-)
ReplyDeleteThe Christmas Party at School where you took home made goodies and your own cup for your tea. The classrooms were hung with paper chains which we made in class and coloured with crayons. It was part of the build up to a Christmas which was so different and austere in comparison to what it is today. The spirit was there and I think most people celebrated Christmas as the birth of Jesus and it had a special meaning. Although it was so different to Christmas today it still brings back warm and happy memories of childhood and the security of a happy home and close family
ReplyDeleteI can still remember the first Midnight Mass I went to. It was a cold, frosty starlit night and walking down Radstocks cut and down Hunter Avenue to church. The church was packed and I felt that Christmas had never been so close and meaningful as that night. A happy Christmas to all and may Santa be good to you.
Brian Mc.