Christmas

Beatrice Tucker

I was one of ten children, and in our Christmas stockings we would find an orange, apple, nuts, a sugar mouse, and perhaps a little celluloid doll.

Grace Malts

I was the baby of a family of six children. We had a rabbit on Christmas day, and I had the tongue.

Mildred Shortman

My Father worked for a farmer in Somerset and I was the youngest of seven. We had goose on Christmas day.

Violet Dowse

I was one of four children, we lived in St. Philip’s Marsh. My Father worked at Avonmouth, and he had a good job, so that we were lucky and had toys at Christmas and always a good Christmas dinner.

I was about 7 Christmas Eve and we’d got nothing in the house for Christmas Day for food. All of a sudden the door opened and we heard my Aunt walk in the door. My Grandfather sent me Aunt to give my mother £6 - we never had such a good Christmas.

A 1/- (one shilling) in 1914 was worth £10 in modern money - I went on the train to Burnam and I had a shilling to spend. I had to bring something home for mother out of that shilling - you wouldn’t dare forget her. I’d buy my father shaving soap and my mother a pair of vases. We had more vases than anybody in the street.

You never needed to lock your doors. There was a piece of string to unlock the door. The mothers would sit out on the steps till long after the children had gone to bed talking.

We never had a Christmas tree - we had mistletoe and we decorated it with bits of paper.

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