The weather this past week reminded me of the unexpected snowstorm in the U.K. in 1952.
If I have shared this story before my apologies, but if I don’t remember, maybe you won’t either.
A precious Christmas story from over seventy years ago, about my dear grandmother Gladys.
It snowed for three days that Christmas in England in 1952. Mother hadn’t done any shopping; her asthma was worse than usual. My small brother Michael and I sat staring disconsolately out of the front room window. We looked down the long driveway leading from our house at the top of the hill, to the road below. We looked over the woods and fields of the countryside. We saw miles and miles of white on white, snow on snow.
Christmas will not come to our house this year. The roads were impassable, no mail delivery, no milkman, no grocer nor even a fish and chip wagon passed by our house. No-one came or went. No traffic of any kind. The larder was almost bare, cabbage, apples and eggs, a far cry from our Christmas expectations.
Family tradition had it that every year we went to our grandmothers' for the Christmas goose. They lived in a small village about three miles away from our house. Grandmother and our great grandmother spent weeks preparing steaming puddings, icing cakes, stuffing their pantry full of Christmas cheer. They even took the plastic covers off the chairs in the parlour, the one time we were allowed in there.
Large snowflakes continued to fall. We would not be able to make it to grandmother's this year.
“A lesson in patience” father announced. Michael crying quietly went to seek solace from mother.
“I’m so sorry Mike” wheezed mother. “You’ll have to wait a while for presents, they will just come later.”
Shut off from the world with a determined father who always met a challenge, a wheezing asthmatic mother filled with guilt and a sad, sad, brother, I felt very lonely.
Christmas day came. Unfilled stockings hung lamely over the fireplace.
Michael scattered his Meccano set, passed down from our father’s childhood, across the living room floor. Mother, still in her dressing gown, sat wheezing. Father, out of sheer frustration, was outside trying to shovel his way down the long driveway to the road. After an hour or two he’d hardly made any headway. He came in wet, cold, and defeated.
As I sat by the front room window, I watched the flakes as the snow continued to blow across the landscape, snow blowing across white fields, white trees, all quietly white. All white, it was mesmerizing. Suddenly I noticed a small black speck which moved very slowly across the field.
I watched fascinated as the speck got closer, moving toward us. I could see it was a figure laboriously plodding its way through the snow. Bundled beyond recognition it strode doggedly across the open field.
I called to Michael, “Look someone is out there, must be crazy.”
“That’s not a person silly it’s a big dog, or maybe a horse.”
“No, it’s not, look again, it’s a person.”
We watched the figure grow bigger as it came closer. At the bottom of our driveway the figure stopped, looked up the hill to the house and with head down slowly slogged up the driveway through thigh high drifts. Carefully lifting a big black bag above the snow line this small figure, like a snowman come to life, fought their way to our front door.
Finally, it reached our front door which we opened to welcome the traveller. Beneath the snow-covered scarves and two hats was our dear grandmother, Gladys. As she put down the bag and shook the snow from her rosy face she smiled.
“Happy Christmas. I couldn’t bear the thought of all you dears with no Christmas. There are no buses or cars running, the phone lines are down. Please put the kettle on, I need a cup of tea; I’ve been walking for more than four hours.”
Out of her bag she took a meat pie, Christmas pudding and mince tarts, and two small presents.
Our young faces filled with wonder and tears. Mother cried a little and father gave grandmother the biggest hug. Young as we both were Michael and I learned that year, as with every year that Christmas is not about gifts but memories.
“The magic of Christmas is LOVE.”
