Good tidings, good cheer

Happy Christmas to you all

Some people, or so I read, are dreaming of a dry Christmas.

Each to their own (but no proselytizing) is my creed…. at the same time, and although I’m not a huge drinker, I can think of Nothing Worse. No ruby gleam of the glass reflected in the Christmas lights, no amber glow, no cool scintillation of ephemeral bubbles? How strange and dull it seems.

And, in defiance of the (non-alcoholic) spirit of puritanism that now stalks this country, sometimes forming an uneasy alliance with authoritarianism, I wanted to raise a glass to harmless fun, to mellowness and jollity and moments of folly, in the form of an extract from my book The Last Landlady, published by Unbound. It is a homage to the pub, that beloved entity, slowly dying in the face of business rates and alcohol duty and QR codes and societal shifts; also to my grandmother Violet, the first woman in England to obtain a publican’s licence in her own right, a truly splendid and cliché-defying landlady.

.Before the extract I should also like to wish my gorgeous, generous, brilliant subscribers the happiest and most festive of Christmas holidays. What a lovely place I have found Substack to be. As well as all the wonderful writing it is kindly, at least it has been (almost without exception) in my experience, and this is something that I increasingly value. Here’s to it remaining so in 2025. I have a heinous deadline to hit for the end of January, which will mean a slight and reluctant temporary withdrawal, but I shall continue to read and post and engage as much as possible… meanwhile cheers to you all, dear Substack friends.

… I have never since known Christmases quite like those at the pub. I remember how, on my return to school in January, my friends at this excitable, ladylike establishment [a performing arts establishment] would chatter about church, and presents after lunch, and walks through snow; we were mostly the same kind of girls, privileged little beasts dreaming of dancing Giselle at Covent Garden, yet a different England ran in all our veins – they had no way of knowing the pictures in my head, of the pub in its proud and gaudy innocence. It was not the whole of my life, but it was a backdrop that made me feel luckier than they; I couldn’t actually imagine Christmas in a private house. It seemed pallid (still does) unless enclosed within the adult grotto of the pub. The word still conjures green leaves pricked with half-hidden points of light, a silver-white tree on the stone flags of the fireplace, baubles of incomparable size and swell, little windows misty with expectation, Johnny Mathis asking if reindeer really know how to fly…