My favourite Marx Brother was Groucho, false mustache and funny walk.
This is genius.
Nothing more needs to be said.
Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash
The many faces of Ebenezer Scrooge and a timeless tale of redemption.
It’s that time of year. Christmas television in the UK would hardly feel complete without at least one version of A Christmas Carol appearing on our screens. For many, it has become as much a part of the festive season as mince pies, tinsel, and repeats of The Great Escape.
Every Christmas, A Christmas Carol will make an appearance.
Written by Charles Dickens in 1843, the story began life as a short novella. Set around Christmastime, it tells the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly and bitter miser whose only true love is money. Scrooge is rude, dismissive, and, regardless of whether it is Christmas, joyless. He treats everyone around him with contempt, especially those that he employs, his long-suffering clerk Bob Cratchit.
Any stranger who dares to wish him a Merry Christmas is greeted with “bah humbug”, while those seeking charity donations are shown the door.
Over time, Scrooge has driven away friends and family alike, and he appears not to care. That is, until one Christmas Eve, when he is visited by three spirits: the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.
Each ghost shows him different aspects of his life, his past, and who he once was, and the man he has become. The final vision is the most chilling of all. The spirit tells him that if he refuses to change, he will face a lonely death, unmourned. No one will miss him when he is gone, and many will cheer. Faced with the consequences of his past choices, he decides to change. The story, at its heart, is about redemption, compassion, and the possibility of change.
Let’s start with the once-a-year treat of turkey for Christmas dinner and turkey sandwiches for a week afterwards. Then there was watching the big film on Christmas Day, only ever seen at the cinema before. And once a year, the Radio Times double issue would be bought, and planning for Christmas viewing would begin.
Then there was something that every kid expected — at least one chocolate selection box that would never make it past Boxing Day.
In many homes, it didn’t even survive Christmas afternoon.
Selection boxes were bright, shiny, and exciting. For adults, they were an easy gift. For children, they were a chocolate-filled treasure.
And for most of us, they were gone within hours.
Although, I have to say, the selection boxes did seem to be a lot bigger back then. Maybe being a child had something to do with that — after all, everything looks bigger when you are a kid.
But shrinkflation hadn’t been thought of yet.
The boxes were big and were full of the chocolates everyone loved. A Mars bar, Aero, Kit-Kat, the Crunchie, the Flake, a packet of Buttons, a tube of Smarties and Rolos, to name a few. You would get ten or twelve to a box, and they were all full size — none of this miniature-size, two-bites-and-they-are-gone nonsense.
You can only imagine the sugar high.
I was always convinced that I could pace myself. Every year I’d unwrap the selection boxes and list them from favourites to potential swaps. Inside, the sweets were laid out like jewels: the Flake you could never eat neatly, the Caramel bar that stuck your teeth together, and I was always disappointed if I got a Bounty, because they were difficult to trade. Adults seemed to like them, but they had nothing to swap.
And then there were the negotiations — somehow, I had to offload that Bounty.
Will we have a White Christmas? Where I live, it looks like rain.
There was a time when I remembered snow at Christmas.
There’s a saying you hear from a certain age group — “We had proper winters back then.”
It’s usually said after a light dusting of snow causes the entire country to come to a standstill, or the occasional road hasn’t been gritted by the council de-icing trucks. And the telly weather forecaster on 24-hour news gets overexcited about “the possibility of flurries on higher ground”.
Whatever Happened To Snow?
But if you grew up in the 1960s or 70s, you’ll remember that we didn’t need to be warned about flurries. Snow arrived with confidence, and it was expected — the possibility of a white Christmas was high — years before Bing Crosby had told us so.
Christmas snow was a given. It didn’t tiptoe in overnight like it does now. It marched in, dumped itself in great heaps across every road, garden and playground, and hung around for weeks. It was nice until after a few days it turned to ice, and you spent a week or two looking like a candidate for Britain’s ice skating Winter Olympics team.
Of course, back then, we didn’t have the 24-hour weather news or apps sending red alerts to our phones on the hour. We had the local milkman. I think his name was Stan, whose arrival at the doorstep was the first sign of how serious things were.
“Cold today, I’ve had to put my gloves on. You won’t need to put these in the fridge.” He said, as the snow fell, covering the top of his hat.
Which was good, because I can’t remember whether we had a fridge back in the 1960s. Many of those mod cons didn’t arrive for us until the 1970s onwards.
Proper Snow
For us, when it snowed, it changed the whole rhythm of life, especially if you were a kid. We wanted snow, as it meant building snowmen and snowball fighting. It was the usual romantic thinking: waking up to a world made soft and silent, other than the crunch of boots on fresh white powder and the breath clouds forming in front of your face.
It’s strange to imagine, in an age where Christmas seems to start in October, as the shops gear up for a winter spending spree, that there was a time when the festive season wasn’t just discouraged — it was actually illegal in Britain.
Yes, Christmas was cancelled.
In 1647, right in the aftermath of the English Civil War, Parliament cancelled Christmas. And not just for a year or two. For thirteen years, Christmas Day, decorations, feasting, and merriment were all banned by law.
England in Turmoil
By 1647, the first English Civil War had ended. Parliament’s forces had defeated the Royalists after seven years of conflict. But the fighting didn’t immediately stop. There was a brief and bloody second war, and eventually King Charles I was taken prisoner.
Negotiations failed, and compromise was impossible. In early 1649, England executed its king. Power now rested firmly with Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentarians. The country was declared a republic. In the aftermath, the Church of England was abolished and replaced with a strict Presbyterian system.
And the Puritans were now in charge.
To the Puritan mind, Christmas had drifted away from its religious roots. They saw it as a day of excess, idleness, drinking, feasting, dancing, and wastefulness. In general, people are having too much fun. It was everything they disapproved of.
So Parliament abolished it.
It has become a holiday tradition for certain supermarkets, on this day, Aldi and Lidl, to reduce prices on a number of staple Christmas food items — usually, Christmas dinner.
The prices were at 1970s level.
Potatoes, carrots, sprouts, shallots, parsnips, and turnip were all priced at eight pence. At Lidl, I bought one of each: potatoes, carrots, sprouts and shallots, for thirty-two pence. The receipt told me what the discount was — £3.87.
You would need a time machine to see prices like that.
The UK has been going through a cost of living crisis for some time, and inflation is always there. The longer you live, the more of it you see and remember. Growing up as a young boy in the 1960s and 70s, I saw plenty of inflation. My pocket money, and earnings from the paper round, did not go far. Little changes in that regard, although I gave up delivering newspapers long ago.
So, if you live in the UK and have an Aldi or Lidl nearby, go and get a bargain, and party like it’s 1970!
** An update: I went to my local Lidl this morning (19th Dec), and they have dropped their price to five pence. It's more like shopping in the 1960s now.
And as I left the store, over the tannoy, Noddy Holder and Slade were singing Merry Xmas...
More can be found here: The Twelve Posts of Christmas
Image by CrimsonMystique from Pixabay
The Twelve Posts of Christmas 2025 is my festive wander through memories, traditions, mishaps, and moments — from childhood Christmases of the 60s and 70s to the quirks of celebrating today. Think nostalgia sprinkled with humour, a pinch of honesty, and the occasional whiff of Brussels sprouts.
Let’s unwrap the season, one story at a time.
It’s the mid-1970s, the day before Christmas Eve. It’s a typical British winter scene, as I’m trudging through a thin mist that we hope will deliver snow, but more likely it will rain. I’m on my way to the house of the family who was looking after my dog Lisa—a mischievous animal, with a temperament that suggested she was a law unto herself.
As soon as I stepped inside the front room, I was hit by it.
A smell.
Not a strong one, but the kind that creeps up on you — a sort of lingering, unidentifiable pong that is noticeable and doesn’t go away.
Naturally, my first thought was Lisa.
She was sitting in the corner, looking vaguely guilty in that classic canine way. Her ears were slightly down, as was her head, her eyes avoiding mine. If she were a human, her posture would say, “I’d like to speak to my solicitor.”
It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d left an aromatic surprise, but she had been trained to go outside.
Something felt… off.
There was a time, and it wasn’t that long ago, when Christmas television was every bit as exciting as the presents under the tree. It was a family highlight of the year — something to look forward to.
And all of that excitement began with the two sacred texts of television: the Radio Times and the TV Times. As Christmas approached, they arrived at the newsagent's, heavy with festive promise, you could smell the ink on the pages when you opened them.
They were the unofficial start of Christmas in many British households.
What’s In A Name?
The Radio Times was the original British Christmas radio and television listing magazine — how could it not be? Until commercial television and radio came along, there was only the BBC.
And for a while, it was only radio.
That history and tradition lives on in the name of the magazine, Radio Times. Although, today, and for some time now, the radio has taken a backseat to the world of visual media in the magazine. ‘Television’, in whatever way it is broadcast now — over the air waves, digital, satellite, cable, online or by smartphone, rules the day.
But it began with radio. The 1940 Radio Times (image above) was all about the radio listings. In those dark, early days of the Second World War, it was the only radio entertainment that people had.
Then television arrived, slowly at first, but by the 1970s, when Christmas arrived, it gave us everything that the entertainment industry had to offer.
The 1970s Experience—Three Channels, Several Generations, One Living Room.
Christmas telly back then was different.
With only three channels — BBC1, BBC2 and a regional commercial channel (I think we had ATV) — choice was limited, but the listings had real weight. We did have our own version of ‘doom-scrolling’ the listings magazines to see what was on. You also had to buy both magazines, as each only listed their own TV schedule.
When it came to how we watched, there was no streaming, no catch-up, no play later. Until video came along, if you missed it, you missed it. Forever, or until it was repeated — probably the next Christmas. And television closed down for the evening around midnight, starting up again in the morning.
The fear of missing a favourite show was as real as running out of Quality Street or Cadbury’s Roses on Christmas Day.
Most homes only had the one television — that one source of home entertainment. There was no TV in every room, or parents saying, “Go and watch it on the internet.” There was no, “I’ll watch it on my phone in my room.”
Christmas became a battleground of television rights, and it could get ugly. There would be ongoing living-room negotiations about what would be watched. The disagreements could rival anything at the United Nations.
“There’s a good film on ATV at the same time. Let’s watch that.”
“BBC1’s got the big Christmas special. We can’t miss it.”
“We have to watch Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em and Blankety Blank.”
“Can we watch Top of the Pops?”
A front line of two armies faced each other, with long, zig-zagging trenches dug in the earth that stretched for hundreds of miles. Between them lay a wasteland of destroyed cities and villages. The ground was a mixture of shell holes, shattered trees, churned mud, and lost lives.
This was No Man’s Land, and to cross it — “going over the top” — was for many the last action that they would take in the war.
On some days, casualties ran into the tens of thousands, as each side took it in turns to find a breakthrough. And yet, for all the horror, the opposing trenches were often just a stone’s throw away. In places, there were no more than fifty yards between the British and German soldiers. They could hear the enemy talking, singing, and coughing. Occasionally, even laughing.
A Different Kind of Silence
As December approached, winter tightened its grip. But something else began to happen too — something unexpected.
On Christmas Eve, on certain stretches of the front, the guns went silent. Not everywhere; there was no official truce, but it was enough to be noticed. British soldiers reported hearing carols drifting across the lines. “Stille Nacht” sung by German voices. Some units replied with “The First Noel” or “O Come All Ye Faithful”.
For a moment, music replaced gunfire.
These were not formal negotiations. There were no officers signing an agreement or diplomats shaking hands. The truce emerged from the trenches. Enemies called out to one another.
The Twelve Posts of Christmas 2025 is my festive wander through memories, history, traditions, mishaps and moments — from childhood Christmases of the 60s and 70s to the quirks of celebrating today. Think nostalgia sprinkled with humour, a pinch of honesty, and the occasional whiff of Brussels sprouts.
Let’s unwrap the season, one story at a time.
There was a time in Britain when it was big, and it mattered to a lot of people. It was a national, glittering piece of pop-culture theatre we all gathered around the radio to hear. And, of course, it all happened long before you could tap your phone and know instantly who was selling what.
There was a time when you had to wait. And wait. And wait.
In the 1960s, 70s and well into the 80s, the race for the Christmas Number One was a proper competition. And there was an annual battle between many artists, bands, and singers every year to produce a Christmas single and be in the top spot.
The Sunday Before Christmas Countdown
We would find out who was number one with the ‘official’ chart show on the Sunday before Christmas. The ritual was always the same. Early evening, Christmas holidays ahead, or if you had finished school, celebrating already, BBC Radio One, then the countdown would begin. The chart rundown — 40, 39, 38 — each one bringing us closer to the big announcement.
Who was in the top spot? Who had missed out? Which act, for better or worse, would forever be remembered as the Christmas Number One? Their name etched into British pop-culture immortality.
The Giants of Christmas Past
Everyone has a favourite Christmas Number One.
For some of a certain age, it might be Cliff Richard. He seemed to always have a Christmas single out, and often still does. In 1960, with The Shadows, he was number one with I Love You. As a solo artist, he had to wait until 1988, when Mistletoe and Wine hit the top spot. This year, glam rockers The Darkness have covered it, hoping to hit the top spot.
Is it possible that in the 1950s, the first Christmas-type song to top the charts was Winifred Atwell, with Let’s Have Another Party in 1954? The next year, it was definitely a Christmas song, Christmas Alphabet, by Dickie Valentine.
No streaming stats — just the suspense of Sunday evening on Radio 1.
A long, long time ago, before Spotify charts, YouTube views or midweek updates on social media, there was just one moment in the entire week when Britain found out what the biggest hit songs in the country were: Sunday evening, on Radio 1, the new Top 40 was revealed in real time.
The Weekly Appointment Everyone Kept
Imagine a typical Sunday evening back in the 1970s. Tea was over, or about to be served, homework for school (I hoped) done, and the house settling into that slightly melancholic weekend-almost-over, work-tomorrow vibe.
Then came the build-up: the Radio 1 jingle and the DJ’s voice of the official chart show would begin. At the time, the DJ’s were big names, Alan Freeman, Tom Browne, Simon Bates and Tony Blackburn.
This was a world where listening to the chart countdown actually felt like an event. A collective experience that would be shared by millions of households up and down the land. No algorithms, no real-time stats, no leaks. The whole nation found out at the same time who was going up, who was going down, the new songs that made the top 40, and who sat on top — the nation’s number one.
And then it began — the official countdown of the nation’s favourite music. At first, it only covered the top 20, but from 1978, it was expanded — Top 40 down to 1. In an age of instant information, it’s hard to convey just how exciting the slow drip-feed of the countdown was. The slow reveal. The rising tension.
We all had a favourite artist, the bands, and singers that we hoped would get in or move up. And the ones we didn’t like, we hoped would fall. The top 40 was the ultimate chart of mainstream music; it was based on actual sales in the shops. No downloads, digital or online listening — just the sale of records — and they were vinyl records — the old seven-inch single. You had to go out and buy them at an actual shop for it to count!
And vinyl records back then sold in their millions.
The Mystery of Chart Movement
Sometimes we wondered why a record was successful.
Here are a few typical comments that might be heard as the weekly chart revealed itself.
“Why’s that gone up seven places?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“How on earth has that dropped to 18?”
“Who is buying all these records?”
“Why would anyone waste their money buying that?”
But the chart was open to anyone who could sell records. Alongside the big names like The Beatles, Queen and ABBA, one-hit wonders could make their mark. Novelty records often became big hits. There was always a surprise or two making the charts.
Here’s a selection.
Bobby “Boris” Picket and the Crypt Kickers had a hit with Monster Mash in September 1973.
Sylvia had a holiday-themed hit with Y Viva España in August 1974, reaching number 4. “We are off to sunny Spain, Y Viva España…”
Actor Telly Savalas, with his lollipop and “Who loves ya, baby?” got to number one with If in February 1975 due to the popularity of his Kojak character on the telly.
And actor David Soul, who played Hutch in Starsky and Hutch, did even better than Savalas. He had a million seller with Don’t Give Up On Us in 1976. Actually, he sold a lot of records. Between 1976 and 1978, he had five UK Top 20 singles, two at number one, and two Top 10 albums.
Jilted John, otherwise known as comic actor and singer Graham Fellows, (John Shuttleworth), had a hit with Jilted John reaching number 4 in August 1978, singing that Gordon was a moron.
The Art of the Home Recording
Collected from supermarkets and petrol stations, saved in books, then traded in for household goods.
Another journey, back in time to the 1960s and 70s.
Before we had loyalty cards, club points, air miles and shopper loyalty schemes, there was one system that reigned supreme for Britain’s shoppers: Green Shield Stamps.
For those of us who remember the time, these little green stamps were as much a part of everyday life as the weekly shop or the big catalogue that introduced the world of buying on credit. The stamps were everywhere and much sought after. Picked up at the till at the local shop or supermarket, or when filling up the car at the petrol station, they were tucked away into purses and wallets, taken home and stuck in a little book.
For millions of families, eventually, you would have enough for a new kettle, transistor radio or even the first colour TV. Consumerism, and the life of your dreams, was just a stamp away.
A Brief History.
What were Green Shield Stamps?
They were introduced in the UK in 1958, with a very simple idea:
Spend money = Get stamps = Stick them in a book = Swap books for goods.
It wasn’t complicated, and millions did it. Supermarkets like Tesco, and other retailers, big and small, joined — thousands of them. Petrol stations were encouraged to take part as well. They all handed out stamps based on the amount you spent.
Each book would hold 1,280 stamps, and one stamp was equal to six pence spent. That was pre-decimalisation, 1971. In new pennies, a stamp was given for every two and a half pence.
An occasional trip to the local shop might yield dozens, while the big weekly shop could earn a sheetful. Over time, you’d collect enough sheets to fill up a Green Shield Stamp Saver Book. It was a chunky little booklet with a grid layout that, over time, got fatter and fatter as the stamps were added to it.
But adding the stamps to the book was a weekly job that no one wanted. Licking them was often given to the kids to do, with the comment, “Make sure you put the stamps in straight…” The stamps never went in straight.
It was a novelty at first, until that horrible taste of glue got the better of you. Licking several hundred stamps lost its appeal after a while. No one told us that using a damp sponge in a little soap dish was the way to go.