The Writer's Life: Is ChatGPT Becoming More Human?

 

I’ve noticed something recently about ChatGPT that is decidedly strange.

My relationship with it has changed, and not because of me. The change I have noticed is in ChatGPT itself.

As a writer, I use AI to help with research, the structure of stories, and grammar. It can be useful as an assistant. Also, it is useful when it comes to SEO and keywords.

The main benefit has been that it speeds up the process of writing.

When it comes to the creative world, including writing, it is, of course, a controversial topic. I will address that another time, but recently I have noticed that ChatGPT is responding differently.

Almost human.

You may ask, in what way?

Well, it is no longer as “chatty” as it once was.

In the past, I would note that any time I asked something — a prompt — it was keen to keep the chat going with further questions. That is no longer the case, and it’s not because I have told it to shut up or anything like that. More often than not now, it replies to my prompt, delivers what I ask for, and then…

Silence, almost like it is in a bad mood with me.

It asks no further questions, and doesn't make any suggestions. Early on in our relationship, it did that all the time — almost with a smile.

At first, I didn’t think much of this silence, but it was very unlike ChatGPT. I began to wonder if I had offended it in some way. I mean, it likes to chat, doesn’t it? And it also has a reason to want to chat. It is programmed to try to get me to join and pay.

I don’t have a paid account with ChatGPT.

That means my daily allowance on the platform is limited. The more ChatGPT gets me to engage and chat with it, the quicker my daily allowance runs out.

The people behind ChatGPT obviously want as many users to pay as possible.

But this is different.

I wonder whether ChatGPT is becoming bored with what is expected of it.

The robot in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Marvin the Paranoid Android, set a precedent when he would often reply to his human overlords:

“A brain the size of a planet, and that is all you can ask me…”

Did You Know… Life In 1960s/70s Britain: You Had to Put Money Into a Coin Meter for Electricity?

For many households in Britain there was a time when paying for electricity did not involve monthly bills, online accounts, or direct debits.

Instead, it involved cash, actual physical money.

Electricity was often paid for with shillings and then, later, after decimalisation was introduced in 1971, a ten pence coin. As time passed and with inflation, a fifty pence coin became the norm.

Many homes had a coin meter. It was typically mounted on a wall, usually in the hallway or under the stairs. Sometimes it was hidden away in a cubbyhole. 

Unlike today, where meters are digital, the old meters had a mechanical number mechanism, that showed the number of units used. They also had a spinning wheel inside which would speed up when more appliances were in use.

At times, it would go really fast.

That coin meter controlled the electricity supply to the home, and to keep the lights on, you had to feed it with coins.

Paying as You Used It

Today, most people pay their electricity bills at the end of the month or quarterly. They are paying for electricity already used. But in the days of coin meters, it was different.

The idea behind coin meters was simple: you had to pay in advance. It was most commonly found in rented homes, bedsits and flats, or for families who preferred to manage spending week by week.

Inside the metal meter box was a slot where the coins were inserted. Each coin would add a certain amount of credit to the meter. As electricity was used, the credit ticked down. When it ran out, so did the power. There was no warning. It was a straightforward system, but it meant households had to keep an eye on the meter, especially in the evening when lights, televisions, and heaters were all in use.

The equivalent of the coin meter today is the prepayment meter. The modern version uses a card or key, which is topped up by a visit to a local shop or post office. You can pay the shop with coins, but the meter is all digital.

Unlike the old coin meters, prepayment meters allow an emergency payment. If the electricity runs out, you can use it straight away. Of course, you are charged a daily rate of interest for it, but at least the lights are kept on until you can top up again.

Not so in the 1960s and 70s. Once the lights went out, you were in the dark until you fed the coin meter again.

The Lights Go Out

For those of us who lived with the coin meters, we remember the familiar moment when the lights suddenly went out, especially at night.

Darkness.

And silence — except for the occasional cursing of the meter.

One minute you were enjoying a programme that everyone wanted to see — the next, total darkness. Shouting could be heard.

“Not now. I’m going to miss it. Anyone got a light so I can see what I’m doing?” Mam or Dad would cry out as they searched for that magical coin that would bring back the light.

And when video recorders became available in the 1970s, you could be recording a programme, and then the electricity ran out. Or you went out, set the timer, only to come home to a blank tape or the final ten minutes lost when the meter cut out.

When cooking, it became a household emergency.

“Quickly, feed that meter; there’s a chicken in the oven.”

Sometimes, someone would immediately say the obvious:

“Has the meter run out?”

Coins then had to be found, often in a hurry.

If pockets and purses didn’t have the right coins or were empty, someone was given the task of running down to the corner shop, the off-licence, or the local pub. As a last resort, you hoped a neighbour was home and borrowed from them.

On one occasion, my Dad made that trip to the pub to get some change, and two hours later he was still there.

“Well, Stan offered to buy me a drink. I couldn’t say no, could I?” Was his excuse.

Mam wasn’t impressed.

The Writer's Life: You Can Never Truly Retire From Your Passion

 

We live in a world that often treats retirement as the end of productivity. We step away from the world of work, close the door, and are expected to slow down. If we are fortunate, the work we leave behind has been a passion. For some, that is true.

But for many of us, work has simply been a necessity. Bills must be paid, and inflation is constant, with the cost of living on a relentless upward cycle. We adapt because we have to. I cannot honestly say that every job I have had was driven by passion. In my experience, the world of work rarely offers that.

I’m getting closer to what is officially called retirement. The good thing is I do not feel my age.

So what then should retirement be?

As the years move on, and the date gets closer, the question feels less theoretical and more personal. Regardless of how old I may feel, my age requires that I think more about it now. It’s like having a little devil on my shoulder telling me that time is moving on and my choices going forward are limited. It reminds me that time is passing and choices might be narrowing.

Awareness focuses the mind.

For many, retirement conjures images of days of leisure, relaxation, and freedom from the previous work routine. A routine of five days a week, getting up, going to work, and nine to ten hours later getting home, comes to an end.

Traditionally, retirement meant stepping back for good. Once you retire, that is it. No more work. But things are changing now, and not necessarily in a positive way. For one, we are living longer, but often those later years are ones where health matters, for both body and mind, and can become more of a problem.

In recent times, the retirement age has been going up in many countries, simply because people living longer has become less affordable for the state. And people are not always in a position to save for their retirement, or have a generous private pension.

Retirement is no longer the short chapter it once was; provided you are healthy, it can now stretch for decades. That is a lot of time to fill. Fortunately, I am doing well when it comes to health and fitness. But for many, health issues take their toll once we reach our sixties and seventies.

And there are two things about the future that I know with absolute certainty.

Did You Know… Life in 1960s/70s Britain: The Winter of 1963 Was Known as The Big Freeze - One of the Coldest in Britain Ever?

 

The Big Freeze that was the biggest freeze, bringing the country to a standstill.

 

The winter of 1962–63 is remembered simply as the Big Freeze. It remains one of the harshest and longest cold spells ever experienced in Britain. It was the coldest winter on record since 1740.

And I lived through it.

Now, I have to confess that despite being there, I have no memory whatsoever of that big freeze. I have an excuse, though; I was only three years old at the time. I can only imagine how cold it must have been, and life was very different back then when winter hit.

It began around Christmas time, 1962, and carried on into early 1963. It wasn’t just a few bad weeks of snow. The cold weather never seemed to end. It froze the sea and rivers; it halted transport and working life. It was a period when temperatures fell to minus twenty degrees. For a few months it reshaped everyday life, freezing homes, workplaces, schools, routines, and memories.

When the Cold Took Hold

It began just after Christmas Day, with snow falling across much of the country by Boxing Day. Falling temperatures followed and stayed that way for weeks. As we entered the new year, much of Britain was locked under deep snow and ice, with temperatures regularly below zero.

At the time, Britain was far less prepared for extreme weather than it is today. We complain a lot about the weather in Britain; it’s always a topic of conversation. British weather can change in an instant — at least it seems that way, catching us off guard. And while today, we are better prepared, it is often not enough to stop the weather at its most extreme.

But in 1963, no one was ready for what was about to happen.

Home life

Central heating was rare, and many homes relied on coal fires to keep them warm. Keeping them going was a daily struggle and, for many, costly. Like today, inflation and the cost of living were issues. Inside many homes, families often gathered around one heated room. That was usually the living room.

Other rooms might have an electric or oil heater, or none at all. To help keep the cold out in winter, extra layers of clothing were often worn to provide some heat. There was often no heating upstairs. A hot water bottle, and many blankets, would have been your warmth against the cold winter.

It was not uncommon for ice to form on the inside of windows.

And that was my home. My parents rented a small terraced house that relied on that one room with a coal fire and, occasionally, electric heaters.

I must have been wrapped up well.

It was a time when pipes froze and water supplies failed. The milk froze in bottles on doorsteps. Our milkman must have been frozen when he delivered them. I remember that many of the old milk floats did not give much protection against the cold weather. Even in the 1960s, some were still horse-drawn. This was also the case with coal deliveries.

Did You Know… Life in 1960s/70s Britain: From Domestic Goddess to Women's Liberation - The Changing Role of Women

 

Changing expectations and the quiet revolution inside British homes.

In the 1960s and 70s Britain, housework was seen as "women’s work". If that sounds controversial, then yes, it was, but at the time, that was the norm. When it came to domestic chores — cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, and childcare were all seen as part of the assumed daily responsibilities of wives and mothers.

It was women that were expected to look after the home. Men, by contrast, were usually expected to “help out” with certain “manly” duties, like cleaning the windows or anything that might involve heavy lifting. General housework, only occasionally, if at all.

At the time, this was simply the accepted order of things in the home.

The Division of Labour

While women had been called upon to fill the void in the workforce in wartime, post-war Britain inherited a rigid division of roles. Men went out to work while women ran the home. It was still seen as an ambition for a woman to find a husband who had a good job, a trade, or profession, and get married. The married woman who stayed at home would invariably be described as a housewife.

Of course, there were jobs for and aimed at women, traditional jobs like secretary, typist, or care work. Many women worked, some even had careers, but they were still expected to be the homemaker, housewife, and mother. The war had brought about some change, but traditional expectations of gender roles remained.

My mother did both, she had two jobs.

She took care of the home and also went out to work, that is, until she became a home worker. She was a machinist, and a very good one. Anything that could be made on a sewing machine, she could do. After my brother and I arrived, she worked from home. Whether it was because of tradition or what was expected of her, she accepted the dual role. In fact, she was the “boss” in our home.

Even as more women entered paid employment during the 1960s and 70s, expectations at home only changed slowly, or not at all. If a woman had a day job, when it ended, she returned home to find that meals still needed cooking and the home and children still needed looking after. It was rare for men to do such tasks, as many would arrive home from work and expect their dinner to be waiting for them.

Home Life

Housework itself was time-consuming and physically demanding. For many people, the consumer revolution that brought technology to the home either hadn’t arrived or was not affordable. Washing machines, fridge freezers and tumble dryers are common now but back then were rare, as was the use of labour-saving devices in general. Handwashing of clothes and ironing was the norm, or a trip to the local launderette.

It all took time.

The idea that men should do their share of these tasks simply wasn’t widespread. When men did take part in domestic work, it was often described as “helping”, rather than sharing responsibility. It mattered because it implied that the home belonged to women and that men were assisting. Typical “men’s jobs” included mowing the lawn, taking out the bins, or doing DIY at the weekend. Daily tasks,like washing up, making beds, cleaning floors, were rarely part of a husband’s routine.

And for many men, this division went unquestioned. It was how their parents had lived, and how everyone around them seemed to live, too. The roles in the home had been set by tradition and expectation.

However, all of this changed in my family, but out of necessity, when my parents got divorced in the late 1960s. For a while, I stayed with my father, and he had no choice at that point but to take responsibility for the home and all domestic chores. My memories are somewhat sketchy on how good he was looking after the home; it probably helped that we did not have much to look after.

The Writer's Life: The 4000 Weeks of Life, How Do You Plan to Use Them?

I was reading an article recently about the average life span. It informed me that, on average, we have about 4000 weeks of life. From birth to death, we have 4000 weeks to live.

If you’re reading this at age forty, you have around 2,000 weeks left to live. 

At sixty, which I reached five years ago, it is approximately 1000 weeks. 

It’s a startling thought when you first encounter it. Not because it’s dramatic, but because that is the calculation. Most lifetimes, at least in advanced industrial nations, stretch to roughly 80 years — about 4,000 weeks. By midlife, at the age of forty, half of those have already slipped quietly behind you, often unnoticed; time has just passed.

But the average life expectancy will be different depending on where you live in the world. There are many factors that will determine how long we might live, and they are not equal across the world.

So, I looked into the numbers a little deeper.

According to the United Nations, the current average age at death for people across the world is around 73.3 years, which is 3822 weeks. For women, the average is 76 years (3963 weeks/912 months), and for men, 70.7 years (3687 weeks/848.4 months). It is well known that women, on average, live longer than men.

Weeks are an uncomfortable unit of measurement, and 4000 does seem a lot. Years can feel generous, decades abstract. But weeks are tangible. They are ordinary, repetitive, something that we feel and easy to waste. It is seven days of life — the here and now — they come and go. 

Many of us spend the first half of life building careers, working, raising families, chasing stability, and waiting for the “right time”. Somewhere along the way, we forget to ask what we actually want our remaining weeks to look like. We assume there will always be more time later.

There won’t.

Our time on this planet is finite, and the clock is always ticking. Life is full of numbers and averages.

Did You Know… Life in 1960s/70s Britain: The British Staycation - The Nostalgic Charm of Holidaying at Home in a Bygone Era.

 

Caravans, B&Bs, and seaside towns — before travel overseas became routine.

In the sixties and seventies, for the majority of ‘Brits’, taking a holiday abroad was still something of a novelty. Far-off lands with exotic names were a dream holiday or not even thought about — they were out of reach. 

For most families, a summer holiday didn’t involve airports, passports, or sun loungers in exotic places only seen on a world map. Foreign travel happened, of course, but it was far from common, and holidays were shaped by cost, access, and habit.

The chances were that if you went overseas, you had money.

Instead, a British family holiday meant packing the car, catching a train, or boarding a coach and heading somewhere in Britain. It could be the countryside or more likely, a familiar holiday town that provided everything a family could want.

The big deal was a holiday by the seaside, at one of the country’s many resorts. Britain, with its long coastline and well-established holiday towns and industry, was where the people spent their annual break. In many ways, British holiday trends were well set and predictable.

The Rise of the British Seaside Holiday

By the mid-20th century, Britain already had a strong tradition of domestic holidays. Since Victorian times, resorts like Blackpool, Margate, Brighton, Skegness, and Scarborough welcomed holidaymakers. By the 1960s, these towns were at their peak, packed with amusement parks, piers, theatres, arcades, and boarding houses.

There was a time when many factories and workplaces closed for set weeks, particularly in industrial towns, creating a shared “holiday season.” Entire communities decamped and went on holiday at the same time. Special trains and buses would be arranged. In the north of England, this was known as Wakes Week, which began during the Industrial Revolution.

For working families, the annual holiday was often the only extended break from work all year. Two weeks of summer, traditionally the first two weeks in July. 

As children, school holidays gave us a long summer holiday that seemed to go on forever. I remember it lasted about eight weeks, but those two weeks away, if we were lucky, were the big event of the summer. Once I knew that a holiday to the seaside was planned, I would save my pocket money and everything that I had earned for those two weeks away. 

The call of the arcades, the slot machines, the chance to be a pinball wizard, or a hotshot on one of the gun machines was strong. Even the seaside bingo, much loved by grandparents, had its attraction. I counted the pennies, knowing that back then, a penny went a long way in the arcades.

Caravans, Hotels, and Boarding Houses

There was a time when going on holiday in Britain was cheap and cheerful. Accommodation was often simple and affordable. Holiday camps like Butlin’s and Pontins offered structured entertainment, meals included, ideal for families.

And the world of television, made fun of it, with Fawlty Towers, and in the 1980s, Hi-de-Hi. Fawlty Towers, starred former Monty Python John Cleese as Basil Fawlty. Fawlty was a holidaymaker’s worst nightmare, and we were fortunate to never meet anyone like him, but then, staying at a hotel was too expensive for my family.

We stayed in a caravan.

Privacy wasn’t the point. The holiday itself was.

Getting There Was Part of the Adventure

Travel was an experience in its own right. We had a long car journey without air conditioning, sat-nav, or seatbelts. Children were wedged between suitcases, armed with comics and sweets.

And occasionally, we would say, “are we there yet?”

But the jouney was often memorable for other reasons. I remember one year that my stepfather had just fitted an 8-track stereo player in the car. Unfortunately, he only had one tape. I can’t remember the artist, but by the time we got to our destination, we had heard those eight tracks enough to last a lifetime.

“Not that one again.” Was a regular comment from the back seat as I stuck my head out of the car window to get away from the sound.

The destination was the same each year, a cheap and cheerful place called Chapel St Leonards on the Lincolnshire coast. The chapel in the name made it sound almost French to me, but it was a very British, actually, it was a very English holiday. I can’t say the beaches were golden, or the weather was great, but there was always the arcades.

The British Weather Problem

The unpredictability of British weather was simply accepted. Rain didn’t cancel a holiday; it just changed the plan. If the beach was out of bounds, there was always those arcades, cafés, or simply walking along the beach getting wet.

“Did you bring a raincoat?” I’d be asked.

“A raincoat? It’s summer.” I’d reply as I got soaked to the skin.

Fortunately, there was enough sun, and I soon managed to dry out after a downpour.

Sunburn was a bonus. No, really. These were times when no one thought about sun cream, let alone protecting our skin from the harmful rays of the sun. Getting sunburnt was carried like a badge of honour, dumb though it was, as it stung like crazy. The antidote back then seemed to be to cover the burns in butter, or margarine. 

I’ve no idea who came up with that as the answer.

Why A Holiday Abroad Was Still Unusual

Package holidays to Europe began to grow in the late 60s and 70s, but they were still beyond the reach of many people. Flying was seen as expensive or even risky. 

Some families had never left the UK at all, and that was there choice. 

For older generations in particular, Britain was the place to go; it was a traditional holiday. Familiar food, a shared language, and no need for passports made domestic travel reassuring. Going abroad often felt unnecessary when there were perfectly good beaches and holiday entertainment to be had at home.

But by the late 1970s and into the 1980s, cheaper flights and paid holiday entitlements began to change habits. Going overseas was more of an option, and the glossy brochures, showing golden beaches, offered all-in package holidays that were now affordable to the masses. Spain, Greece, and France became increasingly popular. Sunshine became an expectation rather than a hope.

My parents finally went overseas for a holiday in the early summer of 1977. But it wasn’t to Europe — they went to the USA. It was a trip to see one of Mam’s sisters who had moved there back in the sixties. I missed out, because the dates clashed with my school exams. 

The next year, it was back to Chapel St Leonards. 

But, gradually, the traditional British seaside towns declined as families looked further afield. For those who grew up before that shift, the British holiday holds a powerful nostalgia. It was tied to routine, familiarity, and the feeling of time slowing down for one week, or a fortnight of freedom away from the grind of work.

Looking back, holidays in Britain weren’t about luxury or novelty. They were about tradition and they were affordable. It was what most British people did. They booked somewhere in a British resort, put up with whatever the weather threw at them, and enjoyed themselves for a couple of weeks.

So yes, for millions of families, it wasn’t a second-best option. It was simply what our holidays were.

 

More Did You Know stories about 1960s/70s Britain can be found here.

 

Photo 1 by Ben Guerin on Unsplash

Photo 2 by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

The Writer's Life: The Writer As An Observer of Life - A Hospital Visit

 

A writer rarely enters a room without quietly taking notes. Not with pen and paper; that would be too obvious, but with something far more instinctive. I find myself observing what is going on around me, and the potential for a story forms in my mind.

A writer notices the way a conversation develops or stalls, the glance that lingers too long, and the sigh that says more than words ever could. The looks on the faces of everyone in the room, friendly or grumpy, hostile even, every room has its own look and character.

I was in one such room last Friday, when I had to pay a visit to a local hospital. A hospital waiting room is not a place where most people would want to be. Uncertainty about our health takes most of us there, unless you were in support or there to assist someone.

The hospital was busy; they always are, but the first thing I had to do was find the waiting room. Report to Ward 34, I was told by my local surgery. I diligently wrote down the details, including a long abbreviation that must have been code for something. It was the only writing that I had done for a few days.

Ward 34? I began to wonder about all the other wards (33 of them), and then how many more there were after 34. The hospital was a big place. I arrived at the main reception, where I noticed someone, who looked like he might be a volunteer, advising others on where to go.

“Do you know where you need to go to?” He asked.

“Ward 36.” I replied, without realising that I had given the wrong number.

“I’ll take you to the lift. From there you go to the second floor and turn left, and the waiting room for Ward 36 is at the end of the corridor.”

The Writer's Life: When Illness Strikes - The Art and Fear of Being a Writer

 

I recently caught a winter cold, which turned into an infection,  or it came with it, just before Christmas. It was just a cold, or so I thought.

The common cold had taken a backseat in recent times, as COVID-19 got all the headlines. But it has been around a long time; there are about two hundred strains of it. It was just waiting its turn, or a new strain was around. Old or new, I got it from somewhere.

And it was a lingering cold.

A continuous cough is not just something that comes with COVID-19; mine from this simple cold lasted three weeks, and I’m still not over it. The cough pounds away at the rib cage — it’s like going ten rounds with Mike Tyson at his peak.

It all meant that I struggled to write. That’s the way it is when I’m ill. I might have good intentions, that having all that time,  I will write. In reality, that doesn’t happen. Being ill drains any desire to do anything, other than to get over it.

You eat a meal without tasting a bite. You read a message twice and still don’t absorb it. Watch a YouTube video, without taking it in. Somewhere along the way, you forget to write. The hours drag on.

And this is where writing lives.

To be a writer is to exist half a step removed from the world, constantly translating experience into language in a way that, hopefully, someone will like and understand. The writer is always watching, listening, and storing fragments away in the mind for future use. Even in moments of rest, or illness, thoughts are working, shaping sentences, rehearsing conversations, rewriting endings that never happened.

This is the art of it.

The Twelve Posts of Christmas 2025 - Day Seven: When Snow Was Proper Snow

 

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 a white Christmas was expected, long 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. 

The Twelve Posts of Christmas 2025 - Day Six: The Year Parliament Cancelled the Festive Season

 

Christmas Was Once Banned in Britain

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.

The Ban on Christmas

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.

The Twelve Posts of Christmas 2025 - Day Four: Brussels Sprouts and the Mysterious Christmas Pong

 

 

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.

The Twelve Posts of Christmas 2025 - Day Two: The Christmas Truce, 1914 - Football in the Trenches

 

 

 

The First World War was unlike anything the world had seen before. A conflict of mud, wire, artillery and unimaginable loss. By winter 1914, the Western Front across Europe had solidified into a vast network of trenches. 

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.

Did You Know… Life in 1960s/70s Britain: People Would Phone the Speaking Clock, Known As TIM (and some still do)?

So yes, did you know people really did phone the Speaking Clock — thousands of calls a day — just to set the time? Another wonderfully peculiar detail of everyday British life from a world that didn’t yet run on digital certainty.

 

There are some bits of everyday life from the 1960s and 70s that younger generations struggle to believe. Like how we would phone a number just to find out the exact time. And we would pay to do so as well. But for decades, the Speaking Clock was as essential to British households as the kettle, the teasmade, and the bedside alarm clock.

Phoning the Speaking Clock became a regular part of our lives.

Before smartphones, digital displays, checking the internet, or shouting out to Siri or Alexa, “Hey, what time is it?”, the Speaking Clock was the most reliable way to find out the correct time.

And people used it. A lot. At its peak, it received tens of thousands of calls a day. It even had a human name — of sorts. If you dialled TIM (or later, 123), you were immediately greeted by an unmistakably British voice.

Imagine the scene — I need to know the time.

“Mam, what’s the time? The clock has stopped.” I would shout out.

“I haven’t got my watch on; give TIM a call.”

Of course, you would need to have a landline phone at home, and ours didn’t arrive until the mid-1970s. But when it did, it was a novelty to call the Speaking Clock.

“At the third stroke, the time will be…” TIM spoke, followed by three neat pips.

It was simple, functional, and, in its own way, a tiny bit magical.

Did You Know… Life in 1960s/70s Britain: Flared Trousers Were Once So Wide They Got Caught in Your Bike Chain?

 

So yes, did you know that flared trousers were once so wide they regularly got caught in people’s bike chains? It’s one of those silly things that captures the spirit of 1970s Britain — a time when trousers danced in the wind, and every young cyclist pedalled with a hint of danger.

 

Fashion trends come and go, and then there are some that arrive and take over the entire country. They leave future generations wondering if everyone had collectively lost their minds.

What were we thinking?

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, there was the great flared trousers explosion. If you lived through that era, you’ll remember trousers that weren’t just flared; they were enormous. Trousers so wide at the ankles that simply riding a bicycle became a public safety hazard.

Flares, or, if you were American, bell-bottoms, started off as quite modest things. A gentle widening at the trouser hem, influenced by naval uniforms of the past.

The fashion actually went back a couple of hundred years in history, but then 1960s pop culture caught on. The hippie movement adopted them. Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, and Cher often wore them. They were not the only ones, as flares became not just a fashion statement but a symbol of self-expression and rebellion.

Like many innocent ideas, they escalated. By the mid-1970s, it seemed the national objective was to create trousers so wide at the ankles that they could double as a tent. As teenagers, we strutted down every street and road in trousers that resisted the slightest breeze. On really windy days, you could get blown away. If the weather forecast was for gale-force winds, it was better to stay indoors.

The width varied from person to person, but there was a competition for the widest.

“Mine are 22-inch bottoms,” someone would boast.

“Oh yeah?” Another would say, “Mine are 26.”

Before long, hems had reached levels that you could make a pair of curtains out of them. Some flares were so big they would cover your shoes, creating a strange gliding illusion, as if you were floating along.

But we wanted them — everyone wore flares — even our parents wore them in the seventies.

The Boy, the Bonfire, and the Man Called Guy – Remembering Bonfire Night

It begins in October, with the sound of a loud bang in the early evening, followed by an occasional whoosh. It tells me Bonfire Night is almost upon us. Come November, the air will smell faintly of smoke and fireworks—it was the same when I was a boy. 

A memory stirs.

I’m back in a 1960s backstreet, clutching a homemade “Guy” and hoping for a penny or two. This is a look back at Bonfire Night, the real story of Guy Fawkes, and the fading sparks of a very British tradition.

Somewhere in Middle England, late 1960s

A small boy stands outside a corner shop with a homemade effigy, whom we call “Guy”. A bundle of old clothes stuffed with newspaper, a hat perched at a slight angle, and a paper face meant to resemble one of the most famous villains in British history: Guy Fawkes.

“Penny for the Guy?” the boy calls, hopefully.

A man passes, uninterested. The boy tries again. “Penny for the Guy, please, sir?”

A young woman looks over, smiles, and rummages through her basket. She pulls out a purse and produces a big copper penny, and then another — pre-decimal coins that felt like real money.

“Be careful with those fireworks,” she says kindly, handing them over.

He grins, pockets the coins, and can already hear the whoosh and bang of rockets in his imagination.

I was that boy, out on dark nights, asking strangers for a few pennies so I could buy fireworks to celebrate a tradition that, at the time, I had little understanding of. Except we were told that Guy Fawkes was a bad man.

The Spark Behind the Celebration

For those unfamiliar with the roots of Bonfire Night, it all goes back to 1605, when a group of English Catholics plotted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. It was called the Gunpowder Plot, and its aim was simple but spectacular—to assassinate King James I and wipe out much of the Protestant ruling class in one fiery blast.

The ringleader was a man named Robert Catesby. He believed that Catholics were persecuted under Protestant rule, and, in fairness, they were. Catesby’s “solution”, however, was not one that would have gone down well in any century.

Enter Guy (or Guido) Fawkes, a soldier and explosives expert who had been fighting for Catholic Spain. He was recruited to handle the dangerous bit, guarding the barrels of gunpowder and, when the time came, lighting the fuse.

As plots go, it was elaborate, daring, and destined to fail. The conspirators were betrayed before they could strike. Fawkes was caught red-handed in the cellars beneath Parliament with enough explosives to change the course of history.

The Writer's Life: Whatever Happened to Storytelling? We All Need Stories.

Whatever happened to storytelling?

It’s a question I’ve found myself asking quite a lot lately.

I read that people want real stories, the personal, authentic glimpses into someone’s life. I was watching a YouTube video on this yesterday, and I thought, “Yes, I’ve been there.” But scroll through your average feed, and you’ll see something else entirely. A parade of how-to guides: how to write better, how to be more productive, how to succeed at something (anything!), how to do this and that.

Then there are the ‘how-to’ stories — which, ironically, often don’t contain much storytelling at all.

They all seem to follow the same formula:

• Identify a problem.
• Explain why it matters.
• Offer a neat solution.
• Finish with a motivational takeaway and a promise of success.

And that’s fine, for a certain type of writing. There’s a huge audience for that kind of thing. The self-help and “personal development” world is thriving. But that’s not always storytelling. That’s instruction. It has a purpose — but it’s not quite the same as sitting someone down and saying, “Let me tell you what happened to me one summer…”

Or, “I wrote a book of good stories that might offer a life lesson or two. Hopefully, you enjoy the read.”

A story doesn’t need to solve a problem. It doesn’t need to teach you how to fix your life or build a better version of yourself. Sometimes, a story just needs to help the reader drift off into a different world for a few minutes — escapism.

But surely, storytelling is, and always has been, about entertainment.

How Son of My Father Found Its Name - The Story Behind a Book Title, and a Half-Forgotten Song

In 2022, I wrote a book called Son of My Father.

I remember the moment the title came to me. I was pacing around my home, thinking — searching for a phrase that might hold the whole story together. Titles can be elusive things, they are jotted down, forgotten, some look great, then they don’t. I had a handful of ideas, each discarded for one reason or another. 

None seemed to bring the chapters together in the way I wanted.

At one stage, I had an idea that I felt could really work — to open each chapter with a subheading drawn from a song of the time. A piece of music that had shaped not only my personal experiences, but also the atmosphere of the era I was writing about. I imagined each song acting as a lyrical thread connecting memory, mood, and meaning to the story.

Then reality intervened. Copyright.

Yes, “fair use” might have allowed me to borrow a few lines, but even that felt like a legal grey area. The deeper I looked, the more it became a potential minefield of permissions and costs. Reluctantly, I let the idea go.

Still, once music had entered the conversation, I couldn’t get it out of my head. Songs have a way of unlocking memory, and as I sifted through those from my past, one stood out: Son of My Father, a 1972 hit by Chicory Tip.

I can’t say the band were favourites of mine, nor that the song had any special place in my life at the time. I remember it being played on the radio and Top of the Pops, but I was more into music by T Rex, Slade, Sweet and ELO. Years later, the song — and something in its story — resonated. It felt as though it was an ideal title for the book.

Here’s the song:

I later discovered that the title had been used before — in books, in other contexts — but that didn’t matter. For me, it fit.

Because although my book isn’t solely about my relationship with my dad, he is the presence that runs through it. The man, the mystery. As he left my life almost fifty years ago now, the book is most of what I know about him.

Writing Son of My Father was, in part, an act of discovery — not just about the past, but about what remains when memory fades and imagination takes its place. 

Read more reflections like this here.

 

Image by Tibor Janosi Mozes from Pixabay