Cracked Eggs and Chicken Soup - A Memoir of Growing Up Between The Wars. Norman Jacobs
Kitchen and the Relieving Officer became a way of life for us for many years. Our only relief from this permanent pattern of poverty and living on charity came at Christmas and Easter as Dad could really only guarantee being in work as a French-polisher in the two months leading up to Christmas and for a month or so before Easter, when his skill was much in demand. At these times he would work late into the night earning as much money as he could to try to tide us over for a bit. We were always in bed by the time he got back home, but we went to sleep happy knowing that there would very likely be a little something for us in the morning as, on these occasions, he would always bring us home a little treat such as a bag of Everton Toffee or Sharps Kreemy Toffee, the latter always in a tin shaped like a bucket.
Christmas was eagerly anticipated by all us children. I doubt if our parents shared this enthusiasm but because Dad invariably was in work for the couple of months leading up to the big day, we didn’t do too badly. A few weeks prior to this blessed event a cup was placed on the gas-meter shelf and we were told to put any money we might acquire from scavenging or doing odd jobs into it then, when we were asleep, Father Christmas would come and take it to help him get our presents. We followed this instruction to the letter as we couldn’t take the risk of offending him of all people.
On Christmas Eve, Mum used to say to us, ‘Don’t forget to hang your stockings up. Father Christmas will be here during the night, then we can see which of you have been good boys and girls.’ This was a bit worrying as we all started to remember some of the naughty things we had done during the year, but we hoped they would be outweighed by the good things we had done. So Christmas Eve saw a row of assorted stockings hanging from the mantelpiece, the younger members borrowing mum’s stockings.
There was much anticipation the following morning as we all woke up early and there was a lot of chatter between us about what we might get and what we hoped for. We were always under strict instructions not to leave our room until Mum or Dad came in and told us it was time to get up. This waiting time was agony, which we usually tried to relieve by bouncing up and down on the beds and engaging in mock fights, much to Julie’s disgust as she tried to quieten us down. Letting off steam like this not only tided us through the waiting time but helped keep us occupied and banish the lingering feeling we still had that we might have been too naughty to get any presents.
Eventually we were allowed up and we scampered into the living room where, to our great relief, we saw all the stockings filled. As we each dashed to our own stocking and opened it up the volume of the chatter would rise in crescendo as our excitement grew.
‘I’ve got a tangerine,’ Davy might say. ‘Me too,’ someone would add. Usually we found we all had oranges and some nuts and, if it was a particularly good Christmas, maybe even an apple or a tangerine. Having got through the fruit at the top, we would then start fishing out the little schlorems below. Now these were much more interesting than the foodstuff. And a typical Christmas continued like this:
‘I’ve got some crayons,’ came the cry from Bill. ‘I’ve got some chalks,’ said Abie, ‘and a colouring book.’ ‘I’ve got one of those too,’ put in Bill hurriedly, not wanting Abie to think he had more than him. ‘I’ve got a story book,’ I added to the list of presents being reported. ‘What have you got, Julie?’ I asked. Julie replied that she had a box of beads and a small paint tin. We all made little neat piles of our own presents and once that was complete, we’d go over to the table, for there on the table were some more presents with our names on.
‘Look,’ said Davy, ‘I’ve got a Ludo game.’ ‘Well I’ve got snakes and ladders,’ put in Abie. ‘Lotto for me,’ chimed in Bill. All of us had received a cheap board game or something similar. ‘Mine’s a Post Office,’ I added. It contained little stamps and envelopes with some writing paper, a rubber stamp and some small weighing scales.
One year when I was a bit older I received a dartboard and three feather darts. The board was a square piece of laminated wood with a paper dartboard stuck on it. This must have been where my love of darts began, something I carried on into my young adult life.
Looking back from this distance of time, our presents were only cheap and nothing much to write home about but in relative terms they probably cost our parents an awful lot of money, though the sacrifice they must have made never entered our heads of course. After all, weren’t all these presents from Father Christmas? In any case, to us our presents were simply wonderful and whether they were cheap or not we loved them because for the rest of the year there were hardly any treats. Even our birthdays went by without much, or even anything, by way of presents. Dad might be lucky and get a few weeks here and there, either as a French-polisher or a lino-cutter or as a waiter, but there were many more times when he was out of work than in it and we had to tighten our belts. It was a struggle just to put basic food on the table. Presents were completely out of the question. Of course, to me, growing up as young boy during this period, I didn’t really think anything of it. I thought this must be how everyone lived.
After we’d opened all our presents we excitedly got down to the serious business of playing with them until dinner time, which although it was the normal chicken we might expect on a good Sunday, it was the only time of the year when we had roast chicken rather than boiled up for lokshen soup. With some roast potatoes and a bit of cabbage, it was the best meal of the year.
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