Ah, yes, “then”. They mean, in another age, when I was little and angels were young and toothpaste was green and the buses in the old town were blue and the clippies had tea-break-bench shine on the back of their navy trousers, as well as a warm slap on their hands to help the comely young ladies onto the upper deck and the sky was sacked with snow – and those angels had invisible power in the glide of their wings and the town mayor polished his chain to visit the poor children in the orphanages and Mr Sood, the Indian market-trader with the smiling teeth, gave cardigans to needy old people and the beer- breathed office clerks stuck paper chains to the ceiling over the desks of the pert typists and the students in duffel coats helped the posties deliver the mail and the old soldiers roasted chestnuts on a brazier and the dairyman with one arm laid cotton wool snow in his shop window, as white as the Holy Virgin’s soul – and in those days a decree went out from mother in the kitchen that the turkey should be plucked; and the red-breasted robins preened on puddings and last-minute messages curled up the sooty chimney and the goodies wore white and the baddies wore black and the painted floozies trembled on street corners and the muffled tramps shivered and the men in woollen jackets hunkered in front of the pub’s fire and hummed carols to the glowing, spitting coals – and the forgotten veterans remembered how the peaceful men of war had left their trenches to shake hands and kick a football over the frosted ruins of the rutted field – and the foolish gambler clenched his knuckles in prayer and the shepherds were still as statues and the lids shut over the eyes of the hidden doll and the toy trains ran on clockwork and time kept overtaking the harassed mothers and the haunted widow made mince pies for nearly all the family and the sugar mouse with a string tail wriggled in the stocking and the moon was full and the choristers crunched gravel on the paths to the churches – and the vicars wrote sermons about how the birth of a boy nearly 2,000 years ago had changed the world and . . .Read
