Christmas: A crazy mix of the sacred and the vulgar

Dec 6 2007 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

FLORENCE, or Flo as she is known to those dear to her, was a stalwart in the office before the flibbertigibbets, now strutting around the place with their mobile phones and bottles of water, were even twinklings in the eyes of their parents.

Those were the happy, old days when everyone knew their Ps and Qs - Mr Cedric liked two lumps of sugar with his coffee and one with his tea, Mr Cuthbert took his afternoon nap between 2 and 2.30, Mr Randolph's diary was laid to the right of the blotter, and nobody ever asked why the young Mr Hector had a massage in the lunch-hour on Fridays.

She misses the way it was then - the chatter of the old Imperial typewriters, the smoke, the gossip, the in-trays and out-trays, the squat black telephones with their big dials and "pring-pring" ringing tones.

But you have to accept progress if you are to survive in this life, though it does seem so soulless now with the low hum of the computers, the air-conditioning and striplighting.

The new bosses may wear jeans and insist on being known by their first names, but there is something ruthless about them all the same.

Of course, they would have said "Christian names" when Mr Cedric was in charge, but you are not allowed to do that any more, lest it should offend people from other faiths.

Still, we all have to soldier on and if you peep through the office doorway you can see Florence. Ah, there she is all a-fluster, pressing her knees into the mauve carpet, so that she can beam a torch into the darker reaches of the broom cupboard, thus blocking the aisle between a row of desks and the wall with her slim bottom, which in more generous times had been patted rather too fondly by Archie - a bold young man, who described himself as a travelling sales executive, but was only a bagman really.

Her mind purrs at the memory. But to the present. "Has anyone seen Melchior?" she calls shrilly from her spot on the floor.

There is no reply. "Gwladys," she cries to her one true friend left from days gone by. "Gwladys, have you seen Melchior on your travels?"

"No dear," replies Gwladys, who is busy regumming a blue, green and red streamer.

"I expect he will be where you left him last year." "Balthasar and Gaspar are there," replies Flo.

"Do you think we could possibly make do with two Wise Men this year?"

"Well, three are traditional," says Gwladys, who is a stickler for such things. "Oh, there he is in the corner," says Flo, triumphantly.

"Someone must have rammed him into a vanilla slice when the festivities were approaching frenzy last year."

"Well, well," says Gwladys. "Do you remember that time when Constance got a little squiffy and crashed into the Nativity scene, unsettling a shepherd who fell into Stanley's glass of pale ale?" "Yes," says Flo, perking up, "and unfortunately he didn't see it." "But the ambulance was very prompt," recalls Gwladys.

"He would have had to retire soon anyway," adds Flo. "By the way, there's a chip on the baby Jesus. Do you think anyone will notice it?"

"Certainly, they will," says Gwladys, defiantly. And she is right. For we are about to enter that crazy British mix of the sacred and the vulgar - when office parties and robins, mince pies and angels, stars and Victorian waifs, celebrations and government warnings, snowmen and Wise Men, turkeys and stars, priests and shepherds, trees and stockings, God and Father Christmas, are all stirred together.

From it, though, the ancient Nativity scene emerges all powerful. This in itself is a great miracle. The politically correct, or some of them, would like to change its name from Christmas to the Winter Festival. The commercial boys and girls start what were once the January sales on Boxing Day. But the essential Christmas goes on unchanged.

Millions of us will attend Nativity services in the churches and schools, feeling deeply about the birth of a baby. And we will see the green of the leaves and the red of the berries.

"Look, Gwladys, isn't it wonderful," says Flo, laying a bit more straw in the crib. "Do you remember when Mr Cedric brought the little donkey? I always think that makes the scene complete." Suddenly her mood changes.

"Do you ever wish you had a child of our own?" Gwladys doesn't speak for a moment. "That's a lovely robin," she says finally. And they look from one to the other, smiling beneath the Christmas tree.

* LISTEN to David Charters on his picture podcast at wwwliverpool dailypost.co.uk