Monday December 30th and the Christmas spirit is with me: I saw an old friend in town today, someone prominent in my life for two years over 2 decades ago, someone who I was only thinking about the other day, and I went over and said hello instead of sneaking past him. He’d been looking away and on his phone so wouldn’t have even noticed if I’d just walked on by, dragged away by my natural avoidance tendency.
I even took my hood down to reveal myself, and then there we were, reminiscing about shared laughter and the comedy quotes that got us through the tedium of labour when we worked the part time evening shifts at Royal Mail together between 1998-2000. His kids came over after their temporary fairground ride and I said hello to them and his partner. I didn’t take up much of their time, and we bid a fond farewell, my friend joking that we’d bump into each other in a few years from now when he was back in town now that he lives away.
I went off to complete my store returns in a heightened mood, glad I’d made the effort to make a tribute to a part of my life story. Perhaps I’d been inspired by a lovely night previously, spent with my sister and her girlfriend and my niece, who were visiting from the south coast. Reprising connections nourish the soul if you can overcome the pull against it.
I don’t always go through with it, though, exemplified in my local supermarket, pre and post Christmas Day. I averted contact with two other significant social buddies of the 90’s and beyond, both from the two Sunday league football teams that were my life back then. Rival teams that I played for and against, like Mo Johnstone and Sol Campbell. On about 23rd, the captain of my first team was with his partner, providing the trolley while she put in the graft. True to his vision on the field, he appeared not to notice me as I skulked off down another aisle. This was nothing against him, just my natural setting. True, I did, in ‘98, take his then girlfriend (not the person in the supermarket) back to my bedroom after a night out and removed my trousers in front of her (you thought I was such a nice boy, didn’t you?) but all that had been ironed out back then (crucially, she’d opted not to cheat on him like he’d cheated on her multiple times), what’s more, I allowed myself this blanking as I’d previously acknowledged him in a prior supermarket encounter, which itself had been inspired by a sighting of him a time before that when I’d avoided him and later felt uncomfortable about it.
Yet, this time on the 23rd, I did end up actually making contact, noting him standing on the end of an aisle, potentially not noticing me, kind of staring into space, but I felt I couldn’t risk it and waved in his direction. He broke out of his trance, waved back, smiled and, hopefully got, by my frenzied put-on expression, that I was too rushed to talk. It wasn’t until today, after speaking with my Royal Mail friend, that I realised I’d missed an opportunity to tell him that it may well have been 30 years to the day that we’d had our inaugural Sunday league team Christmas night out that he’d played a starring role in.
On Boxing Day, or maybe the day after, a player from the other, more successful team, who I’d won trophies and gone out on memorable nights out with - including over the last couple of years - was in the same supermarket with his kids, appearing not to see me (a theme?!) in one aisle and then later picking up laundry detergent with his back right to me, as close as we’d been when having our arms round each others necks on the dance floor during £1-a-pint club nights on Monday and Thursdays. The only music playing now was Lucky You by the Lightning Seeds over the sound system, a tune he sang to himself as he walked away back up the aisle without interference from me. Again I forgave myself, as I’d chatted with him in there a couple of months before. I believed myself to be in credit, and I’m sure you agree, so with that cleared up, I’ll change tack and tune in on the Lucky You bit of that riveting story. Not just that song in particular, but the always strangely abrupt ending to the Christmas songs once 25th has passed. I say, keep ‘em coming!
There must be an argument, even if only I am making it, that Mariah and Brenda and WHAM! and Elton etc, (probably not Slade, as they inquire about stockings going up on walls) are better enjoyed after the big day of presents. Before then, the festive songs are just a soundtrack of anxiety to the mass spend, impossible organisation and impending intrusion of relatives insisting that you hear their thoughts on politics and quotas. Get all that out of the way and, if like me this year, there is no upset or tragedy affecting me during the festive period, then the true magic of Christmas, which is its power to catch all the day-to-day stresses in a sack and tie it up, allowing you to watch old festive Top of the Pops from years gone by (1998 is a smasher - Spice Girls, Bewitched, Leanne Rimes and a truly moving performance of No Matter What by Boyzone, interspersed by presenters Kate Thornton, Jayne Middlemiss and Jamie Theakston slap-sticking Jane MacDonald in a Santa outfit) and eat and drink just because it’s there, the wonder of all those Yuletide bangers can be truly appreciated. One year my missus was mildly irked by my wearing of Santa pyjama bottoms throughout the year, and while I’m not condoning that excessive behaviour, I’m still on the Christmas playlist during this (now) most wonderful time of the year.
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