Published at 10:05, Tuesday, 27 January 2009

Halfway through Away in a Manger it went wrong. Parents giggled and aaghed. I had a huff, and with a quivering bottom lip hurled my little mallets at them...

This year has been a great one for me, I have had some rotten ones, but this one has been a belter. Now Christmas is coming, and I love it. We have been filming a Hairy Bakers Christmas Special for the BBC. Now I am simple lad from Barrow and this is a dream come true. I remember as a child watching Morecambe and Wise, The Two Ronnies, and the other Christmas specials – they were indeed special. This year Si and I found ourselves bedecked with tinsel in September, singing Jingle Bells, making a turkey and ham pie worthy of gracing Charles Dickens’s sideboard. You don’t see many Christmas specials any more. This is because broadcasters can only bring them out once a year and are not economic. Well hey, we got one, and shot some of it in Cumbria – at Haverigg Prison actually. Even in prison you can’t escape Christmas. Christmas as a child in Barrow was a magical affair – and the toys of the Sixties were great. The first Christmas I remember I was five. I received a silver bike, resplendent with bell and stabilisers. How it came down the chimney I would never know or care. This bike was the best. Once a biker always a biker. We used to have great toys then: Spirographs, Action Man, and who can forget Mousetrap and Ker Plunk? My favourite toy of all time was called Johnny Astro. These were the years of the space race, and we were Apollo mad. Johnny Astro was like a steerable fan controlled by a joystick. With this you could blow (ie fly) a balloon, (ie Command Module) around the room. Then you would land this in a plastic crater. Ever inventive, I decided to land it on Mars. Well to my young Cumbrian brain, the flaming Christmas pudding looked like a fiery red planet! It landed with a bang. There was no more Christmas pudding and no more Command Module. I used to love the Christmas atmosphere at school and I suppose my first Christmas specials were the school nativity plays. The first one was when I was six years old at Abbottsmead Infants. My role was to play the xylophone at the front of the stage. I had a few bars of a carol to play to announce new scenes of the nativity. Halfway through Away in a Manger it went wrong. I bonged when I should have binged and I lost the tune. Parents giggled and aaghed. I, however, always a bit sensitive (Virgo), had a huff, turned around and faced the audience. With a quivering bottom lip I hurled my little mallets at the parents. As one hammer struck a snoozing father between the eyes, I fled in tears. I was found by my mother hiding in the back yard. She gave me a slap and some hot Vimto. Performances came and went. My hero at Barrow Grammar School was Mr Eaton, the art master – a fantastic, spirited, talented gent. I was Toad in Wind in the Willows. Mr Eaton encouraged me to do a turn. He painted my face green and with green flippers and tights I took to the stage. I loved it. I forgot my lines, changed the words, but pulled it off. It was a similar feeling, last week, filming the Christmas special, when I found myself up a tree in Northumberland dressed as an Elf. The belly’s a bit bigger, the beard longer, but I felt just the same: excited and also loving the spirit of Christmas. This year I will be doing Christmas dinner turkey with all the trimmings, my stepdaughter will be as excited as I used to be, and hearts will dance. This is the spirit of Christmas. In our Christmas show we remember people who don’t get Christmas Day with their families. There are a lot of them, from doctors and nurses to soldiers and firemen. These people make huge sacrifices to make Christmas safe for the rest of us. I had a go at this myself one year. It was a truly miserable Christmas. I was a student, had been dumped by my girlfriend and in a fit of self martyrdom, got a Christmas job working as a security guard in London. I signed up for every available shift. I was to guard a merchant bank in Victoria. With my 15th-hand ill-fitting uniform I cycled to take up my post at six o’clock on Christmas Eve. I was to be let out on Christmas morning. The song that year was, I Wish I Could be Home for Christmas. Oh, how I wallowed. Morning dawned, no relief guard. I phoned in. “Hang on in there,” said my supervisors. My sandwiches had run out and I scoured the empty offices for biscuits. I finally got out of the bank at seven o’clock on Boxing Night. I had been locked in the bank for two days! Humbug. I got a train straight home to Cumbria. I nearly wept with emotion when I saw the tree in Ramsden Square. I flew into New Year on a blaze of Hartley’s beer, and eating like a madman as I convinced myself I had wasted away. Lastly may I wish everyone a wonderful, peaceful, Christmas and a great New Year. Spare a thought for those less fortunate than yourself. May your tinsel never tarnish and your turkey never dry out. Merry Christmas.

Published by http://www.cumbrialife.co.uk