It's not that I don’t like Christmas - at
some point, very early in my life, I fell out of love with it. It wasn’t anything
to do with finding out the truth about Santa Claus - it was more to do with
spending lots of time with my father, or alternatively, not seeing him at all. When I was a young child, about 5, 6 or 7, I
have memories of not seeing my father for days on end.
My father worked as a fishmonger, but the shop also sold poultry, fruit and vegetables.
As a younger child it was great to
go to the shop with him on half day closing, or go out on deliveries, just to sit
in the van, but it was time with him.
From the age of 12 I began to do this more
and more. Spending days in the shop during the school holidays I didn’t just sit in
the van any more, I took deliveries into people’s houses, made up deliveries and
sometimes served in the shop. Through my teen years this involvement
increased - I also earned money from doing it, money in my pocket, learning front
of house customer skills!
As we sold poultry, Christmas was a busy
time. On average, the shop sold over 400 birds, turkeys and chickens, plus the odd
goose or duck if requested. These birds were ordered from farms beyond
Brecon, nearer Hereford or Leominster. We’d order them in July/August, on a
family day trip to the countryside.
Leading up to Christmas the order of the day was: Get up about 6am, get to the fruit and vegetable wholesalers for 7am, order provisions for the day, then back to the shop and open up.
As Christmas approached we would have to collect
the birds - this meant us actually going to collect them, farms didn’t deliver. Getting the deliveries to people was a
precision exercise - we had 70 -90 grocery deliveries to make, as well as the
turkeys and chickens.
Depending on what day Christmas fell,
Friday would still be a busy fish day. In the evening we would close the shop about
6pm, go home, have some tea, and then set off up the country to the farm to
collect the birds. At the farm we would weigh each bird, which
was gutted and dressed, then calculate how much to pay. No calculators in
those days, we used Ready Reckoners – a book full of monetary calculations. And, don’t forget, up to 1971 the currency was pounds, shillings and pence.
Everything paid for and the van loaded, Dad and I returned
to Merthyr, arriving back between midnight and 1am, unloading the birds and getting to bed
by 2am to get up at 6am to start the whole process over again. We did this for four nights leading up to Christmas
Eve. I was about 14 when I realised that this had been the time I never saw my
father - he had been doing this for years and years.
In the mid 70’s the shop began to sell less poultry
at Christmas as the supermarkets began to make their impact. These birds were
delivered, so the jaunts up the country stopped. The grocery deliveries continued and
so, even when I moved away, I would return to ‘do my shift’ in the shop, sometimes
the worse for wear, depending on the amount of alcohol consumed while
travelling and waiting for connections.
Did I learn any customer handling skills? My father would probably tell you "no", while he could tolerate almost anyone, had the
patience of a saint, and saw everyone as a paying customer.
Me? Well, if you came in at 4pm on Christmas
Eve to do your vegetable shopping and start complaining about the quality of
the sprouts, what would you expect? “They were fine at 7 o' clock this morning when we
collected them from the wholesaler” is not the reply my father would provide, and he would quickly intervene and sort the customer out while I was sent out to sweep the
pavement.
It did teach me that people buy too much, complain too much - about the price and quality, expecting you to be at their beck and call (we had a phone call one Christmas morning from a customer stating she was a loaf of bread short) - and to have everything available up to the last minute. Then they wish you the complements of the season, merry Christmas and all the other bollocks for the time of year.
Christmas Day would include Mass, opening presents, collecting Uncles Davy and Ken and Nanny Davies, Christmas dinner and then .... sleep, not only because we'd eaten too much, but also because we'd done four 18-hour days leading up to the big day.
For those who love it, Christmas is a wonderful
time, and I do try, but to regain the love now for something you fell out with years
ago is not easy.
While it was hard work, it was also great working with my Dad all those years, and looking back, I wouldn't have missed those times for the world, although he may not have the same opinion of me and my customer management skills.
So be nice to the service industry all year round - they don’t get paid to take your crap, and peace and goodwill to all people should
not be restricted to one day in the year.
