A hard Christmas it was in London in the 1960s

An Irish immigrant remembers and thinks of home

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London, 1960s

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When I got to the house on Christmas Eve, I paid the landlady and took a bath and dressed in my Sunday best. I waited for the others and we all sat down to dinner and it had some meat and lashings of mashed potatoes. “Paddy Food” they called it. It didn’t bother us much for we knew we would have steak in a late night café after the pubs closed anyway. The six of us were dressed and ready to go at half six and we headed straight for the “Shakespeare” near the Archway. After a few pints there we went to the “Nag’s Head” on Holloway Road, however we encountered a group from Connemara there and rather than wait for the customary confrontation, (For some reason, there was animosity between those from the Kerry Gaeltacht area and those from Connemara which was also a Gaelic speaking area in Galway.) we decided to forego it on Christmas Eve. But we assured each another that the matter would be taken care of in the very near future. Just as I was leaving one of the Connemara chaps said, “láithreach a mhac” (soon, my son) and I responded “is fada liom é a mhac” (I can’t wait, my son). We ended up in the “Sir Walter Scott” in Tollington Park and I barely remember seeing a row of pints lined up on the bar to tide us over the period between “time” called and when we actually had to leave. This period could last an hour depending on the pub Governor’s mood.

We ambled or, rather staggered into the late night café some time after midnight and the waitress gave us a knowing glance and said, “Steak and mash Pat, OK” and we all said “yes." Some of us said it a few times just to make sure we had said it. It was then I thought, Jesus, I never went to Midnight Mass. That bothered me. I had always gone to Midnight Mass but it was only last year I started drinking and it went completely out of my head. We had our feed of steak and left and we decided to walk to the “Tube” at Finsbury Park and that would bring us to Kentish Town Station. Somehow, we made it and truthfully I don’t remember a moment on that train.

We arrived home at two and as quietly as possible reached our rooms. One of the Donegal fellows pulled out a bottle of Scotch and passed it around and we just sat on the beds and took turns taking swigs descending deeper and deeper into the realm of the absence of coherence of any sort. I remember thinking again about missing Midnight Mass and I must have voiced my disgust a number of times to the annoyance of the others and one of them asked me to “shut the hell up." I approached him and hit right between the eyes and he crumpled to the floor and fell asleep. The others struggled and lifted me onto the bed and everything just blanked out and I remember awakening on Christmas Day and the fellow I hit was nursing a bruised cheek by the window. I asked him what happened and he said he didn’t know and that he thought he bumped into something in his drunken state. I told him that I thought I hit him and that I was sorry.

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