Christmas at the Vicarage

A Vicarage Family by Noel Streatfeild

published 1963

set in the 1910s

[excerpt] [The latest curate comes for Christmas  lunch]

Right away he set a new standard for curates by arriving with five boxes of Fuller’s chocolates…Individual boxes from which the children were allowed, with permission, to help themselves were much valued. But that was not all; when the crackers were pulled Mr Plimsol found a blue sun bonnet in his and not only put it on but sang: ‘Oh, what have you got for dinner, Mrs Bond?’ in a delightfully silly way.

‘Bags I you for my team for charades this evening,’ said John.

Always for Christmas tea and the tree afterwards the vicarage doors were thrown open to those who were lonely or had nowhere else to go. Annie, on hearing the Christmas arrangements, made a remark which became a family quotation: ‘As at Sandringham.’

Either because of the success of Mr Plimsol in the charades or because of some special quality surrounding that Christmas, it stayed in the children’s memory…

The present-giving over and the wrappings swept up, the charades started and, as had been hoped, Mr Plimsol proved a natural comic. It was lovely to see the lonely, rather sad people who had arrived, mopping the tears of laughter off their cheeks.

Then there was more carol singing and then the guests were in the hall putting on their wraps, and another Christmas Day was over.

 

comments: Last year one of the blog Xmas entries reminded a reader of this book, so of course I got hold of it and did a post on it then. But the book was full of good things, and plenty enough for another Xmas entry (as well as an everyday one….here) so here we go. 

The chapter on Christmas is an atmospheric joy, but that is not typical of the whole book – the next chapter is called Broken Resolutions – which takes a very unsentimental view of the lives of the vicar’s children. The book is openly autobiographical, with the names and a few details changed.

But it is a melancholy story, and Victoria (representing Noel S) is a sad figure. From a distance of 40 years she remembers their poverty, their awful clothes, the difficulties with her parents, the hard times at school. That’s not to say it isn’t a good read – but in her stage books, the problems tend to get solved, someone miraculously comes up with a beautiful dress. Not so here. And she perhaps would say she doesn’t mean it to be sad, but it does come over that way. In addition it has a very sad ending, though one that could be anticipated (by an adult reader).

There are occasional strange Point of View problems with it: the author imagines what others are thinking, and describes conversations she could not have been present at, and tries to work out what was going on in the family dynamics.

More cheerfully, it does link up with many many other areas of interest in the blog. The children’s clothes are too depressing to illustrate, but I did enjoy Victoria breaking the unofficial school rules by wearing a huge green bow in her hair: a moment of joy before she hears ‘We don’t want to see those green ribbons tomorrow, Vicky. Black please.’ And then there is terrible trouble at home….

I was surprised that the young teenage girls went to ‘flapper dances’ – I associate the word with the 1920s, but a quick internet search showed it was current much earlier (with dubious connotations at times). Worth looking up on Wikipedia.

Victoria’s father, the vicar, tries to think of something she might be good at at school:

‘you could be an influence when you are older – an influence for good.’ Victoria thought how little her father knew about girls’ schools.

Which made me laugh, and reminded me of a moment in blogfriend Lucy Fisher’s book Witch Way Now? – speaking of the Eleanor Roosevelt remark that ‘no-one can make you feel inferior without your permission’, Lucy and narrator Anna truly say, ‘Eleanor doesn’t go to our school’.

The book is full of fascinating details of life, and some very real emotions.

Streatfeild has a grim view of one aspect of life then:

In well-to-do homes it was taken for granted that one daughter.. would remain in the home to look after her parents in their declining years. As many parents, with nothing to do, started their declining years before they were fifty, the daughter who stayed at home had not only a hard life while her parents lived, but when they died her reward was all too frequently to be left practically penniless.

But the happy side of the book is that we know that was never her, she went on to live a happy and satisfying life.

Victoria’s older sister Isobel features in the book a lot – in real life this was Ruth Gervis, who did the iconic illustrations for the original Ballet Shoes, and for other books too. Blogposts here and here.