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Party like itโs 1660 by following Anna Abney’s ‘9 Rules of Christmas’
Wassail!
Itโs Christmas, and although it was suspended for 13 years, donโt let the haters put you off your celebrations. You might get called a wanton strumpet, heathen, papist or even the Antichrist by certain zealous Puritans, but ignore them. You may have forgotten a few traditions during the hiatus, but weโve got you covered with Anna Abney’s 9 rules of Christmas.
1. Shop til you drop
Have your Christmas outfits made before the shops and markets close for the holiday. Nowโs the time for new gowns, hats and handkerchiefs. Stock up on claret, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves as they’re scented essentials to adorn your home.
2. Deck your halls
By Christmas Eve, youโll need to have gathered plenty of holly, bay, rosemary and ivy for decorating the main rooms in your house as well as your public buildings. If you canโt find mistletoe locally, you might be able to buy it at market. Admire your evergreens with a wassail (a cup of spiced ale or cider).
3. Stoke your fires
Nothing says Christmas like a warm, blazing fire. Find a large piece of wood for the perfect Yule log and light it with a brand saved from last yearโs log. It should be big enough to rekindle every day until Twelfth Night.
4. Work at your own risk
Prepare for time off to rest and play. Close up your business. Be aware that any shops or market stalls open on Christmas Day (as encouraged by the Puritans) may cause rioting. Mobs have been known to forcibly close shops that stay open during this period, chucking their wares up and down the streets.
5. Abandon your diet
Hooray, it’s Christmas day! Advent fasting is over, now letโs eat, drink and make merry. Todayโs menu should include brawn with sprigs of rosemary, plum-pottage and minced pies, as well as a roast swan if you really want to impress your guests (if you canโt get hold of swan, a turkey or a goose will do). Donโt forget the oysters and venison pasties. Decorate the table with piles of sweetmeats, dried fruits and sugar confections, including baked marzipan shapes studded with nuts and comfits, brushed with gold leaf. The wine and ale should flow freely. A trip to Church will do your soul good on this holy day. For this you should be sober and prepared for a sermon on the wrongheadedness of pagan celebrations.
6. Work hard, play harder
Get outside for some fresh air and exercise; traditional games are snowballing and football. Football is a bit rougher than you remember and you might end up with a broken leg and a bloody nose, but, according to London headmaster, Richard Mulcaster, โFooteball strengtheneth and brawneth the whole body, and by provoking superfluities downward, it dischargeth the head, and upper partes, it is good for the bowels, and to drive down the stone and gravel from both the bladder and kidneys.โ Just avoid โrash running & too much forceโ. If youโre lucky the Thames might freeze over and you can play your games there. For those with less hardy constitutions, there are plenty of indoor activities. Especially popular are dice and cards. The whole family can join in. Just make sure your guests donโt get carried away with gambling as the night could end in conflict.
7. Support the arts
Everyone loves to make merry with bagpipes, fiddles, lutes and drums, so get your dancing shoes. Your throat should be well oiled for singing popular Christmas carols, like โO Come All Ye Faithfulโ and โWhile Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Nightโ. It also wouldnโt be Christmas without a trip to the theatre. Book early to get good seats. On the 28th December 1666, Samuel Pepys managed to see two plays: Macbeth at the Duke’s Theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fieldsย โa most excellent play for varietyโ and Henry the Fifth โwell done by the Dukeโs people, โฆ But I sat so high and far off, that I missed most of the words,ย and sat with a wind coming into my back and neckโ.ย At least it was better than Twelfth Night, which heโd seen on Twelfth Night, 1662, and dismissed as โacted well, though it be but a silly play, and not related at all to the name or day.โ
8. Be charitable
Keep an open house and a well stocked pantry as anyone might drop in. You can look forward to being invited over for a meal by your landlord and if you are a landlord, donโt forget to provide ample food and drink for your tenants. Christmas is the time for charity, so make sure you have spare change and food parcels for anyone who comes begging. On New Year’s day, exchange presents with your loved ones. Make up boxes for your servants, apprentices and tradesmen. Be generous and theyโll work hard for you over the coming year. The Secret Christmas makes for an especially nice gift at this time of year.
9. Party like it’s the Twelfth Night
Itโs time to party (again). Donโt forget to hide a bean and a pea inside your Twelfth-night cake. The man who finds the bean in his slice of cake becomes King, or Lord of Misrule for the night, while the lady who finds the pea in her slice of cake becomes Queen. They will be obliged to cause maximum chaos, inverting all hierarchies and challenging all rules. Remember, itโs only temporary and an excellent way for everyone to let off steam.
โTwelfth Nightโ
NOW, now the mirth comes
With the cake full of plums,
Where bean’s the king of the sport here;
Beside we must know,
The pea also
Must revel, as queen, in the court here.
Begin then to choose,
This night as ye use,
Who shall for the present delight here,
Be a king by the lot,
And who shall not
Be Twelfth-day queen for the night here.
ย ย ย – Robert Herrick
And so I bid you all a very merry Christmas. As the poet, John Taylor wrote, โLetโs dance and sing and make good cheer, since Christmas comes but once a year.โ
Anna Abney is the author of The Secret Christmas, a work of historical fiction that introduces readers to the Measham Hall trilogy. The series can be purchased from Duckworth Books by selecting the books below. Thank you for supporting independent publishing.
The exact date of Union Berlinโs formation is hard to say. In its current form, the club has only been around since 1966. But its roots go far deeper, stretching from the German Empire to the building of the Berlin Wall, via a revolution and two world wars.
Its earliest ancestor was SC Olympia Oberschรถneweide (1906), before they moved to their current home in Kรถpenick as SC Union Oberschรถneweide in 1920.
Did Union-know? When SC Union played Hamburger SV in the final of the German Championship in June 1923 the cost of a kilo of rye bread was in the hundreds of billions of marks.
After Germany was divided in the Cold War, the club split in two, with SC Union 06 in the West and the old club remaining at the Alte Fรถrsterei.
In 1951, the latter merged with a neighbouring club to form BSG Motor, dropping โUnionโ from their name altogether and adopting the red-and-white which they still wear today.
When 1966 saw a drastic reform of East German football, the East Berlin club finally became the club we know today: 1. FC Union Berlin.
The "Union Madonna", a work created by Andora to mark the 40th anniversary of 1. FC Union and
the 100th anniversary of their ancestor Union Oberschรถneweide. The writing above the two heads reads: "Semel Unionus, Semper Unionus". Once an Unioner, always an Unioner. ยฉ Andora.
After Germany was divided in the Cold War, the club split in two, with SC Union 06 in the West and the old club remaining at the Alte Fรถrsterei. In 1951, the latter merged with a neighbouring club to form BSG Motor, dropping โUnionโ from their name altogether and adopting the red-and-white which they still wear today.
When 1966 saw a drastic reform of East German football, the East Berlin club finally became the club we know today: 1. FC Union Berlin.
Kรถpenick, in the south-east of Berlin, is the home of Union Berlin. Only slightly to the north-west of Kรถpenick on the map, you can see Union’s ancestral home of Oberschรถneweide.
2. Union Berlin and rivalries
The rivalry between Union Berlin and Hertha Berlin is notorious, especially following Unionโs promotion to the Bundesliga in 2019. As of August 2023, Union have won the last five fixtures between the two clubs. Following relegation in the 2022/23 season, Hertha now play in the 2. Bundesliga.
The home kit colours of Union Berlin and Hertha Berlin.
However, Unionโs traditional and fiercest rivals are Berliner FC (BFC) Dynamo. Though the two sides have not played a league game against each other since 2006, the once fierce rivalry is still a defining feature of Unionโs identity.
In the Communist era, BFC were affiliated with Erich Mielkeโs Stasi secret police. And the clubโs advantages on the pitch were undeniable: they won ten titles in a row from 1979 to 1988 while Union suffered multiple relegations.
This inequality helped shape Unionโs character as footballing outlaws in a world where the wrong people always won.
Things, however, have changed since the millennium. While Union began their march towards the Bundesliga, BFC have languished between the fourth and fifth tiers of German football.
Veteran defender Michael Parensen celebrates with fans on the pitch after the promotion play-off triumph against Stuttgart in May 2019. ยฉ 1. FC Union Berlin
3. How to pronounce 'Union'
It is just โUnionโ, not โthe Unionโ or โa Unionโ.
To write or read Union like the English word โunionโ is wrong, because that is not how Unioners themselves pronounce it.
The name is pronounced oon-yawn, rather than yoo-nyun. Grammatically, therefore, when you refer to a supporter it is โan Union fanโ rather than โa Union fanโ.
4. Union Berlin fans built their own stadium
Union Berlin play their home games at Stadion an der Alten Fรถrsterei in Kรถpenick, which is in the south-east of Berlin.
Pitchside at the Stadion an der Alten Fรถrsterei
Union have played there for 102 years, after relocating from Oberschรถneweide in 1920. The stadium is the oldest, most enduring element of the clubโs identity: itโs older than the colours, the badge and the oldest supporters.
By the 1990s, the Alte Fรถrsterei was effectively unfit for purpose and plans were drawn for a rebuild. However, Union had very little money and only a handful of employees who were able to set up and run a fully functioning construction site.
So, during the 2008/09 season, 2,333 men and women โ most of them volunteers โ worked more than 140,000 hours to transform the Alte Fรถrsterei from a crumbling wreck into one of modern footballโs most distinctive stadiums.
A fan volunteer gets to work dismantling the old fences between the away block and the home block during the renovation in 2008. ยฉ Matthias Koch
Did Union-know?
The fans’ efforts are now immortalised in a beer garden on the southern side of the stadium. In the shadow of the terraces stands a tall, stout column made of iron girders, which is decorated with metal plaques bearing the name of every single person
who signed up to help.
Union president Dirk Zingler unveils the monument to the volunteer stadium builders after the project was completed in 2009. ยฉ 1. FC Union Berlin
5. Union Berlin's love of the forest
Trees are part of the clubโs soul.
The Alte Fรถrsterei is on the urban edges of the forests and lakes which surround Berlin. To the north-west of the stadium is the Wuhlheide, a sprawling woodland park which stretches across the south-east of the city.
The clubโs main offices are in the Old Foresterโs House which gives the stadium its name.
The Old Forester's House which gives the stadium its name. Since 2007, it has hosted Union's head office. ยฉ 1. FC Union Berlin
Did Union-know?
When spectators were banished from stadiums during the pandemic, many Union fans simply climbed the trees to watch and cheer on their team from outside.
Union fans sing this song in tribute to their sylvan home:
“In uns’rem Stadion
In der Hauptstadt
In der wunderschรถnen, immergrรผnen Alten Fรถrsterei”
Translated to English, it reads:
“In our stadium
In the capital
In the beautiful, evergreen Alte Fรถrsterei”
In 2004, Union were so short of cash that they were on the brink of losing their league licence and being banished back into the wilderness of non-league football.
There followed a mammoth fundraising effort. At the centre of it was the Bleed for Union initiative, which allowed fans to donate blood in Unionโs name. The ten euros compensation fee which was ordinarily paid to the blood donor themselves was wired directly to the football club.
7. Union Berlin's unique corner flags
Where most clubs just have their emblem or plain block colours on their corner flags, Union have a face. Designed by artist and Union supporter Andora, Der kleine Biss (โThe Little Biteโ) flies from all four corners of the Alte Fรถrsterei. Literally.
According to Andora, it represents the bite Unioners have always had, ever since the beginning.
'The Little Bite' artwork, designed by artist and Unioner Andora, flies from all four corner flags at the Alte Fรถrsterei. ยฉ Andora
8. The historic curse of Union in Europe
Did Union-know?
Union have qualified for Europe five times in their history. Three of them have come in the last three seasons.
Oddly, Unionโs adventures in Europe have always been somewhat cursed.
When Union qualified for the European Cup Winnersโ Cup in 1968, their dreams of travelling the continent were immediately dashed by an escalation of the Cold War. In the fallout from the Sovietsโ brutal suppression of the Prague Spring, several Eastern Bloc countries, including East Germany, decided to boycott UEFA competition in the 1968/69 season.
Thirty-three years later, it was an international terrorist incident. In 2001, Unionโs UEFA Cup first-round tie against Finnish side Haka Valkeakoski was originally scheduled for 13 September but was postponed after the 9/11 attacks in New York.
Two decades on, Union qualified for the 21/22 UEFA Conference League competition, challenging on the European stage for the first time in 20 years.
Cue the next international catastrophe. In the midst of the Covid pandemic, public health restrictions meant Union had to play their European home games in front of half-full stadiums. And to make matters worse, they couldnโt even play on the hallowed turf of the Alte Fรถrsterei. The stadium didnโt comply with UEFA regulations, meaning Union had to instead play at Herthaโs Olympiastadion.
The Olympiastadion lights up 'Union red' for a home tie in the 2021/22 UEFA Europa League campaign ยฉ 1. FC Union Berlin
Though Union had to continue playing their 2022/23 UEFA Europa League home ties at the national stadium, the campaign was crisis-free.
We wonder what their 2023/2024 UEFA Champions League adventure โ Union Berlin’s first ever โ has in store…
9. The World Cup Living Room
In 2014, the Alte Fรถrsterei was transformed into a โWorld Cup Living Roomโ, where fans could watch Germany games on the big screen. The stands were decorated with retro East German-style wallpaper, and the pitch was adorned with around 800 sofas which the spectators had brought from their own homes.
Das ist cosy!
Fans watch Germany beat Argentina in the 2014 World Cup Final from the comfort of their sofas at Union's "World Cup Living Room". ยฉ 1. FC Union Berlin
10. The Union Berlin Christmas Carol Service
On the evening of 23 December 2003, a large group of Union fans snuck into the stands at the Alte Fรถrsterei and sang Christmas carols to banish away the blues felt by poor results in the league. The Union Christmas Carol Service โ known as Weihnachtssingen โ was born. Little did they know at the time that it would become a roaring success in years to come.
By the late 2010s, the so-called Weihnachtssingen had become a world-famous tradition, attracting hundreds of reporters and tourists from around the globe to the Alte Fรถrsterei every 23 December. With nearly 30,000 attendees every year, it is now one of the biggest Christmas events in the city.
No football club in the world has fans like 1. FC Union Berlin. The underdogs from East Berlin have stuck it to the Stasi, built their own stadium and even given blood to save their club. But now they face a new and terrifying prospect: success.
Scheisse! tells the human stories behind the unexpected rise of this unique football club. But itโs about more than just football. Itโs about the city Union call home. As the club fight to maintain their rebel spirit among the modern football elite, their trajectory mirrors that of contemporary Berlin itself: from divided Cold War battleground to European capital of cool.
'A wonderful journey into the heart of a unique club'
Raphael Honigstein
Author of Das Reboot and Klopp: Bring the Noise
'An engrossing portrait of a football club that carries with it the story of Berlin with all its appealing contradictions: a city with a radical counterculture guarded with conservative zeal, a global metropolis with a village mentality, a cultural niche that becomes cooler the harder it tries not to be'
Philip Oltermann
Journalist and author of Keeping Up With the Germans and The Stasi Poetry Circle
'The history and culture of a special football club deserve a special kind of chronicling โ and Holden has executed it to perfection'
Patrick Barclay
Award winning sportswriter and author of Football โ Bloody Hell!
'Holden delivers a beautifully crafted set of stories that reveal a personal history of one of Germanyโs most special clubs and cities'
Jonathan Harding
Author of Mensch and Soul
'A fascinating tale that is expertly told. By focusing on the figures behind the scenes, Kit Holden captures the social and cultural history of Union and in doing so does this special club justice'
Adam Bate
Sky Sports
'For the first time, "Scheisse" is a good thing! A captivating read on one of the most unique clubs in world football'
Archie Rhind-Tutt
Bundesliga touchline reporter for ESPN
'Kit Holden superbly portrays the fascinating and inspiring football club that is โIron Unionโ. He captures the myth, the history and the spirit that make Union so very special and beloved'
Andreas Michaelis
State Secretary, former Ambassador to the UK and long-time Unioner
'A must-read for any football romantic, regardless of where you're from and what team you support'
Cristian Nyari
Co-founder of Bundesliga Fanatic
Did Union-know? The cover for Scheisse! We’re Going Up! was inspired by a tifo of coach Urs Fischer raised by Union ultras in the famous Waldseite (forest stand) behind the goal at the north end of the stadium. It appeared in Union’s second ever Bundesliga home game in 2019. A few hours later, they were celebrating a sensational 3-1 win over Borussia Dortmund. ยฉ 1. FC Union Berlin
Reader reviews
Rated 5 out of 5
‘This was as much a social and political history of Berlin as a football book. Like many other fans I have been taken by surprise and fascinated by the recent rise of Union Berlin and this well written and researched book by Kit Holden digs well beneath the surface and puts their achievements fully into context. Peppered with fan anecdotes this is a rollicking and enjoyable read. Highly recommended’ Greville Waterman, NetGalley
Rated 5 out of 5
‘What a brilliant book! This is a detailed, thoughtful and intelligent chronicle of the rise and fall… and rise and fall… and rise and rise of a football club which has a real identity as an integral part of the tough East Berlin community in which it is situated. The format of the book, telling the story of Union Berlinโs history and evolution through the perspectives of those people most closely involved brings realism and a real sense of what the club means to those people… I highly recommend this book to football fans and any non-football fans interested in a true โDavid and Goliathโ tale told against the backdrop of a fascinating period of post-war European history’ Tony McMullin, NetGalley
Rated 5 out of 5
‘Holden tells the history of the club and the city through interviews with a variety of fans and officials. It’s an inspired choice and the narrative weaves excellently between personal recollections and the over-arching story of both the city and the club’s past, present and future. The book is packed with stories and recollections of fans and their passion oozes out of every page. It wonderfully captures the essence of the club and what makes it special… Scheisse! is an absolutely brilliant book. It captures the very essence of why sport matters’ Brendan Crowley, All Sports Book Reviews
Rated 5 out of 5
‘An outstandingly fun read, this will make any reader a fan of Union… I can definitely see me egging them on in the majority of their games next season, and more relevantly, egging this book about them on to the heights it deserves to achieve’ John Lloyd, NetGalley
Rated 5 out of 5
‘Union Berlin are one of the most fascinating football clubs in Europe. Their story and their remarkable success on the pitch of the last few years is told really well by Kit Holden. In each chapter a supporter is interviewed about a particular milestone that has shaped this unique club. It is also a history of the changing city of Berlin from the cold war to today. I loved it’ Jim Hanks, NetGalley
Not of the bun-selling boy on the cover; he came last of all and his gaze will fascinate me forever. But with a very different sort of image โ a bright, chaotic, Regency caricature, not the first thing youโd associate with the lived reality of the nineteenth-century street.
The Humours of St. Giles's
The picture in question (Figure 1) is The Humours of St. Gilesโs, first published as an engraved print in 1788, and in this coloured edition (below) in 1803, but originally drawn by a man called Johann Heinrich Ramberg.
Figure 1: The Humours of St Giles's
Ramberg, a young Hanoverian, was a court painter to George III. By birth and by station, he was a stranger twice over to the world he sends up here in riotous Hogarthian style.
Admittedly, the people responsible for turning his image into a print were a little lower on the social ladder. Thomas Harmer and Samuel William Fores, its first and second publishers, were technically mere tradesmen.
But even their gleaming shopfronts opened on to high-class Piccadilly, a world away from the grubby slum that Ramberg has depicted.
Figure 2: Foresโ print shop, depicted in Folkstone Strawberries, ยฉ The Trustees of the British Museum
This is why I wanted to write a book about the real people behind pictures like Rambergโs.
Iโve written Vagabonds almost in opposition to that picture, in a mixed spirit of empathy, frustration, fascination, determined to get past these snooty representations to a world of first-hand experience.
Iโve written Vagabonds almost in opposition to that picture
But perhaps the best way to begin isnโt by throwing The Humours of St. Gilesโs aside. Partly because itโs not the sort of thing people did throw aside.
Roughly A3 in size, it was worthy of being pasted on a wall or into an album, and would set you back, for the coloured edition, full two shillings โ about two daysโ earnings for the street-sellers it mocks.
If we want to empathise with those sellers, we canโt afford to start throwing things away. So instead letโs keep it and look at it once more.
The most obvious question to ask of this picture โ where are we? โ has an equally obvious answer: we are in Rambergโs imagination.
He has conjured into being a cast of street people taken from life, from stereotype, from other pictures: the boy piddling into the milkmaidโs pail is an irreverent updating of two figures from William Hogarthโs The Enraged Musician. (Figure 3)
Figure 3: The Enraged Musician
Ramberg has arranged them in a made-up street. But it looks like Seven Dials, the geographical and spiritual heart of St Gilesโs.
The pub sign might be the Fox, on Castle Street. The church in the background is surely St Giles in the Fields, but Ramberg has taken the โfieldsโ bit rather literally, gesturing towards what remained true at the end of the 1780s โ central London was still open to the country, and there really were rolling fields just the other side of the British Museum.
You could traipse them all the way to Somers Town and suburban St Pancras, if you were prepared to trespass and werenโt afraid of cows. Weโre in the centre of Londonโs first slum, but the growing green world is just over there.
Weโre in the centre of Londonโs first slum
Itโs plain enough what Ramberg is up to: moral lessons with a wink.
Here are lust and gluttony front and centre, sloth in one corner, wrath and pride in the background. Satire and disorder rule.
The lamplighterโs oil pollutes the cookโs steaming joint just as the boyโs urine pollutes the unattended milk. A pickpocket sports a pamphlet in his cap that proclaims โLiberty & Propertyโ. The watching chimney-sweep wears his own shadow.
These are also sins being punished: itโs the bickering milk-maid, the lazy butcher, the lecherous hairdresser, the old man who fancies himself still a bare-knuckle boxer, who get their come-uppance. So there is a moral order in evidence after all, albeit an unforgiving one.
Figure 4: The publican serves a young Irishwoman a measure of gin
Nowhere is this clearer than in the strong diagonal sweep that gives the picture its shape.
The publican serves a young Irishwoman a measure of gin (see Figure 4). From the leer on the face of the baker at her side, we begin to suspect this might be going somewhere.
It is, says Ramberg, and leads our eye to the quite literally fallen woman, drunk and vulnerable, preyed upon by the lecherous hairdresser.
In the original engraving, her breasts are bare โ and so are her feet, which point us to the fruits of all this dissolution: two ragged children in the gutter, reduced to ballad-singing in order to survive (Figure 5). The boy, perhaps flea-ridden, scratches his behind as a dog approaches to sniff it โ they are, suggests Ramberg, no better than beasts.
Reduced to ballad-singing in order to survive
Here are lust and gluttony front and centre, sloth in one corner, wrath and pride in the background. Satire and disorder rule.
But he has something even worse in his mind. Look closer still, and you can just make out the woodcut illustration on the slip-song that the girl โ the young singer we started with โ is carrying.
Figure 5: Two ragged children in the gutter, reduced to ballad-singing in order to survive, The Humours of St. Giles's
Itโs someone being hanged.
For painter, printer, purchaser, it all confirms the received wisdom: this is the underclass, condemned through their own wickedness to the gutter or the gallows. A morbid moral for a โhumorousโ picture. And a terrible attitude to take towards some of a cityโs most interesting and energetic citizens.
For the first time, this innovative social history brilliantly โ and radically โ shows us the cityโs most compelling period (1780โ1870) at street level.
From beggars and thieves to musicians and missionaries, porters and hawkers to sex workers and street criers, Jensen unites a breadth of original research and first-hand accounts to tell their stories in their own words.
What emerges is a buzzing, cosmopolitan world of the working classes, diverse in gender, ethnicity, origin, ability and occupation โ a world that challenges and fascinates us still.
‘Jensen gives these past lives a monument, a dignity and recognition they deserve. For a brief moment, in the pages of this extraordinary book, they are London and London is them’ Gerard DeGroot, The Times
‘A vigorous and necessary account made timely by the widening chasm between obscene wealth and dire poverty in our contemporary metropolis’ Iain Sinclair, author of The Last London
‘Vagabonds allows readers to feel the injustices and the seeming inevitability of lives going wrong. The writing is compelling, often displaying the flair of a nineteenth-century journalist or courtroom lawyer’ Ana Alicia Garza, TLS
‘Compellingly written, utterly captivating… Jensenโs book is stuffed to bursting with original voices and sources alongside his well-crafted expert analysis… every page of Vagabonds rings with the thrum and bass of a city that saw itself as the centre of the world’ Fern Riddell, BBC History
‘Rich in research… a telling account’ Martin Chilton, Independent
The story of In Ordinary Time is not a linear one. I write about the deaths of my siblings, alcoholism, family mental illness, the Famine, British colonialism in Ireland, the abuses of the Catholic Church and the Irish State. I wanted to show how these traumas manifest in individual lives in the present.
There are three strands in this memoir:
1. the story of my life (1973-present),
2. the history of Ireland,
3. and the pre-historic and mythological stories that have filtered through.
Our understanding of time is fundamental to our understanding of ourselves, and I found Henri Bergsonโs concept of la durรฉeย to compliment the Celtic wheel of the year.
Here are some of the concepts and characters โ the Celtic Calendar and Irish saints, gods and goddesses โ that helped bring this story around.
Imbolc
The pre-Celtic feast of Imbolc is celebrated from sundown on February 1 to sundown on February 2 (to include a full rotation of night and day). Imbolc means โin the bellyโ in recognition, perhaps, of pregnancy in ewes.
February 1 is the first day of Irish Spring.
First day of Spring
The Goddess, Brigid
Brigid is the goddess of Imbolc. She is patron of the healing, smith-work and poetic inspiration. A protective mother goddess, she ushers in spring with its all its possibilities, renewals and new life.
St. Brigid
In Ordinary Time begins at St. Brigidโs Church in Manhattanโs East Village. A young Irish woman died an alcoholic death in a church portal on a cold February night in 2011.
An investigation into her life brought me into a confrontation with my own, and with the larger social structures that shaped us both.
In Ordinary Time with Brigid's cross, handmade by the author, Carmel Mc Mahon
As a child, St. Brigid (451 โ 525CE) was fostered out to a Druid to be educated. Later, she converted to Christianity and became a nun. She started Irelandโs first Convent and art school. Writing about her in the middle ages, Christian monks superimposed stories of her life over those of the Goddess Brigid. These were used as teaching tools to convert a deeply pagan people.
However, St. Brigid retains much of the pre-Christian spirit, and Irish people, particularly women, carried her stories with them when they emigrated around the world.
St. Brigidโs Feast Day coincides with Imbolc. It can be celebrated on February 1st or 2nd.
1 February 2023 will be the first state recognized St. Brigidโs Day, and the first Irish holiday named for a woman. The publication of In Ordinary Time on 2 February will coincide with this celebration.
St. Patrick
St. Patrick is Irelandโs patron saint. He is recognized for bringing Christianity to Ireland.
His feast day is March 17 which coincides, approximately, with the spring equinox, which falls half way between Imbolc and Bealtaine.
A stained glass window featuring St. Patrick
When I was growing up in Ireland in the 1970s and 80s, approximately 90 percent of Catholics attended Sunday Mass on a regular basis. St. Patrickโs Day was a holy day of obligation.
The name Patrick is of Latin origin, Patricius meaning โfatherโ or โnobleman.โ The patriarchal name helped me understand the hold the Catholic Church had over the forming psyches of generations of Irish people.
Bealtaine
Bealtaine is celebrated on May 1. It is the first day of Irish summer, a time for youth, fertility and finding love.
I identify this time with emigrating, a young working-class woman leaving an oppressive Ireland for the freedom and adventure of life in New York. It is a time of new friendships, of falling in love and trying to find a creative voice. It was during this period of partying that my adventures in alcoholism commenced.
The summer solstice occurs during the season of Bealtaine
The summer solstice occurs during the season of Bealtaine. โSolsticeโ means โsun stands still.โ On this day, June 21, it appears the sun stalls momentarily in the sky, before pitching us toward the darkening half of the year.
My brother died in a motorcycle accident on the summer solstice in 1998. This event felt like a rupture in time. The world before, and the world after Peter died.
Lughnasadh
Lughnasadh is a harvest feast. It is celebrated on August 1st, the beginning of Irish Autumn.
It falls mid-way between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn equinox.
A modern Lughnasadh corn dolly representing the god Lugh
The God, Lugh
Lugh (for whom Lughnasadh is named) is a harvest God. His name evokes a promise, that what was sown will be reaped.
I think of the fragments of my family history from Famine times to the present, our struggles with alcohol through the generations, and how all the buried, forgotten and dismissed parts of ourselves find a way to surface.
The Autumn Equinox
The autumnal equinox falls mid-way between Lughnasadh and Samhain. It marks the day when daylight and night are of equal length.
It was during this time that the story of coming to sobriety found a way to be told.
Loughcrew Cair, Co. Meath at Autumn Equinox
Samhain
The feast of Samhain is celebrated on the eve of October 31 to the eve of November 1.
It has evolved into Halloween, but it was once Celtic New Year. The Celts celebrated the start of the day at dusk and the start of the year going into the dark months. They understood that darkness is as necessary as light for harmony and growth.
Neopagans in Ireland celebrating Samhain
On the eve of Samhain, the veil between this world and the Celtic Other World, inhabited by the departed and other beings, is so close that it is possible for us to cross back and forth.
It is a time to reconnect with our ancestors, and to remember that our beloved dead are always beside us.
In this dark time of the year, I thought about the dark moments in history, like when, in the mid-nineteenth century, Irish immigrant women were used for medical experimentation in New York hospitals.
In the present, there was the dark period of my brotherโs mental health crisis, and my own ongoing struggle to accept the cloud of chronic migraine that blots out days of my life every month.
The Winter Solstice
The Winter Solstice occurs around December 21. It was a vital celebration for the agrarian, ancient peoples of Ireland.
Monuments like the five-thousand-year-old Newgrange celebrate this time.
It marks the turn from darkness to light, and those first few rays of morning sun that will continue to rise earlier and earlier in the coming months.
Carmel Mc Mahon at Newgrange monument, Co. Meath
The Cailleach
It was in the darkness that I encountered the Cailleach, the wise old woman of winter.
She is a creator goddess and it was in her time that I moved home to Ireland, to the rugged landscape she carved out of Irelandโs West coast.
She helped me to understand the cyclical rather than the linear nature of time.
Illustration of the Cailleach by John Duncan in Wonder Tales from Scottish Myth and Legend (1917)
She tries to prolong winter as long as she can, but there comes a morning where she just stays in bed, and as she drifts back into sleep, she lets go, little by little, and when she does, the ground softens, Brigid returns, and another new season begins.
Mc Mahon’s powerful memoir is a multi-layered exploration of trauma, time, memory, grief and addiction that draws connections to the events and rhythms of Irelandโs long Celtic, early Christian and Catholic history.
Memoir
Hardback
ยฃ16.99
256 pages
ISBN 9780715654477
In 1993, aged twenty, Carmel Mc Mahon left Ireland for New York, carrying $500, two suitcases and a ton of unseen baggage. It took years, and a bitter struggle with alcohol addiction, to unpick the intricate traumas of her past and present.
From tragically lost siblings to the broader social scars of the Famine and the Magdalene Laundries, In Ordinary Time mines the ways that trauma reverberates through time and through individual lives, drawing connections to the events and rhythms of Irelandโs long history.
‘A vivid, evocative and resonant counterpoint of time, memory and meaning’ Joseph O’Connor, award-winning author of Shadowyplay
‘Stunning. A work of great emotional and intellectual heft, about how familial trauma and the collective past suffering of a nation can engender the nameless psychic pain of the individual. Truth and honesty shine out of every line’ Mary Costello, author of Academy Street
‘Beautiful, compelling, thought-provokingโฆ Mc Mahon draws us a kind of map for our broken hearts… An uncompromising reflection on what it means to be of Irish heritage today’ Tara Flynn, author, actor and broadcaster
‘In Ordinary Time is painfully familiar in its account of family loss and trauma in the urban working class… Sensitively written and quietly devastating, itโs the book I had been waiting for โ the darker shadow twin of Marian Keyes’ Niamh Campbell, award-winning author of This Happy
‘Magnificent. In Ordinary Time is a brilliant combination of the personal and impersonal, of the collapsing of the two worlds one into the other. Spare, pristine, bracing โ a marvellous book’ Carlo Gรฉbler, author of Confessions of a Catastrophist
Duckworth Publishing Assistant Hodan Ibrahim provides some useful advice to publishing hopefuls looking to enter the industry.
Hello to the publishing world and people who aspire to enter. Iโm Hodan and Iโm writing about my experience of working in an indie publishing house!
I was inspired to write this blog entry because there are many stories of people giving up on their dreams because breaking into the industry is challenging and competitive. We are all book lovers fighting for the right to be here.
Knowing where to look for a role and getting advice on starting your search can be daunting! Itโs understandable because my first questions and Googles out of university were โis publishing a hard industry to break into?โ and โwhat skills do I need to get into publishing?โ This led to an endless cycle of searches that did not give me clear answers.
Luckily, I found a role as a Sales and Publicity Assistant at Duckworth by applying on my council job board. My role is part of the government work scheme, Kickstarter, that gives young people ages 18-25 six months of work experience.
My time at Duckworth taught me much about what is needed for a person to work in publishing beyond a love of books. (Although loving books makes work more fun!)
I hope the following advice will help you to make the most of your experience and give publishing hopefuls an insight into what you should look for.
Explore working for a small publishing house
Donโt only set your sites on the Big Four publishing houses and their imprints. See if your local area has a publishing house; you will be surprised with whom you find.
When I started looking for a role in publishing, I knew about the Big Four, the powerhouses of the industry. When it came to looking for a position within publishing, I was only looking on their job boards. I didnโt realise I was limiting myself as there are so many other places to work, including indie publishing houses or magazines and a thousand other creative forms of publishing.
Duckworth Books wasnโt on my radar, but it should have been – itโs a legacy publishing house. With its 125-year anniversary next year, it has stood firm as an independent for so long!
Working in a small team is fantastic. I was able to contribute many ideas that influenced decisions, which I doubt would have been the case if I was working in a big publishing house. It was so helpful in building my professional confidence.
It can be hard to deal with the enormous amount of media and blogger mail-outs that I had to send (I am best friends with the postman at this point), but it was always within a relaxed, supportive atmosphere which has been amazing whilst learning the ins and outs.
In a small publishing house, I felt that my growth and development were considered and seen as significant. My manager, Matt (Head of Sales, Publicity and Marketing), has been great, especially in answering my many questions. I asked so many questionsโฆ Matt should be knighted!
Prepare goals of what you want to learn
When starting the role, I wrote out three goals I wanted to achieve. They were small, but they helped me to focus on what I wanted to do each week. I also did this because I wanted a documented trail of my achievements.
MY PERSONAL GOALS
Share an idea or speak my opinion in a meeting
I struggle to voice my opinion in professional situations. Or I accidentally blurt out an idea without explaining it because I panic and word vomit. Having this goal has allowed me to think and plan my thoughts. As the weeks went on, thoughtfully sharing my ideas became second nature.
Learn something new each week
It could be a word, a process, an idea, or a discussion that I found interesting. I set this goal because I usually forget the nugget of information I hear while working and then get frustrated because I didnโt investigate that interest. An example is the fun I had looking into how books are turned into braille. I asked the owner, Pete, and he was terrific, giving me a detailed explanation. Afterwards, I watched videos and read more about the subject.
Ask for help when I need it and tell others if Iโm lost/confused
As a person with learning difficulties (ADHD and dyslexia), I am very good at making mistakes and then taking them personally. But in this role, I informed my team about my limitations because I have learned that people canโt help or see you struggle if you donโt tell them. This means I can go to work and be honest with the team when I get lost or overwhelmed by a task, allowing them to help me and continue developing.
Write down what you are learning as you go!
Documenting your journey is beneficial to growing your confidence and learning what skills you have developed and need to work on.
During a previous internship, I was lucky to have a manager who told me to keep a working spreadsheet of what I do each week because it would be helpful to me in the future. I laughed and said โthatโs too much workโ but I did it anyway because he implemented it into our weekly one-to-ones, which meant I had to do itโฆ
This was the best advice I ever got as a young person starting my career. (Thank you, Manager!) ย When you are working, it can be tough to see your growth and development, and you can sometimes forget cool things that you did, making you feel like you’re not learning.
But with a work journal, it’s right there in front of you.
Hereโs an example:
An Example of My Work Growth Tracker
I use a spreadsheet on Notion, project management and notetaking software, to track my learning and the skills I have developed. I write weekly or daily depending on what Iโve accomplished.
By doing this, I have seen my growth and found places where I need to improve. It also helps when you want to talk to your manager about where they can help you and demonstrate how you have been a critical team member. Also, itโs a place to pull information from when you are looking for your next adventure because it can be challenging to remember what you have done.
To publishing hopefuls who have found this blog post, I hope my advice is helpful and makes your search a little easier.
A reader on the fringes of Ashdown Forest closes his hardback of The Shadowy Third. He remembers a bundle of correspondence he bought years ago, letters which had been sent to Elizabeth Bowen. Of particular interest to him were Virginia Woolf โs letters; other correspondents were simply names at the foot of a page. Intrigued by Bowenโs affair with Humphry House, he wonders whether any of Humphryโs letters rest in the cardboard coffin in his study. He finds the box and begins to look through the letters. Musty with memories, the pages and people pass drily through his hands. Then, there it is. The name โHumphryโ. It had meant nothing to him before. He reads carefully, conscious that the man before him now has some shape and colour. An hour later, he sits down at his computer and begins an email: โDear Julia Parry . . .โ
The six newly uncovered letters fill a key gap in the narrative. They are some of Humphryโs letters to Elizabeth written from India between July and September 1936. They are not the replies to her blistering rebukes of his early months in Calcutta. The first one refers to Elizabethโs impressionistic missive of 29 June about the Norfolk Broads, which is full of soporific reflections, the girl from a Renoir painting and her capable Aunt Bertha (see Chapter 12). With this new find, the epistolary baton is passed to Humphry just as Elizabethโs letters come to a temporary halt. Humphry indulges in an occasional whisper of their former intimacy โ โI want to say little Bengali phrases to you. I canโt make love in Bengaliโ โ but the general tone is friendly and measured.
Elizabeth Bowen
In the earliest letter there is an echo of his sentiments when he first arrived in Ireland; he feels occasionally ambushed by something โhugely and madly foreignโ, despite his growing affection for Calcutta. His new friendships, which were among the most important elements of his time in the city, went some way to alleviating his feelings of strangeness. He details a daytrip with Sudhin Datta and John Auden to Chandernagore, one of the โislands of French Indiaโ, with its florid Catholic Church and riverside promenade. He writes of the journey, the โroaring racing airโ buffeting them all as their car
dashes through a countryside of lush, โviolent greensโ.
Another letter begins with just the type of sketch Elizabeth would love: โMy dear, two monkeys led on chains, one with a baby hanging upside down from its belly, have just gone by to a drum: probably advertising a cinema.โ He tells her of the joys of ceiling fans, the โcurve of excitementโ when a huge storm hits, of the palm tree and lemon tree he sees from his window. He explains how one must never wear a white topi (the hat of colonial rule) as โthey are either army or vulgarโ, and talks with real affection for his students, commenting that he has never in his life enjoyed his teaching as much. Inevitably, there is more about the crooked operations of the state, the spying, the interception of letters. Elizabeth is treated to more details of police brutality than appear in letters to Madeline.
From what Humphry writes in one letter, it is clear Elizabeth had asked him about whether he had come across any Bengali short stories. At the time, she was editing a book of short stories for Faber (published in 1937). Her request might have been with a view to including a Bengali story in her selection; a bold and unusual choice for the time, but evidence of Elizabethโs voracious interest in the genre. Humphry explains that the problem lies in the quality of translation before telling her he is going to attempt a translation of one himself โ not bad for someone who had only been learning the language for a few months. Humphry rhapsodises about the Bengali language, and peppers the page with colloquialisms from Bengali English. Two words he writes out in Bengali to show her the shape and strokes of the script. One can understand why he might choose the word โDarlingโ; the word for โPrinting Worksโ less so.
Humphry House
From what Humphry writes in one letter, it is clear Elizabeth had asked him about whether he had come across any Bengali short stories. At the time, she was editing a book of short stories for Faber (published in 1937). Her request might have been with a view to including a Bengali story in her selection; a bold and unusual choice for the time, but evidence of Elizabethโs voracious interest in the genre. Humphry explains that the problem lies in the quality of translation before telling her he is going to attempt a translation of one himself โ not bad for someone who had only been learning the language for a few months. Humphry rhapsodises about the Bengali language, and peppers the page with colloquialisms from Bengali English. Two words he writes out in Bengali to show her the shape and strokes of the script. One can understand why he might choose the word โDarlingโ; the word for โPrinting Worksโ less so.
These letters also cover Humphryโs spell in hospital with dysentery (discussed at the beginning of Chapter 12). Nothing, not even severe illness, would stand in the way of his desire to communicate. Nor, it seems, was any topic off-limits: โWhile this was in writing I had an enema, the effects of which laid me out into a flat expansive and exhausted sleep. I think a good enema now and then is very satisfying and delightful.โ The last letter sees Humphry restored to health and his old ways: โI am recovering from a thick night spent true to type; and before breakfast and since drank brandy which is conveniently among my medicines.โ
There is talk, inevitably, of mutual friends such as William Plomer and Maurice Bowra, and Humphry responds to news of Elizabethโs summer visitors to Bowenโs Court. More intriguingly, Elizabeth had clearly told Humphry of her attraction to Goronwy Rees and asked him his opinion of Rees. Humphry writes: โHis waywardness irritates me [โฆ] but even at the surface level on which Iโve known him Iโve felt his attractiveness in gusts.โ Humphry goes on to explain that he canโt give a definitive judgement of Reesโs character because โoddly, I donโt think Iโve ever seen him drunkโ.
Though Humphry may have thought he was being magnanimous, one senses subtle hints of jealousy in his words. Of Elizabethโs interest in Rees, Humphry concludes: โIโm glad this sudden turn has happened with him and you because I do think he can be remarkably good company on the right day: whether he has โintegrityโ or not I donโt know.โ Elizabeth was to find to her cost, just a couple of months later, that integrity was not Reesโs strongest suit: overnight, the wind changed direction and Rees began his affair with Rosamond Lehmann under Elizabethโs roof at Bowenโs Court.
Bowen's Court in the 1930s
Lehmann herself makes an appearance in the correspondence thanks to a photograph Elizabeth had sent Humphry of a house party at Lehmannโs house (one that took place well before the debacle with Rees): โHow does Rosamond โ who I think is beautiful โ come to have such a screwed up crusty-looking little daughter? or was it the camera?โ Humphry tells Elizabeth how much he enjoyed Elizabethโs review of Lehmannโs novel The Weather in the Streets, before giving his own opinion of it. He deplores Lehmannโs use of ellipsis, complaining that it causes him โphysical painโ, though he goes on to praise her subtle narrative style: โI found that queer feeling one has with some plays; what critics call the โnecessityโ of what happens happening. [โฆ] The situation fills out over night, but you donโt have to exclaim next morning.โ
Another letter gives an engaging critique of W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwoodโs play The Ascent of F6, which he has read in proof copy courtesy of John Auden, to whom it is dedicated. He was โdeeply and impersonally impressedโ rather than moved by the play because he felt there was โlittle emotion in it one could vicariously feelโ. The protagonist, a mountaineer, he describes as โa man of absolute and self-contained ambition entirely insulated against the world except as giving him problems to solve: he solves the main problem of the mountain, & it kills himโ. That this character struck a chord with Humphry is, perhaps, unsurprising: he could almost be describing himself. Events yet to come in his own life are painfully foreshadowed.
The detailed discussion of literary texts found in these letters is one of the key differences between what Humphry wrote to Madeline and to Elizabeth in the summer of 1936. Though one can understand that the Lehmann correspondence was of particular relevance to Elizabeth, the same cannot be said for The Ascent of F6. This is possibly further proof of his underappreciation of Madelineโs intelligence. That she had taken an English degree and had an active interest in literature seems to have escaped Humphry on many occasions. Humphry was probably also aware that what remained of the shared feeling with Elizabeth lay in the world of literature and ideas.
Madeline House
Running like a vein under the skin of every letter is something of psychic importance to both Elizabeth and Humphry: her home, Bowenโs Court. Humphry admits to being besieged by memories of Ireland which arrive โin my mind without warning or reason, like images out of childhoodโ. Seeing her in his mindโs eye in the sun-sprinkled rooms of Bowenโs Court, he conjures a shared space: โlooking out of my window here now the sky might be yours, blue and clear with thin white clouds that might collect and make rain.โ
And it is Bowenโs Court itself, the house he had fallen in love with on his first visit to Ireland, that fittingly fills the final paragraph of Humphryโs last letter of this newly unearthed cache. Humphry undertakes a thought-journey, sending one of his roving selves off to Ireland, letter in hand. He goes as far as picturing himself as the letter. In his imagination, he walks up the drive towards her home. The trees of the long avenue billow loosely in the breeze; rooks scratch the air overhead. He closes: โSo I must project one film of myself, a separate layer dismissed, & let him go there by this: he is a responsible deputy to the place: but send love separately, from me complete. Humphry.โ
When I received news of these fresh letters I was thrilled, even more so when they arrived as digital photographs. Humphryโs beautiful tight handwriting, with its open โbโ and willowy โf โ, lay in front of me again. There were his customary long sentences; the beauty of his descriptions; his liking for the absurd; his penchant for semi-colons. His intellect and insecurity, his pedantry and prejudices. To read this treasury of letters was wonderful and moving. I am more familiar with the contours of my grandfatherโs writing than of his face.
The contents of the letters were similarly exciting. Though Humphry covers some of the same ground in the letters to Madeline, these new letters add depth to his life in Calcutta. They also confirm that, after the bristling barbs of their break-up, Humphry and Elizabeth settled into a solid epistolary friendship in the summer of 1936.
The Letters
But even as this new find fills in lacunae in the story, it also serves to question the very narrative I have constructed. Humphryโs letters to Elizabeth of the period are not all lost as I have stated. This fact does not worry me; indeed, I relish it. I have tried to honour the idea of there being different versions of a story, even in my own telling of it. I like the way that my version is subtly altered by this new discovery, as much as it is by every different reader. As I see it, through these whisky-coloured pages Humphry has added a latenight shot of vibrancy both to his tale and mine.
Looking back on all the years of this book โ its inspiration, its gestation, its crafting, its polishing โ I can see that one of the most meaningful journeys I have taken is in my relationship with my grandfather. Initially, I had allowed myself to adopt a single story about him, one defined by his behaviour towards women. โYouโre very hard on Humphry,โ commented a dear friend of the early drafts. But little by little the mist of judgement lifted, and I was able first to appreciate him, then to feel for him, and finally to love him. The road I travelled with my remarkable grandmother was far less rocky; my heart chimed with hers, I held her hand from the beginning.
That these letters, like the box I inherited, arrived at โthe hour arrangedโ I do not doubt. As Elizabeth says, only when the sensibilities of the recipient are fully in tune with those of the writer can a letter be fully felt. These missives werenโt meant for me, but I receive them, welcome them, inhabit them as though they were. No longer hearts left to beat unheard.
Donโt only set your sites on the Big Four publishing houses and their imprints. See if your local area has a publishing house; you will be surprised with whom you find.
