Reflections on Xmas dinners past

This year we’re enjoying Xmas at Alex and Clare’s house. That’s the third year when we’ve had Xmas dinner with them and it got me thinking about the journey that I’ve taken in terms of my Xmas dinners.

The first two years of my life I spent in South Africa and remember nothing. But when we returned to the UK I lived in the house of my maternal grandparents and I had Xmas lunches there until 1965 or so. And since my grandfather was a butcher and my grandmother a more than competent cook I seem to recall that they were pretty good meals.

Actually there’s a sad twist. My parents were separated and so every year I had two Xmas dinners. One on Xmas Day as above and another on Boxing Day with my father and his parents.

For the next few years it would have been Xmas day at home although that stretches the definition of home a little because first I was at university and then I was working in London. Really it was my mother’s house.

In 1974 I moved away from the UK first to Indonesia, then to Hong Kong and finally to Switzerland and that’s when I started having my Xmas lunch in my own home. Not so at first though. My two Xmas dinners when I was in Indonesia were enjoyed at other people’s houses. The first one at the home of Bill Rama, a colleague at Mobil Oil, and the second at the Bunter’s just next door to where I lived in Jalan Nangka Timur 1/4. Chuck Adams (see later) and Phil Judd were also there. I’ve just googled ‘Bunter Indonesia’ and found him. And there’s an email address so I’ve emailed but had no reply yet

Phil was my best man and later married Nariko. I met them in Japan in the early 90s but he’s since gone off radar. I thought I’d tracked him down to a cycle business, Jidensha, in New Zealand, he is/was a Kiwi, but the trail seemed to go cold. Maybe I should try again.

I moved to Hong Kong in 1976 and my first dinner there was at a friend’s house. The next two were at my flat, at 15 Magazine Gap Road, and my amah, Ah Wong (picture above), did the cooking. She was excellent and we had a big table. At the first one our guests were Chuck Adams (I’m still in touch with Chuck who now lives in California), Rod & Matilda Parry from Cathay Pacific who are now in Australia, my mother and Perry Hoad (a boy sailor from a Royal Navy ship in harbour that Xmas). At the second one we were hosts to Jamie Scott and Simon Devonish (both Valley rugby players) and their wives and Austin Daniel (sports editor at the South China Morning Post).

After that it was 16 years in Switzerland generally at our flat (Obereleihofstrasse in Wadenswil) or house (Speerstrasse in Richterswil) and our guests included Agnes & Erwin (friends from Hong Kong still living in Switzerland. Erwin was/is a chef and it was a delight to see him carve a turkey), Hans Strebel (sadly he died last year) and Diane, Keith Roberts (who’s still ‘friends’ on Facebook), Alan Henderson and Steve Wilson and their families. We generally had a fairly full house.

Then it was 3 years in Wilmslow (Fulshaw Park) and since 1997 in Cambridge every year until 2013 where our lunches have been smaller, just the family . And throughout these years Juni’s done a superb job with the turkey and the rest of lunch.

In 2014 it’s been all change again as we’ve been invited to the home of Alex & Clare in Wetherby. They’ve got two small daughters and the idea is that it’s easier for Juni and I to go there than for them to visit us. That suits me. Alex takes care of the cooking and after goose in year 1 then beef we’ve had turkey this year.

So: I’m in the 4th phase of Xmas dinners. First in my grandparents’ house then my mother’s. After that it was in my, later our, own flats and houses until finally it’s in the house of the next generation in the persons of Alex & Clare. Will I still be eating Xmas dinners in 20 years’ time and will it be in Amelia’s house?