When I was boy celebrations were thin on the ground. Mainly because money was tight. But we always had Christmas, New Year and birthdays to look forward to. At Christmas we were told to get to sleep early or Santa might not come, but New Year was the opposite.
As we watched the clock move ever closer to midnight, my brother and I lingered by the gate-leg table in the living room. It was full of all the good stuff we had come to expect at this time of year. Black bun and Dundee cake was cut and arranged on a plate with the shortbread beside it. There were cans of beer and a half bottle of whisky for the grown-ups sitting beside a bottle of Advocaat waiting to be made into a very weak snowball for my brother and I. When mixed with lemonade the yellow frothy drink had a strange, but not unpleasant, taste.
Just like being allowed to stay up late as long as we were in our pyjamas, having a drink that was not Irn-Bru was part of the new year ritual.
Everything in the house was as clean as my mother could get it: floors scrubbed, dirty clothes washed. My contribution was the brass taps on both sinks and the bath. I had them gleaming with the brasso. The close outside the front door had been washed, including the stair up to the first landing. It was the same on two floors above us. The tenement stairs were washed from top to bottom and the edges done with pipe clay. God forbid anybody who saw the new year in with a dirty house.
'Right Jimmy, that’s ten to, you better get your coat on,' said our mother. And so began another ritual. To ensure our house always had a tall dark and handsome first foot, my father went out and stood in the close before midnight and came in after the bells. As he pulled on his big winter coat, he reached into the coal bunker sitting in the lobby and selected a lump small enough to fit in his pocket. The half-bottle of whisky was slipped into the other pocket before he opened the front door.
He didn’t need to look at his watch to know the time. The cheers from the houses all around him let him know it was time to knock on the door and wish Betty and his boys a guid New Year. After our black bun and snowball it was time for my brother and I to go to bed. The next part of the ritual for my mother and father was to first foot auld Mrs. O’Donnell across the close from us, her daughter usually didn’t make it until New Year’s Day. So, before the auld pensioner retired to bed, they knocked on her door to wish her all the best and spread the tall dark and handsome luck.
Being allowed to see in the New Year with the grown-ups seemed special, while Christmas was more for my brother and I. It was certainly no less enjoyable. We knew we would wake up to presents beside our bed on Christmas morning, courtesy of the Provident man, and no matter how hard we tried to stay awake we never heard our stockings being filled. As soon as we woke up, we felt them to see if they were full. There was always the obligatory tangerine right at the bottom and small toys and sweets to fill it up.
But if I had to pick a favourite celebration from my childhood it would have to be when there was a birthday in the house. That was the only time my mother made a dumpling. There were four of us in the house, but the dumplings were usually only made for birthdays. As far as my brother and I were concerned it was the best use for the boiler that lived behind the kitchen door.
It was of course for boil washing the whites that required laundering. If my brother or I were unlucky enough to come in from the serious business of playing when the washing was coming out, we would be pressed into service on the handle of the mangle. It was a sad day when my brother got a job in a shop that repaired washing machines, because he got an old twin tub at a bargain price and the old water boiler was removed to make way for modern technology. Twin tubs are no good for boiling dumplings though.
The dumpling was mixed up and tied in a clean piece of sheet or maybe an old pillow case, then it was lowered into the boiling water. There were always thruppeny bits wrapped in greaseproof paper through the mix, or, if you were lucky, the odd silver sixpence.
When it came time to cut into the dumpling you never took the first slice unless you could see some greaseproof paper peeking out. Nothing beats a dumpling. Who needs a fancy sponge cake with candles on it? A dumpling lasts for days. Even now I like a slice of dumpling, lightly fried, with an egg on top.