A ghost story for Christmas and other ways to zone out of the festive frenzy
The tour that nearly killed Charles Dickens, a Boxing Day tradition and a creepy tale for a cold night
My first ever job was in a newsagent, stacking shelves with pickled onion-flavour Space Raiders and copies of the Beano. My six-year-old son’s theory on why I left this exalted position was a moral objection to selling cigarettes but in reality, beyond the Crystal Maze-like challenge of locating the requested brand in the massive cabinet of different packets, I didn’t give selling them a second thought. Different times, kiddo. In the 90s waking up with the stench of someone else’s stale cigarette smoke in your hair was the sign of a good night out. At a temp job I had later some of the staff were permanently disgruntled by the ban on smoking in the office.
The reason I am waffling nostalgically about £2-an-hour Saturday jobs and passive smoking? Our busiest day of the year in newsagents was always Boxing Day. The day when everyone who’d had a bit too much of turkey, Trivial Pursuit and other people’s company escaped the house with the excuse of buying a newspaper.
These days, with supermarkets open all day and the sales of physical newspapers plummeting, the 2020s version of this bolt for freedom usually involves retreating behind the screen of your phone or tablet. So I’ve put together a list of North West arty things to aid your mental vanishing act this festival season.
Something to listen to: Night Terrors by Lizzie Nunnery
Ghost stories are traditional at Christmas apparently, although for some reason I can’t persuade anyone in my household to sit around a battery-operated tealight for a recital of PD James’. Instead, I turn to spooky podcasts and found this short story by Liverpool playwright and musician Lizzie Nunnery being promoted on the BBC Sounds app. First broadcast in 2011 as part of the Weird Tales series, it’s about two young sisters struggling to reconcile their memories of their dad several years after his death. It’s not a bit festive but it is extremely creepy and perfect for a cold winter’s night.
Something to watch: For Folk’s Sake: Morris Dancing and Me
Morris dancing is one of the few Boxing Day traditions that continues today so what would be more apt than spending 50 minutes of your time following documentary maker Richard Macer’s personal journey into the world of ‘bells, beers and beards’ (whoever wrote that blurb for the programme deserves a pint in one of those dimpled glass tankards). Unfortunately you can’t, as when I just went to grab the link from iPlayer I discovered it’s not currently available to watch. What you can do though, is watch four clips from it at the same link, which includes Macer’s first lesson with ‘Little George’ from Manchester Morris, who is giving him the hard sell in an effort to swell their depleted numbers.
Something to read: A Delicious Walk by the Sea
Would Christmas even be Christmas without Charles Dickens paving the way for Michael Caine’s greatest ever film role? And did you know that the author’s time spent here in the North West for his ‘farewell reading tour’ nearly burned him out like an overworked Bob Cratchit? You can read all about it in this piece on the website of Blackpool’s soon-to-be-opened Showtown museum. But if you’re from Preston be warned, Dickens wasn’t very complimentary.
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Thanks for reading this week’s Stored Honey. If you are subscribed to the free version then this is my last email to you of the year. But if you are one of the very supportive people who has signed up as a paid subscriber, you will receive a list of highlights for January 2024 in your inbox soon.
Either way, I hope you have a very merry festive break and a great start to the New Year, which is shaping up to be an exciting one for the arts scene here in the North West.
See you on the other side of the mince pie mountain,
Laura
