Diary of a Shopkeeper, 19th December
Star made by Emma Fraser many years ago, still leading the way…
George Mackay Brown wrote many Christmas poems and stories. They reflected his faith, both his Catholic faith, and his faith in the ordinary people and places of Orkney to instantiate the most important human values. In the darkest days of the year, George found light and love in farmhouse kitchens and tinkers’ tents.
But what did he have to say about Festive Spiced Lattes? Not a word! He never paid £4.50 in a Kirkwall café for a steaming mug of cinnamon-scented coffee with a tsunami of cream on top, and a miniature gingerbread man perched on the rim. He never knew the existential angst of seeing the peedie man falling backwards at your first sip, to drown in the caffeinated depths.
According to George, Magnus Erlendsson was saintly by temperament as well as by name. But how would the Saint have coped with a plateful of Christmas Cupcakes, with their alarming aroma of freshly baked pot pourri?
I imagine him saying, ‘It’s delicious, but the food at this time of year is slightly confusing. Savoury foods have become sweet, and sweet foods have replaced all of my five a day.’
To which I would reply, ‘Stoop, and have another chocolate brussel sprout.’
Trees don’t feature much in George’s work, nor in Orkney literature as a whole. Imagine if Hansel and Gretel had got lost in an Orcadian forest. They wouldn’t have needed to lay a trail of crumbs to find their way home. They’d just’ve had to walk a minute in any direction and that would have been them out of the woods.
But the county’s arboreal population swells at Christmas time. Folk complain about a flood of tourists in the summer, but how about the hordes of pointy pines that invade the islands every December, outnumbering our native tree population ten to one? There’s a story in that, surely.
Just the other day I was tree hunting in one of the local shops. ‘I’d like one where the needles don’t fall off after a week,’ I said.
‘Ah ha!’ said the helpful assistant, leading me to a particular corral of bushy green conifers, ‘In that case you need one of these, an Anti-Gravity Fir. Guaranteed not to shed.’
It was only later, after the deal was done, that I wondered: why stock all those other varieties, the ones whose needles do fall off? Do some customers come in and say, ‘I’d like a tree that’ll be bald by Boxing Day’?
It’s dilemmas like this I wish George had dealt with more in his Christmas stories. And as a poet, he could maybe have solved another puzzle. What’s the reason for the Orkney reference in The Pogues’ classic, ‘A Fairy Tale of New York’? You know the one:: ‘The boys in the NY Peedie Choir were singing Kirkwall Bay…’
For most of us, Christmas isn’t a time of eternal truths and elemental simplicity. It’s a busy time, a hectic time, a time for making preparations, and for changing plans at the drop of a paper hat as your phone pings or new government guidance rings out.
Back in the café, I was finishing my lunch. ‘It’s easier to find the meaning of midwinter rebirth in a symbolic byre,’ I thought to myself, ‘than in a real Rudolf the Red Nosed Venison Sausage Roll.’ Then I spooned on another dollop of Port and Cranberry Ketchup. It looked very jolly.
In a year of big challenges, it can be the small things that bring joy. Happy Christmas!
This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 22nd December. A new one appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions.