That Christmas, way back in another century, I was working in a washing machine factory, in Tubingen, Germany. It was the first year I felt a little bit like a grownup.
I was with Charlie, my best friend back then, who looked like Sting, had an amazing musical talent, very definitely one of the good guys. We shared the same birthday, were born in the same nursing home, about an hour apart, and it somehow gave us an easy understanding together.
We hitched in to Tubingen, penniless, slept for a couple of nights in the railway station waiting room, and then managed to persuade the Youth Hostel manager to let us stay, and help, cleaning and cooking, in lieu of actually paying.
Jurgen, the manager, didn’t take much persuading, a lovely guy who was working at the hostel because he refused to do national service in the army. I don’t think we helped that much, but he never charged us for our room, even though we quickly got work, a real job, in the factory.
We started at 7am, six days a week, and every morning Jurgen would give us a wake up call, flinging our door open, stepping into the room and loudly wishing us good morning, then he would flick the light switch on, saying, in the most serious way, “It’s as easy as that to start a nuclear war!”, and as early and alarming as it was, it always made me laugh.
The factory closed on the 23rd December, at noon, and Charlie and I decided to go home, to England. Spur of the moment decisions, that you act on, are some of the things we always remember, and we hastily packed a few things, walked through the Christmas market and bought some presents, and carried on walking, up to the main road, and set about hitchhiking home.
We were in London the next afternoon, and up in Nottingham, too close to the frozen wastelands of the North for my liking, but still home, on Christmas Eve, about 11pm.
We had been away quite a while, with only the occasional letter home, and we didn’t want to just turn up unexpectedly, 11pm was late in our households, so we went to the local church and hung out on the back pews, with the drunks straight out of the pub, for Midnight Mass.
Afterwards, walking back through the village, we saw a man struggling to get a huge package out of his car, and helped him in with it, then helped him put it, a pool table for his son, together, then we had mince pies and coffee. He had got his son the present he really wanted, and he was so happy.
It was about 2am then, and we walked a couple of miles to Charlie’s house, managed to sneak into the garage and slept for a few hours in his dad’s car.
About 7am we were up, and I was off, and about an hour later I was turning into the village. There was a phone box in the corner, a couple of hundred yards from our house, and I stopped and called home. I figured I’d better give a little bit of notice of my arrival.
The first thing my mum asked me was ‘where are you?’ and when I told her ‘in the phone box on the corner’, she hung up.
I set off up the road, and saw up ahead, running abreast down the road, all in their nighties, beaming, my GanGan, my Mum, and my Sister. I had never felt the force of such love, and it’s an unforgettable memory, that is deep inside me, sitting right next to the ‘I am so lucky’ mantra.
I really don’t remember much else about it, and we were back in Tubingen for a wild New Years Eve, and on with our lives, me forever happier for having made the trip.
Dear Reader, thank you for this first year together, and however you’re spending Christmas, remember you are loved, there are people out there thinking of you, people who care, people who have your back. Me, for one.
With love. X
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