The city of Edinburgh puts on an extravaganza for New Years Eve like none other. The city centre, Princes Street Gardens in particular, is taken over with popular bands and venues all along this mile long stretch of the city punctuated with bagpipes and fireworks.
As I read the news about how the extreme winter weather caused it to be cancelled this year I thought about what a traditional Scottish Hogmanay is all about.
It is NOT the touristy package the City of Edinburgh is selling to visitors by dressing up the place, putting on shows and exploiting Hogmanay.
I remember how the excitement in our household begins to build up in mid December, not so much for Christmas but for New Years, called Hogmanay in Scotland. Women are making new curtains, buying paint and cleaning windows. The first thing on the agenda is to get your home clean and as new as feasibly possible. 'Out with old and in with the new' and 'No old dirt in the new year'.
During the war this was not easy since everything was either rationed or not available. Curtains would require coupons – so make do or make over. Paint was not available so whitewash, distemper and stippling with sponges or simply wash down the wallpaper to brighten it up.
All the young women wanted to have something new and special to wear for Hogmanay and again, this is where British women excelled. Turning garments inside out and resewing them. Altering and redesigning dresses. Adding or removing sleeves, buttons, embroidery or changing the neckline. Clothes and fabric were strictly rationed so ripping down knitted garments and re-using the yarn for a new hat or pair of gloves was quite usual.
During the War years hostesses would hoard the limited ingredients for weeks to be able to make the traditional foods, ginger bread, black bun, shortbread, clootie dumpling and maybe mince pies for New Year’s Eve. Even with raisins, currants and ginger being practically impossible to find the heady aroma in all homes would lend to the anticipation of the big night.
The British population during this time were amazing with the resources they used to feed their families on a daily basis, never mind cater for a celebration as big as Hogmanay.
Christmas in Scotland was not an official holiday until 1947, but New Years meant everything was closed, banks, post office, shops and most public transportation was on holiday status. Every Scottish family would have a some kind of reunion, no matter how small. I can't believe that any Scotsman would sleep through New Year. Expatriates living in USA or Canada would celebrate when it was midnight in Scotland and again at local time.
Once the whole household was ready, food on the table, rooms festooned with paper garlands waiting for our ‘first foot’ It is very important that the first person to set foot in your home be a dark man carrying food, drink and coal. Food being Gingerbread and Black Bun and the ultimate bottle of Scotch. He should also bring some firewood or coal as this would also enhance the chances of having a “Guid New Year". During World War II none of these things would be easy to find.
In our family my father, a dark-haired man, waited outside the front door until he heard the church bells ringing then he would ring our door bell and my mother would admit him. Then we had a small party with our immediate family including Mum, Dad, Brother, Sister , Granny and cousins. After the toasts were made and handshakes and kisses all around we would all get our hats and coats on and went to ‘first foot’ our closest relatives. At these homes we would all go in to their decorated living rooms with food and drink, coal etc., have another little party in then aunts, uncles and cousins would get their hats and coats and come with us to continue ‘first footing’.
While walking from our home to an aunt’s home we would meet other families traversing the city to get to their relatives homes to ‘first foot’ to bring in the New Year.
Everyone would hail each other with shouts of 'Happy New Year' or sing out 'A Guid New Year to Yin an 'a'.
As we were walking through the darkened streets (no street lights because of the blackout) I shone a torch (flashlight) in front of the group as I was in my push chair (stroller). The basket at the back of my push chair held all the food and drink we had to take with us.
The house we all walked to was the house that had belonged to my great grand parents and was now owned by my grandmother’s sister and her husband. This aunt was the oldest member of the family so aunts, uncles, cousins and close friends all assembled at was a good mile or two away, it was quite old and large and ideal for a crowd of people.
All the food that my aunt and her daughters prepared, plus all the food that everyone brought – and all the liquor that everyone brought. This was very surprising because of all the rationing during and after the war. I believe that Scottish 'Scotch' Whiskey was, at this time, for export only.
The party would get warmed up with an uncle playing his fiddle, everyone tapping their feet and singing. To get things going they would use “Spin the Bottle” and each person identified by the ‘bottle’ would do their party piece....sing a song, recite some poetry or tell a story.
Aunts and uncles performed the same thing every year, sometimes a song and sometimes a poem (usually by Robert Burns) or a joke. Uncle John would sing “There’s an Old Apple Tree in the Orchard”, with everyone joining in at ‘Take a Bow, Take a Bow to the Old Apple Tree, if my Pappy hadda known it he never would have grown it' …... Auntie Joyce would always sing “I think that I would never see, a poem lovely as a tree”.
One year our two aunts decided they would have a south seas theme on Hogmanay and the girls dressed in two piece swimsuits, made grass skirts and floral garlands. They performed tropical dances and songs for their party pieces.
My Dad and his best friends, Joe, Jim and Bill would sing George Formby songs like “Running round the Fountains in Trafalgar Square”. Favourites during the war years were “Come to the Cook House Door Boys” and “The Quartermaster’s Stores”.
Everyone always joined in “She’ll be Coming Round the Mountains When She Comes” with lots of bawdy verses added in and politically inspired verses about shortages.
Forfeits was a very popular game. A hat would be passed around and each person deposited a personal item, a hair clip, a fountain pen, a pencil, any kind of token that they would get back after you performed a feat that was decided by the judge – a forfeiture.
The 'judge' would be blindfolded and retrieve the item from the hat and announce the forfeit. The feats that were performed included an airplane ride. The guest would be blindfolded and put on a chair or a stool. The stool would have broom sticks through the legs allowing the chair to be lifted up. When it was lifted with the guest sitting on the chair, he would think it was really high up and then he was told to jump.
The ‘judge’ might sentence a guest to “sing or dance in each corner of the room”, or “ bite an inch off the end of the poker” or step outside the front door, or open a window and shout “I’m my mother’s big bubbly bairn”.
Another task was “battleships” – a flat tea tray or edged baking sheet filled with water would be placed between two guests and a sprinkling of matchsticks would represent the ships. The guests would try to blow their matchsticks to the other side of the tray of water – then at some point a wet sponge would be thrown onto the baking sheet to simulate a storm at sea and the players to suffer the consequences.
Before Facebook Hogmanay is where we found out who was dating who, who got a job, who joined the service, who was where in the world fighting the Germans or the Japanese.
The party would break up in the wee hours of the morning and everyone would walk home. No one had a car and even if they did there was no petrol. Everyone sang songs to help encourage the walkers. “For we’re no awa to bide awa", "Scotland the Brave", "One Man Went to Mow", "Ten Green Bottles" and of course "Keep Right On to the End of the Road".
After the war it was several years before our family celebrated a truly traditional Scottish Hogmanay again, which transferred itself to congregating at my sister's house
Try to put that together and sell it to strangers.
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