The miner, the butcher, the… candlestick maker?
Lynette Summers
Tue 16 Dec 2025
I wrote the below piece for the Calgary Welsh Society‘s Christmas newsletter back in 2020, when we were based in Canada. It didn’t make the final cut—probably too boozy! And I don’t think the mention of underage drinking did me any favours (and this was the clean version!).
Oh, well.
I am sharing it here today because it captures something of the spirit of those Christmases I enjoyed with my family in the 1980s and 1990s. A spirit that has long since passed, along with many of the people that played an important role in these gatherings. For me, a time of electric blue baubles, tinsel everywhere, non-ironic Christmas jumpers and excitement. The fact that my memories have part melded with Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody is neither here nor there.
The miner, the butcher, the… candlestick maker?
I was born in Caerphilly Miners’ Hospital and grew up in, what had been, a Welsh mining town. During my first year of life, my dad was involved in the UK miners’ strike of 1984-85. He had first started down the pit as a 15-year-old and, minus a short interlude where he lived in London with his older brother Gerald to train as a butcher, most of his working life up to that point had been spent underground. With the closure of his colliery and the redundancy that followed, he bought a butcher shop in Bargoed.
I say that I grew up in an ex-mining town, but I also grew up in that butcher shop. For two years we had even lived above it. It was very much a family affair. My mother—on top of looking after three small children—cleaned, ran errands, and managed the books. When we were older and living in a house in Aberbargoed, we children would spend our Saturdays at the shop, though often venturing out to play for much of the day. When I was a teen, I had a spell helping out on Saturdays for extra pocket money. I was usually tasked with delivering orders to OAPs in the local area. They were always cheerful and often gave me a few bob as a thank you. Ker-ching!
Some of my fondest memories of the shop were in the lead-up to Christmas. The orders would come in and soon turkeys, complete with or minus the giblets, would be prepared for collection. The name of the customer was noted on a small card trimmed in red that would be attached to the bird, with the price noted down alongside. There would be a buzz in the shop in that short countdown to Christmas as patrons came to collect their bird and other cuts of meat that they had ordered in especially for the festivities. I don’t remember anything but happy faces. Then, suddenly, it was Christmas Eve. The shop would be closed up after a busy day and we would all pile into the car. My mother, the driver, would drop my dad off at a few locations along our route home so that he could deliver to his elderly customers. These final deliveries seemed to take a little longer than usual as a sneaky whiskey would sometimes be offered to my dad and, well, it would have been rude of him to have said no!
Christmas Day followed the same format every year. Get up and open the presents straight away. None of this waiting until after lunch for us! Then we would wash and get dressed ready to pop up to see my grandparents (father’s parents) who lived a 30-second walk away. Born in the Edwardian period, with my grandmother having also been in domestic service in London as a young woman, this part of the day felt quite formal. We would sit on the settee and exchange presents and Christmas chatter. And there would be sherry! A small glass for the adults and, once past a certain age, a thimble full for the children. My grandparents never touching a drop themselves.
Then we would walk back home and play with our presents a little more while awaiting Christmas dinner. My mother would have started the preparations the night prior and it was always served with all the trimmings. We would feast and then: knock, knock, knock. My grandmother, aunt, uncles, and cousins (mother’s side of the family) would be in the house for an afternoon celebration. Much drink would flow for the adults and us children would be content playing together with our new gizmos and gadgets and drinking in the wonderful atmosphere. The rest of the day would pass in a blur punctuated by the Queen’s speech and decamping to my aunt’s house in the evening (she lived next door!) where there would be a buffet, more drink, fun and laughter.
It is not quite the same these days, even for my family left in Wales. Life moves on. Traditions change. However, I try to instill a little of the old Valleys Christmas spirit into our family celebrations in Calgary. Eventually, I may even let the children have a small sherry. Once past a certain age, of course.
© 2025 Lynette Summers. All rights reserved.