Lee-Ann's Spare Fridays episode 7
Fun facts about Festive Family Fun
Are we calling it episode 7 or series 2 episode 1? Or episode 2.1? Whichever, it came out on Friday December 15th and if you’ve already listened to it, thank you and I hope you enjoyed it. If you haven’t listened yet, you can do so at Apple podcasts, Spotify, or in your browser without having to sign in to anything at https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jysaville
If you’ve never even run across my audio comedy Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays before and you’re wondering what I’m talking about, let me briefly explain. Fortyish Lee-Ann has been moved on to a four-day week at work and wants to spend her Fridays with her portly black and white cat (Lord Salisbury) or researching the history of the village she moved to a few years ago to be near her baby niece. Unfortunately her interfering older sister (Gina) doesn’t think those are worthy pursuits, and Fridays are usually spent trying to thwart Gina. Lee-Ann's Scottish neighbour Douglas isn't on anyone's side but his own. It's structured like a sitcom, but told as a monologue from Lee-Ann's point of view.
Because I know some people are interested in what’s behind the story elements or details, here’s a few things about this episode. I’ll try and avoid outright spoilers but bits of this might give you hints as to where the story goes…And if you want to know why Lee-Ann’s cat is called Lord Salisbury, that was covered in series 1 episode 2.
The title
I am hopeless at titles, as anyone with passing familiarity with my writing can attest. They rarely come easily and they rarely sit well. Titles are a nightmare. I wrote this episode, set a week or two before Christmas and having a distinctly festive flavour, in August. Once I’d finished it, I realised it needed a title — the working title was Christmas Shopping, which even I thought was naff. I’d been listening to the Megadeth song FFF that morning and it was still running through my head. Somehow that made me come up with Festive Family Fun, which is about as far removed from the lyrical content of the song as it’s possible to get.
Family Christmas shopping trips
About forty years ago we lived in Leicestershire for a couple of years before a brief stint in Cornwall and then a welcome return to West Yorkshire. We lived in what was then a village but looks from the map like it has become a suburb of Leicester, and for whatever reason we often went to a small town about 10 miles away in Rutland, called Oakham.
Once we’d returned to West Yorkshire it became a family tradition for a few years to return to Oakham one Saturday in December to buy presents. I don’t know why, because it was then about 100 miles away and I don’t recall it being particularly well-stocked with shops. Nevertheless we’d pile in the car and drive a couple of hours to this place that presumably held fond memories for my parents, have a pub lunch, comprehensively fail to buy gifts, and drive home again.
he said he'd been promised a family outing and it didn't seem like much of a family event if everyone was off doing their own thing. One of these days I must ask Douglas about his upbringing, because he has some strange notions.
Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays Series 2 Episode 1
Years later I lived a couple of streets away from Sister Number Two for a few years and we started a new tradition of us going on a Christmas shopping jaunt together on the first Wednesday of December, also involving a pub lunch. We started modestly with a bus trip to Leeds, but as the years went by and I moved across the county we made it a grand day out on the train: York, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham. It culminated in a day in Liverpool about five years ago, when Sister Number One came with us for the first and only time. We both bought her wine, and as neither of us drink wine and don’t understand what constitutes a large measure, Sister Number One ended up quite merry. In our defence, she didn’t have to drink it all.
Victorian Christmas markets
I don’t recall ever going to a Victorian Christmas market but I may have. I’ve certainly seen them advertised. They generally conform to some Dickensian ideal of Christmas and are intended to drum up custom in the cold, dark days of December by attracting the type of person who doesn’t ordinarily shop at the local market but might go somewhere picturesque for a day out. Someone will be selling freshly-roasted chestnuts and the stallholders will be dressed up in a hired or cobbled-together costume over their usual thermal underwear and comfy boots. Prominence will be given to the stalls selling goods that could potentially be Christmas gifts.
My mum had a variety of market stalls across North and West Yorkshire from about 1990 to 2008, on and off, with my brother and latterly also with my dad. Somewhere I have a photo of her dressed in what I think was supposed to be ‘medieval’ costume (a long dress, and floaty material attached to a hairband) for a Christmas market. It might have been in Skipton.
Skipton Castle bookmark
In the late 1980s I went on a school trip to Skipton Castle in North Yorkshire and (as you do) bought a leather bookmark as a souvenir, which I still use. I vaguely recall a large tree in a courtyard, and something about Lady Ann Clifford. Despite having been to Skipton many times since, I have never been back to the castle. I have, however, been on a canal boat that went down the branch line (or whatever the watery equivalent is called) that passes below the looming castle walls. Medieval English history is basically about being at war with Scotland and/or France and though Skipton may look a long way from the modern border, the armies of Scotland made it to Yorkshire on many occasions, which made a stout castle an essential bit of kit.
I explained to Douglas that the castle had been built in the first place as protection from marauding Scots
Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays Series 2 Episode 1
Second hand books
Not everyone reading this will be from the UK, I guess, and though a second-hand bookshop itself is probably familiar, maybe you don’t have the same categories of shop. Antiquarian ones are fascinating but eye-wateringly expensive. They stock the rare, the leather-bound, the once-owned-by-William-Cobbett. The more niche the book, the more you can expect to pay. I am guaranteed to find something that would give me new insight into some aspect of my family or local history research, which costs about the same as the last quarter’s gas bill so I don’t buy it.
Charity shops — where donated goods are sold so the profits can be given to a particular charity — on the other hand are good for the occasional hidden gem, and even a small town will have a few. They all sell some books, but about thirty-five years ago Oxfam had the genius idea of a charity bookshop (I used to volunteer at Oxfam bookshops in Newcastle and Edinburgh), and now several charities have them. The Amnesty International and Oxfam ones in York were great the last time I was book-browsing there, a few years ago.
Sanitary inspection and public health reports from the nineteenth century are actually quite useful for details of living conditions, and for seeing what epidemics the townsfolk were up against. I tend to get electronic copies though; Douglas would be so proud.
He reads e-books these days, that take up no space. I call that soulless. Douglas says it's efficient living. No wonder Gina likes him so much.
Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays Series 2 Episode 1
Mince pies
I understand these aren’t common outside the UK; I can’t imagine Christmas without them. Mince pies, despite being full of something called mincemeat, are definitely not savoury items. About the size of a clementine, they’re shortcrust pastry filled with a spiced dried fruit concoction that sometimes contains alcohol, and in the run up to Christmas you have one with a cuppa where you might normally have a biscuit. Of course ‘the run up to Christmas’ means December for me, but since they’re now available in the shops from early September it must be earlier for some people. They have a short shelf-life so it’s not like you could buy a box a week to stockpile for a Christmas party and spread the cost. I don’t actually know anyone who eats them for breakfast.
there comes a point in December when mince pies become acceptable as a breakfast item and it would be foolish not to take advantage of that
Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays Series 2 Episode 1
Listen now
Well, if all that hasn’t made you want to listen to the episode, I don’t know what will. Do give it a try, if only to hear my excellent improvised sleighbells.
And if you want to tell me what the naffest Christmas present you’ve ever received was, do leave a comment. Not if you got it from me though.