When the creeping mists of autumn had settled on the land; when the strangeness of a new school year had given place to a comfortable confidence; when the fires were lighted daily and November crept on, them would come the great announcement. "Next week," said Mother, "we'll make the Christmas puddings." Then we really knew that carefree summer had gone for good and the year was racing towards its wonderful, glorious climax ....... Christmas.

Making Christmas pudding! - this was one of the highlights of our family year. A year always full of highlight for, if the cat wasn't having kittens, or the goldfish going down the plug hole, or a new baby being born, then we should certainly be making the pudding. Funds in our outsized family were scarce, so the ingredients for the puddings had been collected, week by week, for some time past until the day arrived when all was in stock and we could begin.

When the tea things had been cleared and the fire poked into a leaping blaze, we would all gather round the large kitchen table. Our kitchen was the family living room, the working part was called the scullery in those days. Two of us would be given the job of stoning the raisins. These were large, plum, hearty raisins, not the anaemic kind found in grocer's shops today.

We would spread newspaper over the table, provide ourselves with a bowl of water and a basin for the fruit and begin. Stoning the raisins wasn't the most popular job, because of getting sticky, but it had its compensations. We usually made a bargain with ourselves that we could eat any we found with no stones. They weren't many but this added excitement and zest to the task of opening them. We also ran a competition to see who had the raisin with the most stones.

While this operation was going on at one end, another brother or sister would be busy rubbing bread crumbs, and further down the table came a smaller child with a peeled carrot which she was busily grating into a bowl. Mother herself, armed with a long carving knife, would be chopping a large lump of good beef suet into tiny pieces. Chop, chop, scrape, would go the knife and the eyes of a tot, hardly able to reach the table, would look wonderingly at all this activity. A pleasant buzz of conversation would fill the room as we talked of Christmas; what we should make and give as presents and what we hoped to receive.

During these preliminaries Father would come in from work and promptly be despatched to the nearest pup for a pint of beer to mix the pudding. Nothing but beer was ever used to mix our Christmas puddings.

Plop, plop! Our stones would drop into the bowl and sink down slowly to settle on the mountain forming at the bottom. By this time the water was cloudy and our fingers, in spite of constant dipping in the water, would be excessively sticky. But with satisfaction we saw the pile of stoned raisins growing larger and the butcher blue bags of unstoned ones diminishing. Eventually we did finish stoning and thankfully washed our hands.

At last the preparations were complete. The eggs were beaten, the bread crumbs piled up like snow, the suet in minute pieces and the fruit washed, picked over and clean. The out would come the large enamel bowl, in which earlier that evening the youngest member of the family had enjoyed his bath. How, scrubbed and dried, it was ready for a different use. It was no use being too fastidious in our household and if some voice was raised in protest it would bring forth one of Mother's typical remarks, - "You'll eat more'n a peck of dirt before you die, my girl!" And I expect I shall. At any rate we all survived polio's menace was never heard in our days.

After preparing, came the mixing. This was the part for which we had all waited so impatiently. To stir the pudding was a reward for earlier labours. Christmas will never be Christmas to me without the mixing of pudding and the wishing which accompanies the stirring. As children we had discussed our wishes for days before. We were well primed. We knew just what we were going to wish for.
    "You wished?"
    "Yes, but I shan't tell you. If you tell, your wish doesn't come true."
    "Bet I can guess what you wished for".
    "You can't!" Horror in our voices. "You mustn't guess! Mum, tell him he mustn't guess. My wish won't come true."

So ran the conversation. But, as we talked about this in later years, I think many of us wished the same wish. A wish for a house of our own, large enough to contain us all in comfort and where no rent collector would call each week for the money which Mother struggled to put by. A house with a garden, if possible, and where no neighbours were joined in a row. There were years, of course, when the need was more pressing. Like the year when the baby was ill and we all wished hard for her recovery. But whatever the wish, it had to be made while we stirred the pudding.

And we all stirred - from Father to the youngest baby who had a wooden spoon placed in his hand and was helped to turn it once or twice through the mixture. After the stirring the mixture was divided into various basins and the next day lowered into the capacious copper to be boiled from breakfast time until Mother went to bed at night. The longer the pudding boiled the darker it would be and the ambition of our pudding-proud mother was to have it as ebony.

The day the pudding boiled was just as exciting, because the scullery would become warm and steamy as the day wore on and a wet cloth, spicy smell would arise. It was an odour like no other and it can still evoke in me the thrill of those early Christmases. During the boiling period we were constantly keeping the copper going with boiling water from the kettle.

We didn't actually see the puddings again until the day after the boiling because they didn't come out of the copper until long after we were in bed. But when we came down in the morning there they were, in a row on the draining board, all with their damp, soiled cloths removed, ready to be given new greaseproof and clean cloths. The cloths were always bits of old sheet and the corners of these squares were drawn up and tied in a knot on top of the pudding.

And how luscious they looked, spread out for us to see. I remember that we never tasted them before Christmas. Not even the little odd bit which had somehow gone into the cup without a handle. There always does seem to be an odd bit of mixture which never goes into the basin. At least in the best-run pudding families! We didn't even want to sample the puddings, I remember, because that would have spoilt the anticipation and thrill of the great moment, on Christmas day, when Mother would emerge triumphantly from the kitchen, the steaming pudding, dark and handsome on a plate, eight pairs of eyes watched the ritual with great solemnity. We were glad that we hadn't been tempted to taste even the little cup pudding before the moment. After Christmas it didn't matter, but one pudding was always saved for Mother's birthday in March.