Your Favourite Christmas Memories

What were your favourite Christmas memory of your life growing up in Ushaw Moor and Deerness Valley ?

Share your Christmas Memories with us here.

How has your Christmas changed ?

 

Some Christmas Quotes :

 

• Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. Calvin Coolidge
• Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!
  Charles Dickens
• Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.  ~Laura Ingalls Wilder
• A Look back at some old entries on the BLOG with the Christmas theme https://ushawmoormemories.wordpress.com/?s=christmas

 

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year Paul Clough

Did Ushaw Moor’s Women Gossip Too Much in the 50s?

Well some of them no doubt gossiped but those that did were far too busy to do much of it! I won’t go into the poss tub, kitchen skivvy, brasso account but many of us know how busy and admirable those ladies were: well most of them – those that were unclean and neglectful were scandalised and yes – gossiped about! 

Certainly several people could be seen in conversation outside their houses on a sunday in the South Street and Joyce Terrace area – as you come out of Ushaw Moor towards Esh Winning. Did I get that right – Joyce Terrace? Not many cars were passing during these conversations so it is probably a recollection from the early 50s – rather than the middle and late.  

I have some notes – not my work – that have been adapted from work done by ‘Roberts’ in 1973. I suppose ‘Roberts’ was a sociologist, or similiar, and this writer should be fully acknowledged; I will do that, if and when I am in a position to. Anyway here is a short piece adapted from his/her work:

From early morning to late at night little groups formed and faded, traded with goodwill, candour or cattishness the detailed gossip of a closed society. Over a period the health, honesty, conduct, history and connections of everyone in the neighbourhood would be examined. Each would be criticised, praised, censured openly or by hint and finally allocated by tacit consent a position on the social scale.

How do you feel about that? It rings true does it not?

Getting more up to date a Daily Mail article, dated 08/05/09, informs us that a survey revealed that, amongst other things:

–More than two thirds of women admit they pay full attention to conversations only when they are gossiping

–Only half of men said they listen intently to gossip

–Women are more likely to switch off when listening to their work colleagues, with the average women catching what the boss says only two thirds of the time.

— Women only hear 70% of the conversations they have with their partner

What do you think? 

WB