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“Merry Christmas George.
A soldier in first battalion was asked by his platoon commander how he spent the holidays.
“l spent Christmas with mother,” he replied piously. “It was the best Christmas I ever had.”
He was challenged on that a few days later when the priest from his home parish called his company commander, wondering why he had failed to show up at home for Christmas.
“Mother” it turned out, was the nickname he had given to a hooker he met in the Piccadilly Tavern in Halifax during a brief stop-over on his way to Cape Breton.
Corporal Danny Graham spent an hour or so in the officers’ mess on Christmas Eve in Cyprus in 1969.
He arrived in the mess uninvited and unannounced, after spending a few hours in the canteen. He planned to have a drink with any officer that happened to be there. The deputy commanding officer was the only one in the mess and, in the spirit of Christmas, ordered Danny a drink but ‘Rabbit’ Sinclair, the bar steward, was not amused, nor given over to the Christmas spirit and did his best to send Graham packing. Danny had his drink with the deputy commanding officer and then staggered into the night to continue his rounds of Camp Maple Leaf with ‘Rabbit’ still muttering behind the bar.
How the regimental sergeant major reacted when he arrived in the sergeants’ mess a few minutes later has never been recounted but, by all accounts, Danny was remarkably subdued for the next couple of days.
The annual Christmas visit to the sergeants’ mess before the Christmas dinner was an event from which dozens of stories emerged and which helped introduce young officers to the danger of trying to match drink for drink with their platoon sergeants. The subalterns tried to get their own back when the sergeants, in keeping with tradition, visited the officers on New Year’s Day, but there is no evidence any of them actually succeeded.
Not long ago, I asked an old soldier who had served in the Black Watch from the first days the regular battalions were raised, what he remembered most about Christmas in the regiment. I expected him to mention Korea, Germany or Cyprus, but I was somewhat surprised by his answer.
“The Children’s Christmas party,” he said, without a moment’s hesitation.
Every family will recall that event. The battalion tapped into the unit fund, organized a party for the youngsters and gave them each a toy to take home.
It was set up by the Regimental Sergeant Major, along with the sergeants and company sergeant majors, with the single soldiers providing the work party and in 2 RHC, always with the assistance of Melvin Arsenault, the pioneer platoon store- man. Melvin couldn’t escape since the stores were in the drill hall, which was the only place in the barrack lines where five hundred or so small people and their parents could gather.
“We had five children but, we didn’t have much money in those days,” the old soldier recalled. “That party and the gift the battalion gave to each of our children helped make Christmas a lot better for all of us. Our family never forgot those Christmas parties.”
I thought about that. His answer to my question surprised me a little but, it made sense.
I can recall a Christmas party that our elder daughter didn’t attend because she was barely four months old. As I was leaving the drill hall after the party was over, Fred Blakeney, the Regimental Sergeant Major at the time, stopped me.
Like all Regimental Sergeants Major, he knew far more than I realized and he knew our child was too young to be there.
He reached into a box of toys and handed me a large, shiny, multicolored metal top. It was one of those things that you pump and spin. It was a perfect give for a small baby.
“Here,” he said, “for your little girl — Merry Christmas.”
Later, our daughter went to many battalion children’s Christmas parties with other youngsters whose fathers served in the regiment. She is still friends with many of them and that toy the RSM gave me that Christmas, well over a half century ago, became the Black Watch top. It was passed on to her sister and survived in the toy box for many years — long after everything else had been lost, destroyed or given away.
That little girl now has grown children of her own. I have often thought what a pity it is that our grandchildren were never able to experience that small Christmas interlude in the Black Watch that meant so much to all of the children in our regiment.
Despite the dreaded COVID thing that is now dominating all of our lives, have a great Christmas and, be sure to raise a glass to those who are no longer with us.
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