How many emails for a one night stay?

Your scribbler has been driven somewhat demented over the last two weeks. 

What’s that?
Oh, okay. More demented than usual, as a result of booking a hotel. 

Yep, that’s what I said.

Loyal and very attentive colyoomistas may recall that back in May 2004, I fessed up to being an anonymous reviewer of hotels for quality newspapers (not a tautology!) for over two decades.

Of course, as soon as I did, I had to retire from that particular gig, as in my opinion there is zero point in reviewing an hotel if they know you’re writing a review. All of a sudden you’re in a beautiful room and can I do anything else for you, sir? 

Being a naive fool, I thought that once I’d left the reviewing game, staying in hotels would return to being a pure pleasure.

Someone comes in and makes your bed; gives you new towels, fresh coffee capsules and more putrid cartons of UHT milk.

You fill out and hang the breakfast menu on your room’s door handle and lo, at 08:30 there’s a knock and a young man is delivering your scrambles and bacon, tea and toast.

In sad little Adley world, that’s pretty close to as good as it gets. 

And yes, I do still love staying in hotels, but that pleasure is now mitigated by the onslaught of bollocky emails that one has to endure when booking a room these days.

A couple of weeks ago, being ever-so-slightly brassic, I decided to make the most of the current price of gold by flogging a few small items I inherited from my grandparents.

An antique auctioneer advised me that yes, he could put one or two of my items into an auction, but I’d wait months for the correct collectors sale day, and then pay him a commission. 

In a rare display of altruism, he advised me that I’d be better off going to a particular shop he knew in Dublin, mentioning his name and getting a fair price for the gold weight of the lot, there and then, in cash. 

You can take the boy out of London, but you can’t take London out of the boy.

Cash?
A wad?
Yessirrreeee! 

Well, if I’m headed to Dublin, I might as well make a night of it, I decided.

I’ve been at home since before Christmas, so a night away from my own cooking and dishes would be most welcome.

Over those 20 years of reviewing I learned that the first stop in any hotel search should be the hotel’s website. The prices offered on their own sites are often very competitive with third party bookers, like Booking.com, Trivago and Expedia.

If you’re offered a bargain elsewhere, contact the hotel and tell them. See how quickly they offer you the same discount.

This is presuming you’ve chosen an independent and ideally family-run hotel (like my West of Ireland favourites: Flannerys in Galway City and Rosleague Manor in Connemara), which is where I’d head every day of the week.

Trouble is, in Dublin ,all the choices were corporate chains, so I booked a room in an apart-hotel, close to the shop that I was aiming for. 

All was good.
Here’s the email confirming my booking.
Perfect. 

Here’s another email, telling me to make the most of my trip, and what’s available in the area.
Erm, that’s fine, I s’pose.

Here’s another email. 

Do you want to upgrade your room? 

I feel my inner grumpy git awake from surly slumber.

No I don’t want a bloody upgrade.
Stop it. Go away.
Leave me alone.

If I wanted a better room, I’d’ve booked a better room. I’d been to their website, looked on Booking, read reviews on Tripadvisor and made what a pretentious prat might call an ‘educated choice.’

Oh for god’s sake, it’s only an hotel room.
Let’s not get carried away.

Then I receive yet another email, written in what I can only assume is a style they believe Millennials or Gen Zees might find amusing.

It went 100% like this, in tone and format; I kid ye not:

“Hey Charlie
Whoop!
Whoop
doopy
doopy
doo!

We are so excited to see you.

 

It’s great you booked with us.

We’re so excited about your stay.
Yippee
Yippee
Aye ayyyy...”
 

As I read this nonsensical sycophantic drivel, my grumpy git engine moved rapidly up through the gears into overdrive, outrage and disbelief, but that wasn’t the end of it.

The very next day I received yet another email. The fifth for a one night booking. 

Do you want to bid for a room upgrade? 

You wot? Is this an effin’ joke?

Do I want to BID for a room upgrade? 

Yeh, sure, of course I do, ‘cos my life is so crushingly empty I can think of no better way to spend my valuable yet vacant time than competing with other sad losers in a fight to give you more money for something I don’t even want and grrrr and grrrowl and roaaaarrr and - 

I suddenly started coughing, instantly recognising the bad taste in my mouth as evidence of a nascent chest infection. 

Given that half of Ireland was at that moment laid up with respiratory viruses, and my 1.5 very scarred lungs must be maintained with respect, I grabbed the chance to postpone my trip to Dublin and cancel my room.

Another email. 

Would you like to take a survey, to share your reasons why you cancelled your room? 

Would I? 

In the modern language of hotel reservations:

Yabba dabba dooby dooo! 

Hold me back and allow me to explain why to you!

 

©Charlie Adley

21.01.2025
 

“Move over girls - I’m coming in!”

It wasn't these two....

It’s 1981 and your scribbler is a 21 year-old hedonist, driving south from my flat in Cambridge to my friend’s house in South Harrow.

We’ll call him Dave, to protect the less-than-innocent.

The world is not yet under the censorious yoke of Woke, and my militant feminism will not peak for another three years.

If you’re easily offended stop reading now, for this is a tale of drug taking and wanton behaviour.

As it should in all things nostalgic, the sun shines from a cloudless blue sky as I speed along, excited at the prospect of delivering my cargo.

Dave has never taken an acid trip, so I’m heading south to deliver blotters for both of us. I know he’ll be excited and trepidatious about it all, probably pacing up and down his living room, waiting for my arrival.

I feel calm and confident about the next 24 hours, as I’m very familiar with LSD, and I’ve known Dave all of my life.

I can see only fun times ahead, and hey, look over there. Two young females hitchhiking, so of course I stop to pick them up.

They both have roughly the same body mass: the shorter one a curvaceous beauty; the taller a gorgeous Amazonian. Both sport blonde hair, the shorter woman’s styled in a bob, the taller worn long and flying free, like ripe wheat in a breeze.

They wedge their smiling faces through the open passenger window.

“Hey ladies! Where are you going?”

“Er em sort of towards London, but we don’t know exactly, I think.”

“Well jump in then! I’m going to London too!”

They both sit in the back of the car, which makes me feel a little like a chauffeur. In my rear view mirror I see two suntanned faces, with Hollywood white teeth shining from broad relaxed smiles.

“So where are you from?”

“Oh we are from Denmark.” replies the shorter one.

“Lovely. And what do you do, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh no, not at all. We are both nurses, yes?” answers the taller one.

My lack of naming them is in no way a device to dehumanise them. If anything, it’s a sign of respect. For the life of me, 45 years later, I can’t remember either of their names, and it would feel glib and ignorant to simply christen them Anni-Frid and Agnetha, so forgive me.

They talk almost perfect English, with only the slightest and most charming hint of a foreign accent.

“So what’s your plan, ladies? Where are you headed?”

“Well really we don’t know. Just towards London and sort of see what happens, kind of thing, you know.”

These two are humans after my own heart. I’ve hitched for years with just such a mindset.

“Well, I’m heading down to a northern suburb, to stay with a friend of mine. You’re very welcome to come along.”

In my mirror I see two faces turn to look at each other, and eyebrows raising in pairs.

“Sure, that sounds great. Thank you. Will be nice to stay in real London house.”

Oh so they’re staying, are they? I think of the grill pan down there, with weeks of bacon fat festering in it, and the loo where, oh, you don’t need to know.

“Well, erm, it’s not very glamorous. There’s three friends of mine living there, all lads, so it’s not the cleanest place in the world.”

“Cool. Real, like we said. Better than a Youth Hostel, I think."

“Anything anywhere is better than a Youth Hostel!” I cry, and we all laugh in accord.

I shove Hunky Dory into the cassette player and turn up the volume.

Okay, so I’m arriving on Dave’s doorstep with a sheet of blotters and two Danish nurses. Haven’t seen a camera anywhere, but this doesn’t half sound like a classic porn movie.

Dave is, as anticipated, twitching with nerves about the impending trip. He shows his unexpected guests to the spare room, and comes into the living room, where I’m rolling a fat one.

“What the fuck, Charlie!”

“Just a little hors d’oeuvres, Davie, to chill you out before the trip.”

“No, I‘m not talking about the joint. I mean the ... the … who are they?”

I shrug.

 “Dunno mate. They’re lovely and they’re happy to be here, so what’s the prob? They know what we’re doing today, and they’re happy to just hang here in the house. Been on the road for months, apparently, so it’s nice for them to have a bath, and a kitchen to use, and, well, y’know.”

This, beloved Colyoomistas, is where my memory becomes unreliable, to the point of non-existence. We take the blotters and endure an hour or so of Dave going

“Is it working yet? Is it working yet?”

To which I offer

“Mate, when it starts working you won’t have to ask.”

I remember us leaving the house. Despite my advice to the contrary, Dave insists on driving his flash Lancia as the acid kicks in, so that he can emulate Hunter S. Thompson, which makes me Dr. Gonzo.

After that I have only the vaguest flash of an image, involving me and him standing on the walkway bridge over the tube line at Northwood Station, both of us wearing full face crash helmets while brandishing a stick and an axe at each other.

The other six hours are gone forever, and then we’re back in the house. Dave is having his first experience of acid comedown. Not unpleasant, to me it feels like I’m floating on a small rowing boat, but poor Dave doesn’t feel great, so he announces he’s off to bed.

All of a sudden I’m alone in his living room, high as a constellation and wondering where I’m going to sleep.

As I wander round downstairs I realise the place is immaculate. The girls have cleaned the entire place. Amazing. Fantastic. What lovely people they are.

Thing is though, they’re sleeping in the double bed that I usually crash in.

The following events I only know because Dave told me about them the next morning. After waking he went downstairs, following a trail of my clothes, from my socks and underwear on the upstairs landing, to jeans on the stairs and my T-shirt on the living room carpet.

Apparently, a few minutes after he went to bed, he heard me knocking on the spare room door, opening it and exclaiming

“Move over girls - I’m coming in!”

Tragically my memory returns only as I awake to daylight.

I’m in the middle of that double bed, the naked meat in a naked blonde Scandi sandwich. Clearly I hadn’t offended our guests in any way, as they were both asleep, curled into and around me in sublime fleshy hugs.

As I move, as the tall one wakes up too. Gracefully sliding out of the bed she stretches her long golden arms to the ceiling, as she slips on her T-shirt.

My god but she is magnificent.

“I’m going to make some coffee. Would you like some coffee?” she asks, as if this is how we all awake every day.

“That sounds great! Thanks."

By now the shorter one is awake too. She smiles as she gives me a big squeezy hug, and heads off to the bathroom.

I lie there in wonder. I realise that this is probably going to be the only time in my life I wake up between two beautiful women, and yet I have zero recall of anything happening the night before.

I very much doubt that anything did, but I will never know. I do feel a purely sensory memory of jumping and then flying through the air and landing on the middle of that double bed, which ties in with what Dave heard me yell, but beyond that: zip, nada, nowt.

We four drink our coffees in that spotless living room, and then they thank us both profusely for our hospitality and leave to explore the West End.

Dave and I look at each other.

“Bloody hell, Charlie!”

“What?”



©Charlie Adley
16.01.2026. 

I've lived by my writing - let me show you how!

Loving what you do for a living is one of life’s greatest gifts. Before I took up writing professionally I worked in all sorts of industrial and corporate jobs, many of which sapped my soul and made me wonder whether life was worth the effort.

In all those jobs I felt like a visitor in someone else’s world. Yet sitting here at my keyboard in a typically ungainly position, with my ankles badly twisted underneath my desk, I feel completely comfortable.

Some of you already know what I’m on about. If you love your work then you know how lucky I feel.

Although I’m pretty much retired now (a vocational writer never stops writing!) I had the best gig in the world: I paid my rent for three decades by writing 1,000 words each week, about anything I wanted.

From the age of 15 I wrote every single day, keeping a diary until the age of 21. Those diaries contained as much fiction as fact. As a precocious teenager I thought it might be interesting for an ‘older me’ to look back and see what I was like in adolescence.

In truth those 6 volumes constitute a terrifying journey into petulance, paranoia and sexual fantasy, but their making instilled within me the discipline of a lifetime: to sit and write each day.

Since then I’ve had over two million words published in Ireland and the UK, and three plays performed. A month after I arrived in Galway in 1992, my one-woman show ‘Aileen Stays In’ won a Punchbag Theatre competition.

Alongside Double Vision I had a column in the Irish Examiner, and many features published in the Irish Times, Irish Post and other media.

I have dedicated my life to learning my craft. I’m still learning, and hopefully will always learn, because you never know it all.

Now I love to pass on what I’ve learned, through my Craft of Writing Course.

My course has been enjoyed by everyone from fresh 20 year-olds to wise souls in their 80s, who have plenty of stories to tell; from complete novices to published novelists.

Nobody can teach talent, but skills can be nurtured and imaginations stimulated.

More importantly, while mystery and wonder certainly inhabit the process of creative writing, everyone benefits from understanding the craft of writing.

Before you can paint a portrait in oils, you have to learn how to draw a straight line. Writing is like every other art form. All writers benefit from learning the craft of writing.

Anyone can master this craft.
There is no mystery to it.

Some of you will have talent, which cannot be taught, but talent is wasted without craft.

In fun, safe and supportive lessons I will show you how to overcome fear and write a first draft.

You’ll learn how to develop characters, structure, plot and voice, while discovering how to use shape, pace, tense and dialogue to enhance the power of your words.

My enjoyable Craft of Writing Course will boost your confidence, enabling you to write as you’ve always wished.

I will also share advice about how to sell your writing. 

Come and join me in the Killala Community Centre this Spring, and together we’ll have fun learning the Craft of Writing.

Places are limited, so book your seat at the table NOW!

Call Charlie on: 085 729 4204

Or email: cadley1@icloud.com

Killala Community Centre
7:15 - 9:00pm Tuesday March 3rd - Tuesday April 28th.

€150 for 8 weeks (there's a break for St. Patricks Day)
 

*****

Here are some student testimonials:

“Thanks for a fabulous course. It was practical, factual, educational and jovial - a masterclass in how to teach with fun - and you managed to get stories from us each week!” - John.

“I was very familiar with the language of can't and couldn’t, but in your creative classes I have learned a vocabulary that involves embracing the terms can and could. Thank you for sharing your time, thoughts and energy and thanks for helping me to see life with a new perspective.” - Niall.

“The course was fabulous. I learned a great deal about the skills and techniques of writing. I have enjoyed every minute of it. Thank you so much for all your feedback.”  - Gerry.

“I am learning so much. Thank you. You have an amazing passion for words - it oozes out of you - and a great energy that is wonderful to be around.” - Sindy.

“Many thanks for the excellent course. I found it thoroughly revealing. Thanks once again for the enlightenment and the fun.” - Frank.

“Your enthusiasm runs deep. It’s clear that you do this for the love of the craft. You have so much to give to people and are so generous with your time and passion. I can only offer you my gratitude for a wonderfully inspiring, educational and thought-provoking eight weeks.” - George.

“I booked this course with no real expectations. Little did I know that it was going to be one of the most enjoyable courses I have ever attended and that I was going to learn so much. The course layout, notes and your personal involvement made it a very easy and enjoyable way to learn.” - Walter.

3rd Round Saturday makes me miss my Dad!

Exceptional artwork from Allan Cavanagh of caricatures-ireland.com

 

Today it's the Third Round of the FA Cup. To those of a certain vintage this is a day of magic and romance. For me it's also a day of remembering my beloved Dad. 

Here's He Knew from my Kill Me Now short story collection.

 

 He Knew. 

In glorious rural Berkshire, jugs of Pimm’s are topped with mint and cucumber. There is laughter and lunch at the French Horn in Sonning.

Your entire family and many friends gather to celebrate your father’s 70th birthday.

The sun shines on the beautiful old coaching inn, nestled between ancient weeping willows on the banks of the Thames.

Your father stands to make his speech.
The masses hush.

After pursing his lips, there comes from this most lucid of men a long terrifying silence.

A crushing compassion falls upon you, as you watch him struggle to move his mouth. Your father remains stoic in expression, while hearts break all around the room.

After a while he regains control, and void of the cheeky aplomb you love so much, he delivers his words.

Since that most unwelcome arrival, you now know all about TIAs, these mini strokes that your father recovers from, over and over again.  

Each one robs him temporarily of the ability to control something: the movement of his jaw, which for a while viciously and spontaneously chews his own cheek; his right arm, which suddenly shoots up in the air and waves around, as if he were a schoolboy desperate to attract teacher’s attention.

Each time a new behaviour appears, you long for the day when that symptom eases, not only for him, but also because of the pain you suffer by seeing him out of control.

Living in Ireland, you have developed a phobia of the phone. As soon as you hear your sister’s voice, you know that for who knows how long, your life must be put on hold.

You’re going to England on a flex-ticket, packing your bag with practiced precision and speed, desperate to arrive before your Dad dies.

Despite the fact you’ve felt this so many times, each hits you like the first.

You’ve slept on family sofas, in your mum’s spare room, in cheap hotels, and spent long terrible days with your mother and siblings, sitting vigil in his private hospital rooms.

Over these 12 years of your father’s decline, there have been moments of humour, like when he regains consciousness after surgery, and oblivious to the presence of his loved ones, appears excited only because the Chelsea manager is on the TV.

“Moo - Moo- Mourinho!” he splutters.

You laugh in relief, possibly privately hurt in a small yet personal way, because he notices Jose before you.

Other times you laugh out of embarrassment, because your father’s pain threshold is the lowest of any human who ever walked the Earth.

You want your father to be a hero, but it proves impossible not to squirm when he responds to a kindly nurse, gently cleaning his face with a warm flannel.

“Torture! She’s torturing me!”

All he ever wants is to go home, yet each time he does the challenges become greater, more testing for your mum, so back he goes to hospital, where you watch him close his eyes tightly, as if in complaint to the universe, and drop his chin onto his chest.

Arriving at the door of his hospital room on any given morning, in who knows which of so many hospitals, you and your mother are confronted by the saddest of sights.

This bombastic, jocular and opinionated man sits in the chair beside his bed. Instead of looking out of the window or reading a book, he chooses to bow his upper body so far forward, that the crown of his head presses down on the trolley-table in front of him.

His eyes are locked shut, his face wearing three hundred and forty seven varieties of angst.

You put your arm around your Mum and give her a reassuring hug, because if you find this sight sad, you cannot imagine how it must be hurting her.

A kidney specialist tells you two years ago that you should arrange for Dad to move to a hospice.

“It’s only going to be a matter of days.” says the consultant, but still he survives.

Looking at this man who made your life possible, you wonder why he hangs on.

For you, the moment your father lost his joie de vie, he was gone. Without that sparkly glint in his eye, which reassures you he loves you, (your parents only award the ‘L’ word to pets) this tragically wrung-out figure appears to have no desire to live.

You assume he must be driven to survive purely by terror of the alternative. 

You decide you absolutely never want children: not if your dotage will force them to endure this horror.

You hope that when your time is up, you will not hang on through mere fear, and then you mock yourself, because you have been taunted by your own mortality ever since your first pubic hair.

The most painful part of Dad dying slowly is that you have to keep on leaving. You've given up your job back in Ireland, so that you can come whenever you need to, and stay as long as possible.

Yet eventually you always have to go home, and it is these times that test your heart.

Will you ever see him again?
Will he be dead before you return?

On a Friday night 18 months ago you decide to deal with this trial.

Before you drive your rental car through the snowy night darkness to Luton Airport, you decide to say a last goodbye.

You know of course that you might well see him again. You also understand that you cannot continue to torment your heart and twist your soul, by repeatedly arriving home in dread of missing his death.

You go up to your father in his bed, and throw your arms over his chest, forcing your right hand around and under his neck.

He awakes and you whisper “I’m going now, Dad. Good bye. Shabbat Shalom.”

and he replies

“Shabbat Shalom. Thanks for coming. Drive carefully.”

You hug him tightly and then climb off the bed. You hold your breath along the hospital corridor, in the lift, and as you briskly walk through reception. Outside, the cold air freezes your lungs.

You find your car, close the door, sit in front of the steering wheel and let out a wail; a crescendo howling cry of pain.

For ten minutes, twenty minutes, who knows or cares, you sit in your car and cry, heaving with loss and misery.

You’ve just said goodbye to your father, and although you see him many times after that, there is wisdom in that move.

It eases your pain, but now the time has come for the final farewell.

The nursing home gardens are truly splendid. Gravel paths surround trimmed lawns, gently sloping towards crescent flower beds, flush with roses, crimson and pink.

You’re unable to see beauty.

In the grey Victorian mansion above, your father is drifting lethewards, floating in and out of a morphine coma.

You struggle to move your aching legs through the stifling London heat. The humid still air is a rich soup of lavender.

You breathe deep its comforting scent.

You’re taking a break, doing a few laps of the garden, because you can’t sit there beside him forever.

You turn at the edge of the lawn and head up the gravel path, back towards this halfway house.

You go to the Gents and wash your face with cold water. Staring at yourself in the mirror you contemplate what you’re about to do.

Tomorrow you must leave once more for Ireland.
In two weeks you’re getting married.

You feel sure this will be the last time you see Dad alive.
You steel yourself and enter his small quiet room.

Beyond the tall sash windows the garden glows golden.

You move a chair to sit parallel with your father. Your back is against the wall beside his head.

You reach down with your left hand and lift his limp warm right hand, intertwining your fingers with his, hoping he might wake, respond in some way, acknowledge your presence and thereby give you the chance to say goodbye one final time.

But he doesn’t.

He sleeps on, lost to consciousness.

His lips part like a baby’s kiss as he exhales gently

.....pwaaaaaahhhhhh….

You sit, hold his hand and find comfort in the peace and privilege of being there at his side.

In the midst of the turbulence of weddings, illness, life and death, you appreciate these calm minutes.

You wish your father knew you were there, but he doesn’t. The nurse told you that he was on such a heavy dose he could barely keep breathing.

You accept that being beside him is enough.

Finally the hour comes when you must meet others, leave your father forever and return to the brash world.

“Dad, it’s Charlie. I’ve got to go now. I’m heading back to Galway tomorrow, to organise our wedding party. I love you, Dad.”

As you rise out of your seat, your father suddenly grips your intermingled fingers, holding them tight to his.

You look straight away into his eyes, but they are still clamped shut.
Nothing stirs, yet he has heard you.

He Knew.

He has heard your words and knows you are there.
He continues to grip your hand with such force it slightly unsettles you.

Reaching across his body you plant a long, lingering and most loving kiss on his forehead.

He feels your lips on his skin.
He exhales.

His hand relaxes and lowers to his side. 

 

 ©Charlie Adley

10.01. 2026

A tale of two Santas - and buckets of generosity!

Many thanks to zazzle.co.uk

Snow fell onto the sodium-lit London street

 

That winter of '86 was so cold the water in the loo of my Rats Alley flat froze over. Our cracked toilet bowls lay dumped outside all the way down the narrow road.

Chris and I sat in my living room, staring at each other in silence for hours. We were hunched against those old plastic sofas, wrapped in blankets.

 

Broke.

 

Boracic and lint: skint, the pair of us, with only two days to go until Christmas.

“Hey Chas! You got any old whisky bottles?”

 

“Yeh, there’s two empties in the kitchen. Why?”

 

“Aha! Bring them to me, and get out that fan heater you hide in your bedroom. We’ll have a drink yet!”

Ten minutes later we were lying on our bellies, eyes at carpet level, watching whisky appear from nowhere. 

 

Chris had stood the two empty bottles in front of the fan heater, which was running at full blast. The heat from the fan was hitting the cold glass, condensing the holy juice out of the bottle. 

 

Where before there was nothing, we suddenly had a couple of inches of Christmas Cheer. 

 

So we did.

“Yay! Nice work mate! Happy Christmas to you and your cunning ways! You’re a bloomin’ genius!”

The phone rang. It was my landlord, who owned the shop below my flat. He was sorry to ask at such short notice, but he wondered if I wanted to earn some cash? And did I know anyone else who needed some too?

Did I?

He explained that the shop owners of the street were looking for a couple of guys to stand outside the shops on the Golders Green Road, dressed as Santa Claus. They'd be collecting money for the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital.

“Sure, yeh, 'course we can do that!” I told him, “But how can you pay us if we’re collecting for a charity? We wouldn’t stoop so low.”

He explained that our presence was going to attract punters to his shop, so it was worth it to him.

Well, fair enough. More than fair, but just one more thing. This was the most Jewish suburb in North London. How kindly were the locals going to take to Father Christmas?

“Well, he was Jewish, wasn’t he, their bloke?” came the inscrutable, irrefutable reply.

Yes, Jesus was born, lived and died a Jew. 1,986 years later, in the tiny back room of a shop in frozen London, Chris and I were falling about laughing as we tried on our costumes. 

 

We were unsure if Santa was meant to be naked underneath his regalia, but the freezing air settled our minds on that issue.

Somehow, fitting the scarlet tights over our jeans felt more than a little Superman-ish, but the beard was another matter entirely. 

 

It got up my nose, tickled my lips, and after a minute or two, returned to my schnozz the less-than delightful scent of the previous night’s Rogan Josh.

 

And so, out onto the streets, followed by a gaggle of giggling shop assistants.

 

“Cor! Look at those two sex bombs!”

 

“Yeh, don’t fancy yours much!”

We asked the boss if it wasn’t a little excessive having two Santas out there, but once again, his answer was beyond reason.

“Most places they only get one, so in Golders Green, they get two!”

Chris and I started to shake our buckets, trying to catch a generous eye. People were ready and eager to give. Great Ormond Street Children’s hospital was a cause that crossed the barriers of race and religion, although I felt saddened to treat a hospital like a charity.

We'd been provided with bags of lollipops, for any sweet little kiddies who came up to us. 

 

Unfortunately, (or maybe most fortunately) children are trained to stay away from strange men bearing candy. The combination of my costume, and the ultra-deep voice I adopted for my role seemed to scare the hell out of the wee darlings.

All it took was “Hellow lickle girlie! Do you want a lollipop?” and I was instant pervert, children scurrying away to hide behind their parents, safe from the nasty red man.

Suddenly, off in the distance, we heard a bustling commotion. Two police cars were creeping slowly down the street, followed by a massive demonstration by Hassidic Jews, they who sport the long hair curls, blue raincoats and big floppy velvet hats.

Hundreds of them were marching down the Golders Green Road, carrying placards written in Hebrew. Chris and I stepped back to watch this strangest of sights unfold, and then all of a sudden, it dawned on me that each and every one of them was a potential punter.

Leaping into the fray, I frantically shook my collection bucket. Each side of me, every which way, hats, raincoats and beards glided past, the marchers temporarily blinded by my flash of scarlet ripple in their river of dark blue.

I was sorely tempted to savour the feeling of being inside a roll of Pathé News film, but there was work to be done.

“Cough up for the kiddies! Great Ormond Street Hospital needs your help! Dig deep!’”

Dig they did. Hands reached into pockets, coppers started flying into the bucket, followed by silver coins and then notes. 

 

To my left wallets were opened, to my right a passing beard, a glance of spectacles, everywhere hands putting notes into the bucket: fivers, tenners, twenties. 

 

It was wonderful to stand there and see them give wads of cash; enough to bring a tear to my eye.

 

There was no question of Old or New Testament here, just a river of raincoats on a mission from God.

 

Two full buckets, a happy shopkeeper, and two very merry Santas in the pub that Christmas Eve.

 

May your God be with you.

 

©Charlie Adley

22.12.2024