that fascinate me most as an adult are my memories of Christmas .
When you are the youngest of six children growing up in a low-income , working-class family , Christmas is rarely about the number and value of gifts that arrive on the day . Instead , it is very much about unexpected surprises and the most astonishing meal prepared by a mother who would create a feast from supplies that you did not even know were in the cupboards .
If you asked , “ What is your greatest memory of Christmas as a child ?”, my answer would be exactly the same as that of my four brothers and my sister . It would be the homemade plum pudding and custard that my mother created each year . Decades later , I can still taste how glorious and wonderful that pudding was ; but even more glorious was that in one slice of the pudding , a sixpence had been inserted , and we had no idea who would receive it . A sixpence ! As a boy at the age of five in the mid 1960s , a sixpence would buy you more sweets and treats at the local corner store than you could ever imagine . A sixpence … I could be rich !
12 THE CURIOUS SIGN OF THE MANGER
Review copy only — not for distribution .