Guess the festive season is upon us again. The clamour to buy gifts (a practice originating from Holland, which is another story) ... Roads laden with Xmas traffic (but not here in the Haute-Vienne, thank goodness!) ... Scrumptious hot mince pies (can you obtain mincemeat here? I suspect Vetriano’s stock it) … Greeting cards illustrated with romantic images of Edwardian ladies in full-length Liberty printed frocks with pin-tucked bodices ... or ones with baubles on that you send to folks you're not over-friendly with but feel obligated to send a card to ... Turkey curry (in February!) ... Snogging under the mistletoe, great! ... White socks with reindeer motifs ... The Morecambe & Wise 1978 Xmas Special on TV ... The enforced bonhomie of being everyone's mate ... Only time in the year you drink Baileys! ... A visit from Santa (Is Santa so jolly 'cause he knows where all the 'bad' girls live?) ... and of course, PANTOMIME.

Do they have Pantomime in France or is it essentially a British entertainment? Pantomimes were originally a class of actors in Augustine Rome and performed, as the name implies, in mime. The dress of the actors was designed to reveal, not conceal, and in the 2nd century when women first appeared as Pantomimes they frequently performed quite naked ... pity that changed! Pantomime was first staged in England at Shrewsbury in 1702 and later developed by the great clown, Grimaldi, and his family when they visited England in the mid-1700's and performed the first modern Pantomime, which was a version of Mother Goose. The original hero of Pantomime was the Venetian, Arlecchino, a lover and magician whose role it was to protect Columbine. As English speakers, somewhat surprisingly, found it difficult to pronounce Arlecchino it was corrupted to Harlequin.

I saw my first Pantomime, in fact my first ever visit to the theatre, in 1951. It was at the Olympia Theatre in Nottingham, now a Wilko’s superstore! It was a time of grey austerity with rationing of everyday items still in force. A coal fire warmed our living room, but nowhere else in the house. I recollect, but not fondly, stepping out of bed winter mornings onto a cold lino floor and waiting for the kettle on the hearth to boil to wash in.
So to enter the bountiful and bold colours of live theatre and be enveloped in its warmth was awesome to a child. What confronted me was magical. The Grecian inspired proscenium frieze ... luminous colour changing floods ... glittering chandeliers ... and smiling usherettes in their cornflower blue gold-buttoned uniforms and pillbox hats directing us to our seats. Then the miracle! ... From the orchestra pit a musical fanfare ... the rich draped velvet curtains swinging open and the start of the show. Dazzling costumes ... Extravagant sets ...The handsome Principal boy, who turned out to be a girl! The flaxen haired 'Disney like' Princess with her image of chaste demeanor ... The grotesquely painted Dame in voluminous skirts and an arrested waterfall of a bosom (l didn't know then she was a bloke dressed up!). She carried on stage a shopping basket and said 'I'm going to put my basket on this 'ere hook and if anybody touches it I want you to shout – ‘PUT THAT DOWN' ... and we all did ... over & over!

The audience being whipped up into community singing from the suspended song sheet … and always, of course, the classic Pantomime jokes:

‘Pint of less, please’. ‘Less, what’s that?’. ‘I don’t know but my doctor says I’ve got to start drinking it’!

‘My wife calls me her little treasure’. ‘Why’s that?’ ‘Because people keep saying to her, where did you dig him up?’

‘I ate two Brillo Pads this morning in mistake for Shredded Wheat … the doctor tells me I’ll scrape through’!

‘If the guards outside Buckingham Palace are so good, why do they keep changing them?’

‘A barrel of beer fell on my head, I was alright though, it was light ale’.

‘If a fly had no wings would they call it a walk?.

And so on … all the old chestnuts … but we still laugh, don’t we? … And so we should … it’s healthy! Pantomime moments are ‘small moments’ of escapism … but I suppose life is made up of many ‘small moments’. And isn’t it one of the privileges of the ageing process that you come to appreciate those ‘small moments’ even more?

The beginning of a love affair has the music of spring … my first experience of Pantomime in 1951 was the commencement of my life-long