ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE

December 24, 1905

The Caledonian dinner was a glorious and enjoyable function.  I went as Guy Charteris’ guest.  The C. is a club for Scotchmen, and the enthusiasts turn up in kilts and sporrans.  The performance consists in a dinner where one eats haggis, a noisome dish to look at, but not unpleasant to eat, and drinks Athol Brose, a delicious drink, but insidious, composed of whisky, honey, cream and rum.  Afterwards we danced – a dangerous game, but full of interest.  John Gore and I were knocked backwards into the fireplace. 

Sir Alan ‘Tommy’ Lascelles

December 24, 1954 [Jamaica]

Oh, how nice it would be just for today and tomorrow, to be a little boy of five instead of an aging playwright of fifty-five and look forward to all the high-jinks with passionate excitement and be given a clockwork train with a full set of rails and a tunnel.  However, it is no use repining.  As things are, drinks will take the place of parlour games and we shall all pull crackers and probably enjoy ourselves enough to warrant at least some of the god-damned fuss.

    The news from home is mainly concerned with disaster, floods and gales and houses collapsing.  I am very lucky to be here in the warmth and so I will crush down the embittered nausea which the festive season arouses in me and plunge into gaiety with an adolescent whoop.

Noёl Coward

Bryan Ferry: Another Time, Another Place (1974) (Link)

Wood engravings by Eric Gill (1916)