Santa of Suburbia

When we were growing up, our granny stayed with us for months at a time. Not speaking any English, though curiously addicted to English-language soaps, her ears pricked whenever we talked about going out, and we’d find her by the door ready to go before we were.

She knew more than she let on. But was nevertheless relatively cocooned in the pocket of India she brought with her to Britain in the 1950s. She always wore Indian dress, said her prayers twice a day, and gave prasad – a devotional offering of food – to whoever was in the house, including baffled school friends.

The concept of Christmas therefore was something she was aware of but not clued up on. Like an overheard English-language conversation, she got the gist, but not the detail. Me and my two sisters, on the other hand, were all over that stuff. Stockings hanging from the fireplace, halls decked with boughs of holly, and – one particularly memorable Christmas – milk and cookies on the mantlepiece for Santa and his reindeer.

The other thing to note about my gran is she absolutely hated waste. They didn’t have much in India, so when she came to stay with us in Shropshire everything was used up or recycled. After watching mum and dad leave out the milk and cookies, we went to bed, as all eager children on Christmas Eve do, barely able to sleep, excited for the morning.

In the night, granny must have come down for a drink of water – and seeing the milk and cookies on the mantlepiece, lit by the Christmas tree lights, thought to herself how careless we were, leaving food out like that to go to waste.

So, on Christmas morning, bounding down to the living room, when we saw the milk and cookies gone – just an empty glass and a plate of crumbs in their place – our parents’ faces were as amazed as ours were. Our belief in Santa was renewed for another year, and I think mum and dad were believers too.

RIP Granny, 1926-2019