Above: Hev, me and Alan eating haggis at Windmill Gardens, so it has to be some time after Alan and we first met in 1984, and before I stopped wearing that horrible sweatshirt!
I have been nostalgically wracking my brains trying to remember quite where, and how, I have seen in the New Year over the decades. I thought I’d written a blog about this, but couldn’t find it. After I’d written most of this I then discover I’d done it way back in 2009. So here’s a guess at Hogmanays past, revisiting that revisiting, and filling in more gaps.
From birth to teens: the family Hogmanay (as recorded in my diary from 1974). Started at midnight, essentially an after party for the folks at Kibworth Golf Club. Went on till 6 or 7 in the morning, when I would wake up and help cleaning out ashtrays and beer glasses.
1977 turns to 1978 - Babysitting with Steve in Pucklechurch. I’m 17 years old, so quite why I wanted to miss Mum & Dad’s party to share a bottle of cider with Steve I can’t imagine, but that’s what we did.
78/79 - In Bristol with Steve again, feeling very sorry for himself as he canoodled girlfriend Denise and I had to settle for stroking a dog. Watching Old Grey Whistle Test with Meatloaf, a lasting memory
.
79/80 - Kibworth, I bring my student friends back from Loughborough for the first time and take over the event. A tiny part of this is captured on 8mm film.
80/81 - Kibworth, seeing in the bells at The Lodge or The Rose & Crown
81/82 - See above. Defo one year at Lodge, one year at R&C - neither pub still exists - then back to Windmill Gardens
82/83 - Don’t know, most likely Kibworth
83/84 - My diary (above) records that we saw the NewYear in at “a near deserted Lodge Hotel” (that can’t be long before it was demolished) with Pete Godwin, and Jude and her friend Elaine. I remember Steve staying over in Kibworth around this time cos I was joking with him about Frankie Goes to Hollywood, who weren’t very big yet.
84/85 - We were living in Leicester for the first time and I think saw the New Year in with Fran at the Cradock, then back to ours
85/86 - I think Steve and Sarah came up from Reading to see it in with us in Kibworth, the photo above says that Alan joined us for at least one Hogmanay in Kibworth, maybe this was it?
86/87 - Mum & Dad’s Christmas card records that this is the first year they didn’t have a Hogmanay party, instead going to visit relatives in North America. So I think this was also seen in at The Cradock, with Alan.
87/88 - I think this is when Mum & Dad held a mini concert at Windmill Gardens, which we still have on video and watched on the night of Mum’s funeral. Everyone performs their party piece, including me doing material I was by now doing on stage at The Monkhouse
88/89 - The year before we moved to Wrington and I think we saw the New Year in at Steve and Sarah’s in Yatton, with sibling of Sarah’s who were on the brink of divorce.
89/90 - Was this the year we saw in at Ayr with Audrey and Dennis? I think it was, cos I remember the Berlin Wall coming down. Also we met Anet’s then partner Frank for the first and only time.
1991-98 - At least two New Years Eves of this decade are big Hogmanay parties in our flat in Clevedon. We may even have tried a third that wasn’t so well attended. We found that holding our party in the gap between Christmas and New Year got a better turnout and that became our big thing.
- At least one was at Keith and Sarah’s, when they’d moved into the big house on the hill with the dance floor in the basement.
- One was officially Worst New Years Bells Ever, when we went with Keith & Sarah and party to an Indian restaurant on Whiteladies Road, which had planned to close before midnight! We pressed them to stay open, and they did. We heard the chimes of midnight on a transistor radio, then got our taxis home.
- At least a couple must have been seen in with Mum & Dad in Kibworth, for old time’s sake. One is the time they tried reviving the big Hogmanay party like that they’d had through the 70s into the 80s, only to find the bulk of their friends had moved away, and everyone who was left just seemed a bit old now. It’s hard to recapture the magic of youth.
- A couple are, for the first time, quiet Hogmanays in at home, just Hev and me in front of the telly.
1999/2000 - At Mark and Gail’s. It was the year we boycotted Keith & Sarah’s party, because they wanted everyone to split the cost of some fireworks. A ridiculous thing to fall out over, but it broke up the social hub that had seen us through the 90s.
00/01 - Hugh & Rachel’s. On the way there we tried to drop into the pub (The Regent, it’s not there any more) to find they were charging for entry. This had never happened before, but was something that had started because the English had, on Millennium Eve, discovered Hogmanay.
2002-07 - At least a couple of these are seen in at Felicity and Tom’s, who took on the role of throwing the Hogmanay party. Perhaps one year we braved throwing a party? Memory doesn’t serve.
- I’m working, drawing caricatures at parties, for at least two of these. One at the castle on the hill overlooking Clevedon (it’s a private house, the party paid for by an obnoxious South African who, I believe, was found dead in his swimming pool a few years later), and one time in a country house hotel near Bath.
-One time I’m compering a comedy gig at The Tobacco Factory in Bristol, the only time I’ve performed there.The rest must be quiet nights at home, just the two of us.
2008/9 - Edinburgh. I was working, performing The Socks at Winter Wonderland. Hev came up for Christmas itself, then went home to look after the cat and I had only my second Hogmanay in Scotland since I was three. Hogmanay on Princes St was quite an event, the biggest such celebration I’ve been part of, and something that this year they’ve been denied, with the weather causing it to be cancelled.
2009/10 - I start writing a blog, and therefore I know we saw that one with just me and Hev. What I don’t seem to have mentioned in the blog is that we stayed in a hotel in Bristol to get away from the downstairs neighbours who we weren’t getting on with, and whose noise we knew would disturb us.
2010 - 18 - Mostly a blur, but…
2014/15 - Notable because we made Mum throw a Christmas party, to try and recapture the magic of the old Hogmanays. It wasn’t quite that, a pleasant daytime affair, but it wasn’t at all bad. I guess we then saw the New Year in quietly at home.
16/17 - The Socks record Hogmanayness, a favourite song of mine. As far as I can tell we then spend the year end quietly at home.
18/19 - Mum died on Dec 30th, so Hev, Jude and I saw the New Year in together for the last time at our childhood home of Windmill Gardens
19/20 - Saw the New Year in at Jude & Doug’s in Hanwell, having sold Mum & Dad’s house earlier that month.
20/21 - Lockdown. Everyone knows where they were that Christmas. The Socks held a special Zoom quiz, which was a great thing to be able to do. I miss the captive audiences and travel free gigs of lockdown.
21/22 - The purchase of our new house in Chepstow had just fallen through. Then, at the eleventh hour on Christmas Eve, been revived. We saw in our last quiet Hogmanay at the flat in Clevedon.
22/23 - The first Hogmanay in Chepstow just ourselves.
23/24 - The same again.
A happy new year 2025 when it comes, and I look forward to seeing you all in the coming months.
My Books And Where To Find Them... |  |  |  |
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Richard The Third | Findlay Macbeth | Prince of Denmark Street | Midsummer Night's Dream Team |
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Shakespeare Omnibus
| Comic Tales From The Bible
| Joseph, Ruth & Other Stories
| Space Elain
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Colouring Books: Hollywood Legends, Punk, Cult TV, Eurovision Vol 1, Eurovision Vol 2, Eurovision Best Of British & Irish, 1960s Pop, 1970s Pop, 1980s Pop, 1990s Pop, 2020s Pop, Bowie, Scottish Pop, Doctors Who, Royalty, Rom Coms
