A Dales friend has just returned from a full-dress rehearsal for Christmas. It was called "turkey and tinsel".

A bus party was taken on a mystery ride to a distant hotel, where they re-enacted the Christmas festivities over three successive days.

Tuesday held the excitement of Christmas Eve and Wednesday had the glitter, games and grand feasting we have come to expect on Christmas Day. Thursday was regarded as Boxing Day. The revellers arrived back home on Friday, replete and happy, with the real Christmas still to come.

The grandparents of those who made this trip did not stray far from home. A farmer's wife might spend most of the winter without setting foot in the nearest village, for the husband was inclined to do the shopping. He might also sneak into the handiest pub.

One toper left his horse and trap outside an inn and, while he was drinking, local lads took the horse out of the shafts and put it back the wrong way round. The befuddled owner emerged, blinked, and said to a friend: "Yon hoss has chucked t'cart ower its head."

The average farmhouse lacked the creature-comforts most of us now take for granted. At ground level there were flagged floors, sections of which were covered by "pegged" rugs, the production of which was an occupation for winter evenings.

Bedrooms were so cold that the frost painted pictures on the window panes and it was a shock to the system to step out of bed, miss the rug and rest your bare feet on linoleum.

A goose, not a turkey, had pride of place on the Christmas table. The bird was "crammed" with oatmeal or grain for a week or two before it was killed, plucked and dressed amid a flurry of feathers and down. A "green" goose, which was one that fed entirely on grass, was not very appetising.

At one farm, a goose was plucked dry and the body singed with a blow-lamp. A mixture of goose blood and oatmeal was prepared as a pudding. Goose grease was kept in case a member of the family needed a sore throat lubricating.

A Wharfedale man recalled: "We went to our grandparents' house on Christmas Day. The goose wouldn't weight much above ten pounds - and there'd be a score of us round the table."

A farmer who sometimes put goose eggs under a turkey to hatch them out was amused when a visiting postman marvelled at the sight of a turkey leading a brood of goslings. The farmer told him he had interbred turkey and goose. He called it a turgoose. The postman spread the word about the district.

Visit a Dales farm towards t'back-end and the farmer would invite you to view his pig. I heard of an old lady who "crammed" the pig, enticing it to eat more than it needed by offering tasty balls made of oatmeal.

In Cowgill parish, at the head of Dentdale, "we'd give pigs a bit of oatmeal about five weeks before we were going to kill 'em. If you gave 'em flake maize as well, it gave the bacon a right nice taste."

The daughter of the lady who told me this said she liked to eat bacon "when t'fat's running out o' both sides of mi mouth."

There was a social side to December. The Christmas whist drive and dance was well-supported, though a visitor from town was perturbed when her prize was a live goose swaddled in sacking. She had it delivered to her house and intended to get someone to kill it for Christmas. By the time arrangements had been made, she had grown so fond of the bird she kept it in the garden as a pet.

There will be little spare money in the Dales this Christmas. The annual income of hill farmers has slumped to a third or less of the normal level. Some families now have an income of not much more than £2,000, so Christmas will be less cheerful than usual.

"Makkin' ends meet" was a problem in the 1920s and early 1930s, when there was a major industrial slump. As today, the new-starters in farming, who had loans from the bank, were hit badly.

A couple who rented a farm in Malhamdale and who borrowed money to eke out the £200 the husband had managed to save through Army service had a good first year - and lost £2,000. "That was the slump."

A neighbour who started at the same time stood in their farmyard and cried. "Tears rolled down his face. He said: 'I asked my father for my share-out of the farm; I didn't want to wait until he died. He gave it to me. Now I've lost t'lot.' Next time I saw him, he was a farm man."

l May those who read my Letters from the Dales have a merry Christmas. May those "with" a goodly share of this world's goods think of those "without".

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.