All Things Considered
Online journal by St. Jude's – British printmaking and textiles designed by printmaker Angie Lewin, painter printmaker Mark Hearld, British workwear designers Old Town and others.
An alternative view
Posted by Simon Lewin
I should stress that Angie and I are both fairly keen on the concept of Christmas, though since running the gallery we've found that attention to our own festivities is left fairly late in the day. Like now.
But I did enjoy coming across this alternative view of Christmas by Philip Larkin, in a letter to Judy Egerton...
32 Pearson Park, Hull
17 December 1958
My dear Judy.
What an awful time of year this is! Just as one is feeling that if one can just hold on, it won’t get any worse, then all this Christmas idiocy bursts upon one like a slavering Niagara of nonsense & completely wrecks one's entire frame. This means, in terms of my life, making a point of buying about six simple inexpensive presents where there are more people about than usual, and going home. No doubt in terms of yours it means seeing your house given over to hoards of mannerless middle-class brats and your good food & drink vanishing into the quacking tooth-equipped jaws of their alleged parents. Yours is the harder course, I can see. On the other hand, mine is happening to me...
Merry Christmas from all at St. Jude's!
Posted by Simon Lewin on December 24th, 2008
Ultramarine