Quality | 2009.12.26
For some, Christmas is just another work day
For the lucky majority, Christmas Day is a time for family, presents, a huge roast dinner and bad telly, but spare a thought for the one in 10 of us who had to drag themselves away from the crackers and Quality Street to attend to business as usual. Anushka Asthana and Mark Townsend spoke to a few of those for whom 25 December was the same as any other Friday
For most families Friday will have followed a familiar pattern: children waking up excitedly before dawn; wrapping paper strewn around the floor as presents are ripped open; crackers and their awful jokes, paper hats and terrible toys; turkey – or maybe goose – with roasties, stuffing, pigs in blankets; lots of booze; piles of washing up; the Queen; the EastEnders/Corrie Christmas special; board games; charades; probably the odd family argument or two.
But spare a thought for the almost one in 10 Britons who had a different sort of day – one that involved waking up, getting ready and heading out to work. After all, not everything in the country came to a standstill on Christmas Day. There were hospitals that needed running, cabs that needed driving, hotels that needed staffing and, of course, churches that needed leading.
In fact, according to a study from the communications company Skype, 5.8 million people were at work on Friday – and that is just a fraction of those working over the Christmas period. The research also revealed that 23.2 million worked on Christmas Eve and another 11 million yesterday, on Boxing Day. This week 18.9 million are preparing to be back at work on New Year\'s Eve.
Among them are doctors, nurses, waiters, bar staff, shop assistants, ambulance drivers, vicars, charity workers, pilots, cleaners, journalists and radio DJs, police officers, call-centre workers and more. Not to mention the workforce entertaining families on Christmas breaks; Centre Parcs and Butlins were both up and running.
The Observer spoke to a few of those working on Friday. An ambulance technician in Blackpool who ate turkey in a hospital canteen; a priest in Oxford who led her service and entertained dozens of locals; a cabbie in London who helped to ensure her regulars got to spend the day with their relatives.
Then there was the Radio 1 DJ whose voice boomed into people\'s homes up and down the country before he rushed back to spend the day with his parents and nan, and the hospital consultant on intensive care, caring for some of the sickest people in the country. And we mustn\'t forget the work being carried on in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. For soldiers out there, a Christmas treat was a phone call to the family, a bit of television – and a proper lunch.
The troops
For the soldiers of the 1st Btn Coldstream Guards, Christmas was spent in Babaji, Helmand Province.
The guardsmen from No 2 Company are part of the Police Mentoring Team and since October have lived and worked alongside their Afghan police counterparts in a small, sparsely-equipped checkpoint. Contact with home – other than by letters, that can take weeks to arrive – is rare, and electricity, water and food are rationed.
Last week brought a respite from daily operations – but it was brief.
Guardsman Vincent Ngwira, 22, who is from Malawi but now lives in Chelmsford, Essex, said he enjoyed Friday. "Some of the officers and the regimental sergeant-major came down from HQ to take over our duties for the day. It\'s good that they showed their support like that. We got to phone our families, watch TV and even have a proper lunch." Ngwira added he enjoyed his job, but missed home – "especially watching football".
For guardsmen Mark Deakin and Danny Bradley, Christmas was a reminder that they were not with their children. Deakin missed his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter in Sheffield and Bradley his two-year-old son in Leicester.
"It was the first time I had spent Christmas away from my family," said Nathan Idonga, 24. "I missed the family Christmas spirit, but in a way I\'ve got another family here."
The platoon commander, Lt Rob Philp, 25, said that the past few weeks had been hard work, but that the soldiers felt they had achieved something worthwhile.
"A temporary school has opened near our checkpoint. They\'re building a new one and this one is in tents alongside the site," he said. "More than 150 children are attending each day, and it\'s something we\'ve enabled through our work alongside the police to provide security – it\'s hugely satisfying."
He added that the soldiers had all appreciated being relieved for the day: "It gave the boys a chance to relax a bit. Although none of us is with our families, working in such a small team brings you very close and it feels like a family – brothers in arms, if you like. These are the people you want to be with at this time of year if you can\'t be at home."
The vicar
It is perhaps no surprise that Rev Margreet Armitstead was working on Friday: Christmas Day is one of the busiest of the year for the Oxford priest. She woke up at 6.45am in her vicarage close to Littlemore Church, and spent some time with her husband and two teenage children.
By 9.15am Armitstead had made her way to the local school, where she opened up to allow a chef to start roasting the turkey for the annual community lunch. Later on they would serve a "big family meal" to more than 60 people. From there she quickly headed back to her church to start the Christmas service at 10am. Each member of the congregation was given a tiny cloth bag and asked to use their imagination to place their hopes for the next year, thanks for the last, or prayers for others into the bags. They then attached the white bags to a Christmas tree in the middle of the church.
"It looked beautiful," said Armitstead. "The tree was transformed into one of hope, thanksgiving and prayers.
"After the service it gets hectic," said Armitstead. The priest set up the community lunch in 2004 when she saw a message scrawled on a Chinese takeaway board. It read: "I had a horrible Christmas. We had a piece of toast and that is all we had." She wanted to make sure that no one in Littlemore felt alone at Christmas again. "It is simple: we had a big family meal prepared by a professional cook. There was turkey and all the trimmings and there was bingo, a raffle, Father Christmas and presents." There was also a piano, a bass guitar and a clarinet. As the group waited for deserts, they began belting out Christmas carols.
Afterwards Armitstead and her family headed back to their home and "just crashed out together". They opened presents, watched a film and played games in the vicarage\'s cosy living room filled with a Christmas tree, decorations and artwork. "Quite a few people look at the church with suspicion," said Armitstead. "But the lunch we do in community is one of the things that people really appreciate."
The ambulanceman
Colin and Joanne Jones woke up at six o\'clock on Christmas morning and began the day at their home in Fleetwood, Lancashire, with a cup of tea and some breakfast. There was no time for anything else because Jones, 28, had to be at his ambulance station soon after 7am to start a 12-hour shift; 999 calls don\'t stop for Christmas. Jones and his colleague, a woman named Sam, had been given two vouchers to spend on a turkey dinner at a local hospital.
The first call came at 7.15am, the first of 12 emergencies that day. "It was very, very busy," said Jones, who is training to be a paramedic. During the day he attended to a patient vomiting blood, an elderly woman who had missed a step on a staircase and fallen, someone who had forgotten to collect their emergency medication for the holiday period and had run out, and a road traffic accident.
"We snuck the Christmas dinner in at about 2.30 or 3pm at Blackpool Victoria Hospital. We had 30 minutes to eat turkey with all the trimmings – pigs in blankets, roast potatoes, stuffing, carrots and sprouts with gravy." Jones tried to speak to his family between incidents. He had only two breaks – lunch and another for 20 minutes.
His wife spent the day with her parents. The last call came at 6.50pm – a 100-year-old man who lived alone was experiencing chest pain. "It was just another normal day in the ambulance service. Busier than expected – the casualty department at the hospital was bursting at the seams."
Jones did not finish till after 8pm – and went to his in-laws to pick up Joanne. The couple went back to their three-bedroom detached home, opened presents and watched a film.
For Christmas, Jones got some clothes vouchers, cufflinks, toiletries, chocolates and a "scratch card I didn\'t win on". After that he settled down with a can of beer and some snacks and zoned out as he watched The Grinch .
The doctor
On Christmas Day, two consultants, seven junior doctors and almost 40 nurses made their way to the intensive care unit at the Royal Brompton Hospital in west London. They were there to care for extremely ill patients, some of whom had just undergone major operations on their hearts and lungs. The ward is also coping with seriously ill swine flu patients.
The unit is only one of three in the country to offer ECMO, a technique that uses an artificial lung to oxygenate the blood outside the body in patients with the most acute respiratory problems.
On Friday, there were no limits on visiting hours. Families, some of whom had travelled long distances, stayed close to their loved ones and ate Christmas lunch provided by the nurses.
Less than 20 minutes away, Dr Simon Finney, an adult intensive care consultant, pictured, said goodbye to his wife and 10-month old son and headed out to work before 7am. He was to be on call until Tuesday morning.
Christmas morning began with a ward round. Staffing levels have been increased because of a second spike in swine flu cases. "We haven\'t really looked after so many people who are all so sick," said Finney. But he managed to get to his in-laws in the middle of the day, where he had Christmas lunch and opened presents. He left again at 6pm and stayed at the hospital until midnight.
The DJ
Greg James\'s alarm went off at 4.45am on Christmas Day. The 24-year-old Radio 1 DJ had gone to his parents\' house in Bishop\'s Stortford, Hertfordshire, the day before, but, having volunteered to work, he needed to be back in central London before 6am. The night before had been spent in a pub with a group of friends – but James made sure he was in bed by just after midnight.
By the time he was on air he sounded bright and excited: "I like being on radio at Christmas. Everyone is in a good mood and you can get away with a bit of mischief."
Back in Hertfordshire, his family was waking up. His dad, Alan, turned on the radio as he began to prepare the turkey. James had decided that this year the entire four-hour show would be dedicated to Christmas songs. "There aren\'t enough of them to fill the whole show, so all the big hits that we played in the first hour – the Pogues, Mariah Carey, Slade and so on – were repeated in the final hour as we thought different people would be listening," he said.
During the show he called other Radio 1 DJs to see if they were listening – without much luck. Dominic Byrne said he had already changed two nappies that morning and Fearne Cotton said her mother was listening to Christmas carols instead.
Radio 1\'s offices in Broadcasting House were virtually empty apart from James, his producer and assistant producer. To feel a little more Christmassy, they moved into the only studio with any decorations: "A Christmas tree and a bit of tinsel."
But the DJ didn\'t miss too much of the family celebration. He was off air at 10am and back in his parents\' house before midday. From then on it was lots of relatives, presents, turkey, cava, board games and the Queen\'s Speech.
The taxi driver
There was never any question that Helen Saunders would be working over Christmas. Her taxi company – Lady MiniCabs, based in Archway, north London – was inundated with people needing to be transported around the capital. Saunders owns the company, answers the phones and drives.
On Christmas Day, she was up before 7am. With no time for breakfast, her husband packed her a bag of nuts, some sweets and a bottle of water. It was another four jobs before she was able to take a break.
First on the list was driving a woman to work at a laboratory at University College London. From there, Saunders took a passenger to Heathrow to catch a flight to visit her family in Geneva; then to Hatfield, Hertfordshire, to pick up a man in a wheelchair and drive him to Islington, north London, for lunch with his sister. "He was most perturbed because she was a vegetarian and was going to make nut roast," said Saunders, laughing. Then she took a regular customer from Muswell Hill to a nearby cemetery to visit her sister\'s grave.
"After four jobs, I went home for lunch," she said. "I was cooked roast beef by my vegetarian husband. It was the two of us for a couple of hours. We didn\'t have any crackers. We had a glass of water each and watched the Queen." Saunders then took the man from Hatfield home. After that, she saw a friend "in need of a hug" before heading to Hackney to pick up a woman in her 80s from her daughter\'s home and drive her back to near Reading.
Lady MiniCabs was set up 30 years ago for women who felt safer with female drivers. But as licensing laws were strengthened, they decided to also take on men, both as drivers and passengers. However, Saunders makes sure that the focus is still on vulnerable customers who need support. In her last job on Christmas Day, she took the elderly woman into her home, switched on the heating and put the kettle on.
"I enjoy working Christmas Day," she said. "If I didn\'t do that, those people – the disabled gentleman, the elderly lady, the woman heading to Geneva – would not have got to spend the day with their families."
As for her lost Christmas, that will happen on New Year\'s Day, when she hosts lunch for her family.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2[...]hristmas-just-another-work-day
