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Residents’ JouRnal

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Residents’ JouRnal

MERRYVERY

With the big day just round the corner, the Residents’ Journal caught up with

some familiar local faces about their festive memories and traditions

We will be spending Christmas at home in Barnes this year – we have a new house so it will be really exciting to spend our first Christmas

there. We always have a large Christmas tree and we do everything the traditional way; I love making the Christmas cake and pudding and

will be putting everything into the mixing bowl shortly. My mother is Polish and so we follow the Polish tradition of opening presents when the first star appears on Christmas Eve, then everyone gets a stocking, which is opened on Christmas Day. I prefer to go to Midnight Mass on

Christmas Eve, I love the nine carols and nine lessons service as it gives everyone the opportunity to sing loudly to

all their favourite carols.

NICola HorlICk, INvEstMENt FuND MaNagEr, FIlM DEvEloPEr

aND oWNEr oF gEorgINa’s rEstauraNt IN BarNEs

(gEorgINasrEstauraNts.Co.uk)

Tom: Every Christmas Eve I meet up with some old school friends from Hampton for a drink and then every Boxing Day, as a family, we go to the races at kempton. Christmas Day we usually eat at home but recently we went to the Wharf restaurant in teddington.

Philip: It’s funny because you always think you do something really interesting at Christmas but when you look at it like this in written form, you realise you don’t.

Tom: We always have champagne on Christmas morning, with blinis.

Philip: and obviously, being wine-orientated, we tend to start fishing out some decent bottles. We opened a magnum last year – but not a ridiculously expensive one. We’ve got another one ready for Christmas dinner this year!

For a musician, the festive season conjures many special associations. I’m no exception: more than anything it’s the music of Christmas which defines this part of the year. so for me, the special spirit and atmosphere of advent is most fully articulated

by our rich carol tradition, a unique heritage which finds its most perfect expression in the annual broadcast from king’s College, Cambridge. on Christmas Day itself, I’ll be with my family, sir thomas Beecham’s splendidly old-fashioned recording of Handle’s Messiah providing the soundtrack as we get stuck in to the food preparation. at some point, in a quietly reflective moment, I’ll sit at the piano and play through John Ireland’s beautifully little miniature The Holy Boy – a personal, seasonal tradition I’ve honoured for more years now than I care to remember.

sIMoN FErrIs, MusICal DIrECtor tHaMEs YoutH orCHEstra (tHaMEsYoutHorCHEstra.Co.uk)

toM aND PHIlIP gEarINg, Co-DIrECtors oF Cult WINEs (WINEINvEstMENt.CoM). lEarN aBout tHE PErFECt FEstIvE WINEs IN our FEaturE oN P. 18

Left: Tom GearingRight: Philip Gearing

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Residents’ JouRnal

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I am very lucky that some of my family are close by and I often

spend Christmas with my children and grandchildren. rather than stockings for the children, we have a treasure hunt with different wrapping colours for each of our four granddaughters. We can’t do this for

our two grandsons as that part of the family live in vancouver, so a skype session is now

part of Christmas for us. When it comes to food, we are totally traditional: turkey and trimmings, Christmas pudding and

maybe a long walk afterwards if it is a fine day. We’re so lucky in south west london to have green spaces so close by such as

richmond Park and Marble Hill, and then, of course, there is always the wonderful

river and the view from richmond Hill, as lovely now as it was 200 years ago, when

J.M.W. turner captured its beauty.

CatHErINE ParrY-WINgFIElD CHaIrMaN, turNEr’s HousE trust (turNErINtWICkENHaM.org.uk)

Christmas for me is all about family. I particularly love when we spend Christmas together with both my family and my

husband’s family in the south of sweden. an incredibly

charming wooden house in the middle of the forest with traditional swedish candle lights in every window, lots of homemade, hearty food

and the children’s delight at meeting santa – it doesn’t

get any better. When it comes to presents, I think about

what each person may love throughout the winter until I find the perfect match: from personalised cufflinks, to a vintage vase or one of my brand Milli Millu’s limited

edition bags. I think the search is as important as the find.

MIrEIa llusIa-lINDH FouNDEr oF MIllI MIllu

(MIllIMIllu.CoM)

I can divide Christmas in south west london into two distinct parts: pre-

kids and post-kids! Pre-kids, I was working in the West End for a glossy magazine

publisher and it seemed the festive whirl of parties and lunches started earlier and earlier every year. Weekends were a time

to recover from weekday excess and I used to book the Brasserie on Bellevue

road (I’m showing my age!) for long girly Christmas lunches after aerobics at Holmes Place in Wimbledon and a pamper at the lemon tree on Webbs road. For New Year, we’d really push

the boat out and would usually head off to Chez Bruce without ever having to

worry about a babysitter or a highchair. Post-kids and I still seem to spend the

weekend recovering from excesses, but now it’s the two legged variety rather than the legless sort. Christmas shopping starts early and I love to make the most of the numerous fairs that take place. I think

that we do this village shopping thing so well. We usually pick up our tree from

my daughter’s school. the turkey will be from Cleavers and most of the tasteful decorations I’ve found on Northcote

road will be drowned in the tinsel that my children have bought from a Pound shop. We’ll try and catch the panto in

Wimbledon (Mr NappyvalleyNet still talks about Pamela anderson and her turn in

Aladdin) and by the time the 25th actually arrives, I’m shattered after all the school

parties and nativity plays.

susaN HaNagE (aka. aNNaBEl) FouNDEr oF NaPPY vallEY NEt

(NaPPYvallEYNEt.CoM)

My mother is spanish and our family probably single-handedly keeps the spanish food export

market afloat. Christmas is a special time because a superabundance of traditional, delicious spanish

sugar delights become available. our favourites include little shaped marzipans, the almond-paste

turrones and, of course, polvorones, a diet of which we were practically raised on. I shouldn’t tell you what they’re made of as you’d never try them but I promise they taste of happy tears of angels (pig fat). Whenever I go back to my mother’s place near Christmas, every cupboard and drawer I

open has been rammed full of boxes of Iberican confectionary. that’s when I get that warm feeling

inside, a combination of knowing Christmas is round the corner and my stomach wincing at the

memory of how much I ate last year.

IDIl sukaN, CrEatIvE DIrECtor aND lEaD PHotograPHEr oF DraW HQ

(IDIlsukaN.CoM)

When I was nine years old, my family emigrated to south africa. From then

on, Christmas Day was spent on the beach, but we still had turkey with all the trimmings at the end of the day! one of the things I missed most was the excitement of Christmas shopping on a cold, dark afternoon with the lights twinkling in

the shop windows – something I still love.

kIrstY rIDDIForD, autHor (kIrstYrIDDIForDBooks.CoM)

We’ve got a family home in snowdonia, so we go up there at Christmas – it’s really special. the year before last, when it was a really snowy Christmas, it was hellish getting up to the house as it’s at the end of a steep single-track road – one time we got stuck halfway up with my nana in the backseat. once you’re up there though it’s beautiful – there are icicles that hang from the gutters all the way to the floor. our Christmases usually involve a lot of eating and drinking; we have a family friend from Norway who introduced us to a form of mulled wine called gløgg – it’s red wine, vermouth, vodka, raisins and almonds, plus a bit of blackcurrant cordial. You heat it all together, line a sieve with sugar cubes, and set fire to the alcohol as you pour it through the sugar. Having a glass of that is the first thing we do on Christmas morning. katE HoPWooD, JEWEllErY DEsIgNEr aND oWNEr oF katE HoPWooD JEWEllErY (katEHoPWooDJEWEllErY.CoM) to lEarN MorE aBout katE aND HEr Work, sEE our INtErvIEW WItH HEr oN P. 23

Christmas is a very important time of year for me. as a child, I remember my grandma visiting on Christmas

Day and I would help her to prepare the Christmas dinner. For me, this was more fun than opening the presents. It still excites me now when I am surrounded by all of my family and I prepare and cook a full festive dinner. the meal is always far too big and features the same ingredients every year: traditional turkey stuffed with sausage meat, Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, parsnips, brussels sprouts, carrots and sausages wrapped in bacon. this year is even more special,

as I will be serving my first Christmas lunch at the Bingham – you cannot beat a classic Christmas meal for bringing people together.

Mark JarvIs, HEaD CHEF at tHE BINgHaM IN rICHMoND (tHEBINgHaM.Co.uk)

as tolD to Jennifer Mason