Co-operative Christmas

The first signs of Christmas

would appear around

a damp or frosty Rememberance Day,

when the Co-op window

dismantled their display of

salmon-pink electric blankets

and non-stick irons

and Phillips transistor radios,

and became a Santa’s grotto filled

with fairy dolls that talked

like Daleks

when you pulled a string,

and Etch-a-Sketches and Monopoly boards

and The Broons Book

or the Oor Wullie Annual,

- depending on the year.

On countless of those

dreich November Sundays

we raced the Boys Brigade Band

and the old men wearing hats

and blood-red poppies,

from the Colville Hall

to the War Memorial.

We would beat them for a while,

and rest at the Co-op window,

frozen noses flat

against steamed-up glass,

forgetting all about

nameless dead soldiers

and the day it was,

as the band passed us

loudly by.