YESTERDAY, David Valentine Butler spent his 103rd Christmas with his family at his home in Ritches, Manchester, but it was nothing compared to Christmas he spent as a child, some 100 years ago.

Butler recently painted a vivid picture of those days for the Sunday Observer; the sound of drums back then as community members sang carols. He spoke of the parched chocolate that would eventually become that traditional rich morning beverage — complete with oil on top. He recounted the saliva-inducing scent of roasted meat, especially the hanging corned pork being smoked above the wood fire, and everyone bristling with excitement!

“Christmas was really Christmas (then),” he said. “We had a big Christmas breakfast and it was the type of breakfast you had only once a year. We used to parch and beat chocolate and we had chocolate tea. We used to have yam and fry dumpling with liver from the animal that was killed. We had chocolate tea while the big people dem drink coffee.”

“We used to sing carol from one end of the district to the next and beat drums Christmas morning,” he recalled. “After that we would go to our different churches to have service.”

Then, come Boxing Day, he recounted that persons would bring out the rum, wine and sodas while they attended the annual quadrille dance. Quadrille was a dance for four or more couples in a square. Because there was no sound system, the drums would reverberate in the air and mingle with the sound of guitars and banjos.

“We used to pick up rat-cut coffee and ginger and wash and dry them, weight them; and Grand Market day — or maybe two or three days before, we collect we quattie (money),” Butler recalled. He explained that Ritches was known for its coffee, ginger and sugar cane and that the selling of this produce was how many in his community made their living.

However, the money he collected from selling these goods was given to his parents who would in turn spend it on food for Christmas.

“Wi parents would take it and buy bread and we would get a sweetie out of it,” he recalled.

And back then, the popular Grand Market celebrated on Christmas Eve was only attended by adults.

“Only big people could go to Grand Market and pickney would have to leave off the streets by the time it ‘dusting up’,” he recalled. “But they (children) could attend the quadrille dance.”

Quadrille dance, he said, was very popular but was usually the scene of a number of fights.

“Nigga man get drunk and fight and always cut up dem one another,” he said, noting that today’s violence is nothing new.

But one of his favourite days for the season was ‘killing day’. This was always the day before Grand Market and families would kill cows, goats, pigs and/or chickens for Christmas morning, as no form of killing was allowed on Christmas Day.

Because there was no electricity back then to refrigerate the meat, Butler explained that meats were salted (corned) and seasoned on killing day, roasted on Grand Market day and would be stored like this for Christmas and Boxing Day.

“They would clean the tripe (intestines) and hang them over a smoke fire and this would cure (preserve) it. This could last up to two weeks,” Butler explained. “This was known as Creng Creng.” He further explained that the dried tripe got its name because it became so brittle when smoked that this was the sound it made when a piece was placed in one’s mouth.

Then there was what he called sweet oil, extracted from around the kidney of the cow and said to be very rich.

Butler also recalled his days of boiling wet sugar, walking from his community to Mandeville some 18 miles away and the ginger-peeling competition, done while preparing the produce for export.

Butler’s son, Ken, explained that despite his father’s age, his mind was still very sharp and he did not suffer from the usual ailments associated with age, such as diabetes or hypertension. He said his father, despite having to be propped up in an arm chair, and who is now unable to walk on his own, only takes Tylenol when his joints ache.

Butler has 13 children, however, three predeceased him. He is the only one left of his seven brothers and sisters. His mother died when he was only 12 years old, and his father passed away in the ’70s on his 100th birthday.

Butler, a Christian who has attended the Ritches Moravian church for over 50 years, declared proudly that his long life is due to three things.

“First of all, it’s being obedient to parents and teachers, then it’s having faith in God, and the third one is early to sleep,” he said.

Butler, who was a district constable at the Spaulding Police Station for many years, said when he was a child, things were much better than they are today and Christmas was more fun than it is now.

“Children had manners,” he declared. “You think you could see two big people sitting and a child pass and don’t seh morning? That was the time when people would catch you and flog you, and if they go home and talk they would get another one on top of it!” he declared. “You never had lights, running water nor inside toilets, but children grew with better manners.” He added, however, that parents cared more about the girls than they did the boys, as the boys were the ones given the hard chores.

“The boys carry water, look wood, clean house, feed animals — all different things,” said he. “Nowadays mothers let their children listen to all sorts of music and don’t grow them up in the church.”