a toast

Alison Uttley wrote a series of children’s books about Little Grey Rabbit, Squirrel and Hare.

They came in square pale grey slender hardbacks and my mother approved of the degree to which the animals were rendered cosy for children, in other words still recognizable as animals, for example, she remarked on Hare’s frock coat.    And it was Hare who proposed a toast  – “ old friends to meet, old wood to burn, old wine to drink.”   Which for some reason stuck with me. 

I could understand that you were supposed to keep friends so I could see that old friends would be important.  I couldn’t get my head round old wood.  Our wood (coal fires) came in small handy cords from the grocer.  I don’t remember having much of it to hand and if there was it was in the  coal hole, not piled up  – we never kept it long enough.  I learned later that old wood burns better .  And I knew nothing about wine,

except it featured in some stories, in glasses or special bottles.

Over time I learned it was a Scottish toast and it says a lot in a few words.  We think of catching up  at Christmas, hence the cards  if not the meeting.  But friendship is no more static than anything else.   Who you stay friends with, why and what changes is a book subject. 

Old wood to burn could also refer to the rubbish, the stuff you’re always promising yourself to deal with, the habits that one year you just can’t keep to – it’s not the same, you don’t want to pretend.  You make different arrangements, or none.

And I appreciate wine but I can’t tell you I have ever gone out vintage hunting except  for somebody else ( and only two of them).

But the toast lingered – like a sort of promise to the future.  That if you went back and met old friends , some of them might offer you something they couldn’t offer if they hadn’t known you when  …  and perhaps seen it just the same or totally differently or forgotten all about it and remembered something else.  Memory is as variable as the weather. 

And there is an edge to meeting old friends with whom you have not kept in regular contact.  Time passes, things happen, you may change, they may change .   And the hymn to keeping it all the same is unreliable.

The fact that “old wood to burn” comes next suggests to me that sometimes you can’t go back.  Whatever it is, it’s done and change cannot be ignored.  It has happened.  You may make one sentimental meeting but you feel you can’t make, indeed, don’t want another.  

And if I think of burning old stuff, I think of Pam the Painter, a world class exponent of “let’s just keep it in case” who went through files, her wardrobes, the kitchen shed at intervals this year and reported cheerfully how much better she felt  because she knew what she had and  -= most importantly – why she had kept it.   It was no longer “I can’t throw it away”, it was “do I need to keep it ?”

That business about “throwing everything out, clean sweep”

has mostly made me shy away.  You can’t.  You keep things for a variety of reasons including what I taught myself to ask “Am I ready to get rid of this? “   It took years to shed unsuccessful writing projects, no use to man or beast, nobody is going to give me a series at  80.    But the very pages resisted… till they didn’t.

I am the greatest exponent of keeping what you keep ie no logic in that except for you but what I have kept is reduced.  I do believe in getting rid and moving on.   I don’t want to leave a stuffed house that my executors have to rake through and will only dump when I am gone.  Burn the old wood, as you can.  That’s what it’s for, to give you space or light, to keep you warm.

Which leaves me with old wine to drink.  I think I would prefer nice wine to drink, cheaper, more accessible and a matter of personal taste – like everything else in this world. Here’s to you.   Or raise a glass to the past, and those no longer with you.