Tales of Christmas past from 100 years of our newspaper archives

1921

A religious revival had swept through the fishing towns and villages of the north east coast of Scotland where many folk were sitting on the hillsides at night awaiting the crack of doom, and fishermen had cancelled wholesale policies on their boats.

Locally and nationally supply of turkeys was unequal to demand, and prices were soaring to as much as 3s. 6d. (18p) a pound in London. But geese, ducks, chickens, and game were more plentiful.

These were times of industrial depression and there were still workhouses, which joined in the festivities. At Wednesfield workhouse, for instance, the Christmas dinner was of roast beef and plum pudding, sweets and fruit, and in the evening of Christmas Day there was cinema entertainment thanks to a link up with the Picture House and Coliseum.

1931

They played league football on Christmas Day back then and Wolves travelled to Old Trafford where they were on the receiving end of an unexpected setback in their bid for promotion, losing 3-2 against Manchester United. Attendance was a record gate for the season of 33,000. Wolves were second in the Division Two table, behind Leeds United – Man U were in the lower half.

These too were tough times, and thanks to the generosity of Express & Star readers to the appeal by Quaestor, one of the columnists, Christmas toys had been distributed to poor children in the Black Country as well as further afield, such as Shrewsbury, Cannock, and Wellington.

A car carrying Father Christmas and a load of toys went to poorer parts of towns, much to the children's delight. At some houses plum puddings were left.

Touring around Wolverhampton, in several instances in which children with ragged and threadbare clothes were seen playing in the street, the Star van stopped, and new clothes were taken out and fitted on the youngsters before the vehicle drove on again. If such a thing happened today there would probably be arrests.

In Shropshire the community of St Georges got an early Christmas present on December 22, with the opening of a bypass, sparing the village from the increasing amount of traffic going along the London to Holyhead trunk road.

1941

The war was on and this was probably the grimmest wartime Christmas of the lot with a series of staggering naval setbacks.

In a period of just a few days, the Royal Navy lost four battleships and a battlecruiser, starting with the torpedoing of HMS Barham in the Mediterranean on November 25. Then, on December 10, HMS Prince of Wales, one of the navy's newest battleships, along with the battlecruiser HMS Repulse, were sunk by Japanese aircraft off Malaya.

There was a further disaster on December 19 when the battleships HMS Valiant and HMS Queen Elizabeth were sunk in harbour by Italian frogmen, although in shallow water they settled on the bottom and were salvaged. Their plight and the loss of the Barham was suppressed.

In the Far East the news was uniformly bad with Hong Kong surrendering to the Japanese on Christmas Day.

Away from the war, panto audiences at the Grand Theatre in Wolverhampton were able to see someone reputed to be the oldest living stage artist in the world, 97-year-old Johnny Watson, who was appearing in Babes in the Wood, in which he had a dog act. He was so old that he was said to be the only living artist to have appeared before Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace.

Over in America Al Jennings, a reformed gunslinger who claimed to have been the fastest gun in the West, died at the age of 98 on Boxing Day.

1951

Dudley Hippodrome made history of sorts on December 22 when a BBC team arrived at the performance of Cinderella in the first case of a panto being televised live from a provincial theatre.

These were still days of post-war rationing, and it was reported that more people than ever in the West Midlands were deserting the traditional Christmas at home by the fireside, with hotels and guest houses reporting the busiest Christmas rush for years.

Hotels in large towns and country districts alike had been forced to turn away hundreds of applications for accommodation on Christmas Day.

In Korea, there were continuing truce talks, but Communist negotiators rejected United Nations pleas for an immediate exchange of sick and wounded prisoners and the conflict dragged on. It was not until July 1953 that an armistice agreement would be signed.

A young Dudley lad was making a name for himself in the world of football. Duncan Edwards had already won five junior international caps and was about to make his first appearance in a Birmingham and district schoolboys team.

1961

Brrr... It was a cold one – one of the coldest Christmases for years.

With Arctic conditions it was the coldest Yuletide spell at RAF Shawbury met office since it was opened in 1943, and the River Severn was frozen over long stretches for the first time since 1947, although only the swans found the ice thick enough to skate upon.

On Christmas Day the maximum temperature was freezing point, and the minimum temperature minus eight Celsius. Wolverhampton reported its coldest Christmas period for 17 years.

One consequence, which is less often seen these days where so many people have central heating, is that plumbers were very busy dealing with burst pipes.

In the run-up to Christmas Shropshire's Chief Constable, Douglas Osmond, issued a message which is as relevant today – "Don't have 'one for the road.'" It came as it seemed that 1961 might see the county suffer its highest number of road fatalities ever.

1971

Now... who were the guests on the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show broadcast on BBC 1 at 8pm on Christmas Day? It was one of their legendary shows with a star-studded line-up of Shirley Bassey, Glenda Jackson, Andre Previn, Francis Matthews, Patrick Moore, Michael Parkinson and Eddie Waring.

Prince Philip had got in a bit of hot water – but what was new? – for suggesting that people could be taxed for having babies, which he said would keep down the population.

There was an almost daily dose of bad news from strife-torn Northern Ireland, with killings and bombings.

A group of Labour MPs were calling for Tory Prime Minister Ted Heath to sack the Education Minister, one Margaret Thatcher, for her "reactionary" policies towards school milk and meals, direct grant schools, student unions, and for the neglect of secondary school rebuilding.

The Bear Hotel at Hodnet reopened after alterations on December 23 with two very special additions – imported baby Malayan sun bears to mingle with the customers. Sadly the bears both soon died, the rumour being that they died of alcohol poisoning as regulars gave them beer and food.

Despite increasing sales of artificial Christmas trees, the old-fashioned, needle-shedding real thing was reportedly more popular than ever, with George Wickstead of Prees selling 2,000 compared with only 300 in 1970.

1981

That thing you've been dreaming of, just like the ones we used to know... Yes, it was a white Christmas.

Now we can't give you exact local details, because the Star was on a break from Christmas Eve to December 28, but information from the Met Office confirms there was a widespread white Christmas across the UK, including in the Midlands, with only south west England and Northern Ireland missing out.

In any event the region had seen the coldest December since 1890, with a combination of cold and snow not exceeded since 1878, and there would be more to come in the new year, with Edgmond seeing the lowest temperature ever recorded in England of minus 26.1C, that's minus 15F, on January 10, 1982.

Just before Christmas there was a terrible disaster when the eight-strong crew of Cornwall's Penlee lifeboat died in trying to rescue the crew of the cargo vessel the Union Star which was in difficulty in terrible conditions. All eight on the Union Star also perished.

The Princess of Wales, rapidly becoming a fashion icon, set the fashion accessory business in a spin by wearing a Doctor Shivago-style coat, burgundy leather boots, and furry muff on a snowy royal visit.

And after Christmas came the sales, including a sale lunch at Rackhams in Shrewsbury of, all for just £1.50, soup or fruit juice, salad with ham, cheese or egg and a hot jacket potato, fresh cream trifle, and a Rackhams coffee with cream to round it off.

1991

The Soviet Union passed into history. The bloc collapsed, with 11 of the former Soviet republics establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States.

On Christmas Day Mikhail Gorbachev announced his resignation as president of the Soviet Union, and made a farewell speech.

On the domestic financial front, the pound hit its lowest level since Britain joined the European exchange rate mechanism, which was a sort of preliminary step on the journey to the Euro, although Britain pulled out of the ERM in 1992 and never did join the Euro.

The interest rate in the UK was running at 10.5 per cent.

Telford church leaders united to criticise a "deplorable" increase in Sunday trading and called on the Government to step in and penalise those who "try to flout the law." It should be a day of relaxation and a special day for worship, they said.

2001

Pop superstar Robbie Williams celebrated a double Christmas triumph, beating off a spirited challenge from pub crooner Gordon Haskell to claim the coveted Christmas number one spot with Somethin' Stupid, in which he was accompanied by Nicole Kidman. Robbie also held on to the top spot in the album chart with Swing When You're Winning.

Only Fools and Horses, the classic BBC1 comedy series, was the clear winner in the Christmas ratings war. Unofficial estimates pointed to 20.3. million viewers tuning in to see the return after five years away of Del Boy and Rodney compared with 12 million attracted by ITV1's top programme, the soap Coronation Street.

On a more serious note a Briton was charged with trying to blow up an airliner on an transatlantic flight with bombs hidden in his shoes. Shoe bomber Richard Reid was subsequently jailed for life without parole.

There was a wave of last minute panic buying of Christmas presents, with 9,000 people walking through the door of Telford shopping centre in the first 15 minutes of trading on Christmas Eve.

Meanwhile Harry Potter author JK Rowling was reported to have conjured up the conclusion to her world-beating series of books about the teenage wizard.

2011

Queues of bargain hunters formed outside Next shops in Telford and Wolverhampton from well before dawn on Boxing Day, which was a Monday.

And in a sign of changing times Argos, John Lewis, and Marks & Spencer were among stores which had started their sales online as early as Christmas Eve.

The Duchess of Cambridge was the centre of attention as thousands watched members of the Royal Family attend the Christmas church service at Sandringham, with police saying scenes were reminiscent of "Diana days." It was Kate's first Christmas as a member of the royal family.

Less happily, in his most serious health scare to date, Prince Philip spent Christmas in Papworth Hospital, near Cambridge, being treated for a blocked coronary artery, but was said by Buckingham Palace to be in good spirits.

Christmas Day was unseasonably mild, with temperatures across the country ranging from 9C, at Carterhouse in the Scottish borders, to as high as 14.5C in Aberdeen, making it close to the warmest Christmas Day on record – that was 15.6C (60F) recorded on December 25 in both 1896 and 1920.