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Family Fortunes: The year the turkey arrived alive

‘If I hold the turkey tightly, will you strangle it?’ my father asked my mother optimistically

Photograph: Thinkstock

Catherine Clancy
Thu Dec 17 2015 - 11:00

December 22nd heralded the arrival of the turkey. My grandmother would have dispatched the moribund bird by train, plucked, head off, innards intact and with a label around its neck.

This continued until my grandmother’s death. My Auntie B then took over the role. She was not as organised as granny. She lived in Timperley, England. If she heard that someone was travelling to Dublin the week before Christmas, she would give them the turkey and ask them to ring my parents and tell them where to pick it up. We had no car and would have to travel by bus to collect it.

One year she was even more disorganised than usual. The Sunday before Christmas, there was a knock at the door. It was very late, and my sister and I could hear the commotion downstairs but were too sleepy to investigate.

Next morning we arrived downstairs to find a box in the sitting room with a live turkey inside. My father was handling the situation very well. “May [our mother], if I hold the turkey tightly, will you strangle it?”

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My mother, in no uncertain terms, told him she would do no such thing. My sister and I left for work. When we arrived home all was quiet; no sign of the turkey. Our mother was delighted to tell us of her great idea. She had spotted the dog’s lead, tied it around the middle of the turkey and dragged it over Harold’s Cross bridge to our local butcher, who had agreed to kill it and store it until needed.

We were horrified. Had anyone seen her? She said she had pulled a scarf down around her face and just waved at the honkers and cat-callers. Until 2001 when Auntie B died, there were more challenging deliveries, but no turkey ever arrived alive again. Her daughter later took on the role, but she started in the same vein as her mother, so I now go to my local butcher.

These are happy memories, but at this time of the year they also a bit sad, as all the main players in this story have died.

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