Just over a year ago I experienced something novel and unwelcome.

I was taking part in a Saturday 5k Parkrun in Co Down. I had come to a steep section of the course and found myself slowing down dramatically. Then, for just a few seconds, I stopped jogging and began walking.

I don’t recall that I made a decision to cease running, it seemed more to be an acceptance from my legs that they just couldn’t do what I was asking of them. As the course flattened out, I gathered myself and resumed a tortuous slow trot.

Later, I reached the finish line where my son, who had completed the course at a faster pace, was waiting for me. I had recorded a time outside of 34 minutes.

I know this is a personal and relative matter. There are many people who would be delighted to run a 5k at all, never mind in 34 minutes. For me, the truth is that there was a point where I could run the distance in 19 minutes. It had never before taken me this amount of time, and I had certainly never previously had to walk. In my 50s, it seemed clear I was showing undeniable signs of deterioration.

My son attempted to console me as I wallowed in self-pity at the end. I found I was struggling to accept what should have been obvious to a man in his 50s. I just can’t do it the way I once could. I became slightly emotional as I wailed that I was now just a ‘fat old man’.

When the tears had dried and the moment of melodrama had passed, I thought a lot about what had happened. I was obviously not the first middle-aged male to become despondent at the signs of physical decline.

It seemed to me that I had reached a crossroads. With the lifestyle I had, the current destination seemed clear. It would be easy to simply accept the signs of ageing and the additional weight I was putting on and settle into a more pedestrian pace of life.

I was even asked by a friend if I wanted to join a walking football club. I went along to watch a match where the men ambled gently across the pitch. But I couldn’t silence the voice in my head which kept saying ‘not yet’.

The choice was clear. Do I want to walk, or do I want to run? Deep inside, I knew that I still wanted to run.

I was aware this would be the harder road because it would involve change. I needed a target to work as motivation. I know that I will never run a 5k in under 20 minutes again, but I was curious to see if I could go under 25 minutes. I had not run that fast in years. The difference between 34 and 25 minutes for 5000m seemed vast at my age. Nonetheless, I told those around me that that was what I wanted to do.

The problem is the gradient becomes much steeper when you are older. In my 20s or 30s, I was still improving physically and the amount of work needed to assist that change was less. Now, I am regressing and the level of activity required to make a minor positive alteration is so much more. Simply put, I have to do a heck of a lot of training for small reward.

I was assisted, as in all things, by my family. My son and brother love to run. My wife joined in the crusade to improve our fitness. We set a programme of midweek training runs and I joined a Pilates class. We also created a Parkrun group and set out to complete a different course each Saturday morning. After the run, we would go for breakfast and share stories and laughs. A key part of ensuring the project had any chance to success was to make it fun.

Over the months, the improvement slowly came. While I was running sub-30 minutes again, going under 25 still seemed a distant aspiration. I felt that a more dramatic change of lifestyle was required.

While I was training, I was aware that my weight was not reducing as I had hoped. It is hard to run 5k fast when you are carrying a spare tyre around your midriff. There is little point spending your mornings pounding the pavements, if you are spending the evenings gorging on crisps and chocolate.

This is difficult for me as I have an addictive relationship with food, and particularly with junk food. From experience, I know there is not much hope in trying to moderate the intake. If I take a little, I will invariably end up taking a lot. The only solution is to cut out sweet stuff entirely. I set a rule that I would eat nothing after dinner.

The runs kept coming and I kept chipping away at my time. It was not all smooth progress and there were plenty of setbacks which left me doubtful I would ever reach the goal.

And then, on Saturday, I did the Newry Parkrun. Halfway through, I sensed I was not tiring as so often before. I managed to maintain my pace and burst through the finish line in 24 minutes and 37 seconds. I had not run a faster 5k in a decade.

Once more, my son was waiting for me at the finish line and, once more, I became emotional.

‘I’m not a fat old man any more,’ I gasped.

‘No Daddy. Now you’re a fast old man.’

When you reach a target there is reflection. After all the hard work, there is the temptation to relax, to fall back to the old ways.

The other path is to keep on running with the support of my family; see how fast I can go and how long I can defy the inevitable process of getting older and slower.

That’s the road for me.

By the end, the drive down the A1 came to be almost as familiar as the road to my own house.

Past Dromore, past Banbridge, past the sign for the Dromantine monastery; turn off left and go through the big roundabout. Past the police station and then Tesco, turn right and pull into the large carpark opposite Newry Courthouse.

Then the same routine every morning. Get the video camera out of the car boot, greet the police officers who I came to know, find a spot clinging to the metal barrier outside the steel security gate and then wait for the black Skoda to arrive at 0915.

It started during a heatwave. I got sunburnt waiting outside court on the second afternoon. Then we suffered days of rain where I struggled to keep my camera dry while the drops rolled down the back of my neck. By the conclusion, we were once again dealing with soaring temperatures.

After the arrivals, I would enter the courthouse, have my bag searched and then, even though I quickly came to be on first name terms with the court security staff, show my photographic ID. Then wait until we were summoned into Court 1.

I had the same spot every day on the back row of the wooden press bench. I am left-handed so like to sit on the far left so my writing arm is not bashing against other journalists in the cramped working space.

There were 10 journalists inside the court. Most organisations rotated their staff and others did not attend every day, so the actual number who were there throughout was much smaller. It seems like hundreds have written about the Jeffrey Donaldson trial, but there were just a few who actually endured it.

It is now more than two weeks since the verdicts were delivered. On the days which followed, I received several invites to do television or radio appearances, to tell people about what it had been like to be inside that courtroom. I turned them all down. Perhaps I was worried about saying the wrong thing; perhaps I just needed a rest from it.

In the weeks that the trial was going on, and since, I have had scores of people asking me about it. Nothing I have worked on in the three decades previously has generated anything close to the same amount of interest. People I have not heard from in years have suddenly got back in touch wanting to talk, to pick my brain for information. In the shops, while getting my hair cut, through a relentless slew of messages on my phone, there have been those constant requests to know what it was really like.

And I have proven to be a relentlessly disappointing conversationalist, sharing neither opinion nor colour. I have listened as multiple people have told me what they think; often it has been ill-informed and inaccurate, but I have refrained from giving anything back. I reported on every day of the court proceedings but have remained largely silent since.

Plenty of colleagues have told me that I need to write about what happened in court. Some have said I should consider a book. A small number have suggested it is my responsibility as a journalist to share. And still I have resisted.

It has taken time for the reasons for my reluctance to crystallise. Part of it is instinct. I naturally want to go against the grain. Everyone else is writing and talking about it, giving their opinion, so my preference is to look in a different direction. Even as I type this, I am battling against the strong conviction that I have nothing useful to contribute. To put it more bluntly, what I think is more or less irrelevant when set against the gravity of the subject matter.

But the sense of unease runs even deeper. I know that my account would inevitably delve into the personal experience of covering a trial which attracted unprecedented interest. Any detail of the challenges involved invariably seems to take the focus away from the evident trauma and suffering at the centre of all of this, and that makes me feel queasy.

I have thought about this a lot in the past three weeks. In truth, it has been difficult to think about much else. I am not sure it matters now, but I have done my best to reach an accommodation over what I am comfortable in sharing.

I am never a great sleeper, but I existed almost without sleep during the duration of the Donaldson trial. I found it difficult to mentally disentangle myself at evenings from what was going on during the day, and multiple glasses of red wine seemed not to help. On the odd occasions when I did doze off, I invariably woke up with a start, panicking that I had perhaps made a mistake in something I had written.

During the long sleepless hours, the detail of what was revealed in court kept coming back to me. The accounts of the two victims, their haunted expressions and evident continuing torment, were never far from my thoughts.

I thought a lot about the jury as well. These 12 strangers who I watched for 20 days across a small courtroom, who had been plucked from their everyday routines and given this crushing and disturbing responsibility of making the correct decision.

And, I am ashamed to admit, I worried about myself and the brittleness of my own mental health when surrounded with so much trauma. I was paid to do a job and I tried to do it to the best of my ability, but it would be dishonest not to concede that there is a personal cost.

Amid the almost unbearable tension of the final moments when the verdicts were delivered, it is difficult to remember much with certainty. But I clearly recall noticing the tremble in my own hand as I hit the key on my computer which would send the news around the world.

This article first appeared in the News Letter

It’s an unlikely and crude measuring stick, but I’ve always been able to tell something about my state of wellbeing from the scale of how much Christmas baking has been completed.

When I am calm and relaxed, I tend to bake. December is my favourite time to spend countless hours in the kitchen, listening to carols on my wee radio while mixing and kneading and watching steaming creations rise (or not) through the glass in the warm oven. It is something I look forward to.

When I am anxious or stressed, baking is one of the first things that falls away. I am not gifted at multi-tasking and need clarity of thought when measuring precise ingredients or working with dough.

This winter I have done almost no baking. Well, to be clear, I have made cakes and puddings, but that is the minimum that I expect of myself. I have made those items for as many years as I can remember in defiance of the logic that I know hardly anyone who likes Christmas cake or pudding. I regard it as close to an obligation.

What I mean is that I have done nothing extra. For the first time since my son was born I have been unable to find the time (so far) to make the mince pies for Santa. There are no golden cookies cooling, no steaming loaves resting and no yule logs dusted with icing sugar. There is no shortbread, focaccia, gingerbread, frosted buns or brownies. I do not have rows of little sausage rolls baked until the pastry is crisp and their intoxicating aroma fills the house and lures the family towards my kitchen.

The simple and blunt explanation for all of this is that I have been too busy. The schedule at work has been unrelenting and punishing and I’ve struggled to stay on top of it. There is a sense of desperate rush as I try to get as many tasks done as possible in the diminishing number of days left in this year. The balance of the scales in the formula of the labour which needs to be completed versus time left to do it never seems to be in my favour. At moments I have felt like a beleaguered James Stewart in It’s A Wonderful Life, as I’ve stumbled madly from one crisis to the next.

Another factor is how I react to this adversity. I live with the constant guilt that I am not doing enough, not organised or accomplished enough to balance it all out. My son has asked a couple of times when we are doing the mince pies and I have a low feeling as I have to keep knocking it back.

The feeling of disorder extends well beyond the kitchen. There are presents not bought and some of the items I have ordered online now seem unlikely to arrive in time. This leads to the additional horror of potentially having to plan a trip to the shops at a time when I know they will be horrendously busy. I shudder at the memory of going to Marks and Spencer last year on Christmas Eve and feeling that I would be lucky to escape those packed aisles with my sanity or life intact.

The sense of adversity around Christmas in 2025 seems to have taken on a life of its own. The opening bookend of my festive celebrations is usually attendance at the little village carol service to count down the lights on the tree being turned on. This December that event was more or less wiped out by a storm which brought fierce wind and horizontal driving rain.

Then there is the expected visit to the Christmas market where I will spend silly money on foot-long hot-dogs for my son and myself. A combination of the poor weather and my long working hours has made this family routine impossible also.

To summarise it all, I am a bit frazzled. I have no residual middle-aged male pride which prevents me from admitting that. Past issues with mental health have alerted me to the need for vigilance and the importance of being able to communicate it when I see the first signs of an equilibrium interruption.

The truth is that my own character has always been my enemy. Like the sponge, I absorb pressure but am not expert at finding an outlet for it. I think of the sleepless nights I have had recently, worrying about not having done enough, not given enough of myself to live up to the expectations of what a perfect family Christmas should be like.

Like Scrooge, I know that we all have our own ways of keeping Christmas and ideas of what it should be, but it definitely should not be like this. I have to find a way to let go of the stress. If the bar is set so high that I cannot manage to jump over, then the only choice is to go under it.

The presents may not be wonderful this year, the hampers more spartan than previously. There may not be the aroma of sausage rolls or freshly baked loaves in the kitchen. I may not be able to spend hours grating blocks of cocoa to create my special homemade drinking chocolate. It doesn’t matter.

Because the one thing that will not be in short supply in my own house or any of those I visit this Christmas will be love. As The Troggs, and to lesser effect Wet, Wet, Wet, sang, it will be all around. If there is a sensible Christmas message for me, perhaps it is to be thankful for what is already there.

On Christmas Eve night my wife, son and I will put on the festive pyjamas, light the fire, sip on drinking chocolate (shop bought?) and watch the Muppet Christmas Carol. It is my favourite time of the year and I can’t wait. It is more than enough.

Happy Christmas to everyone.

• First appeared in the News Letter

 

A long time ago, when I was a young and keen cub reporter, I was asked to take part in a live broadcast on the national BBC TV news.

This anecdote is of such vintage that I can’t even recall what the story was that I was supposed to speak about, though it was clearly something which had made headlines beyond our shores.

The bulletin was anchored from London and, in a time before laptops with cameras, I was asked to go to Broadcasting House in Belfast.

When I got there, I was taken to a room where a camera was pointed directly at my face and an earpiece fitted. Checks were carried out and then a countdown began until the moment when I would go live.

I started to become nervous. All of the facts and opinions I had rehearsed, popped and disappeared like bubbles in the breeze. The impersonal setting made it worse. I could hear the London studio, but I could not see it and was instead staring straight into a dark camera lens.

And then, with seconds to go before I was due to go live, my earpiece fell out. I froze and was in danger of being completely overwhelmed by panic. A calm producer came to my assistance, replaced the earpiece and moved away just before I heard a voice say, ‘And now we’re joined from Belfast by Jonny McCambridge….’

Everything after that is a blur. I am sure the clip exists in a big BBC vault somewhere, but I’ve never seen it and I’m fairly certain I don’t want to. I am merely thankful that it didn’t end up as an outtake on ‘It’ll be Alright on the Night’.

Since then I have become more used to doing broadcast. I’ve been on the radio often and made the occasional TV appearance. However, I can’t remember ever doing live TV again.

Part of this is because I have not been asked. I can’t prove it, but I suspect there is picture of my startled, blushing face from that bulletin years ago posted onto walls in BBC TV studios everywhere with the instruction ‘DO NOT BOOK THIS MAN!’

In addition, there are countless journalists, much more opinionated than I, who are available and can do a better job. My own particular shtick of the culchie who doesn’t really know what he thinks and just wants everybody to like him is never likely to translate into current affairs TV gold.

However, even if I was asked to go live again, I’m not sure I would be keen. I remember too well the terror. Giving good analysis on the news requires a calm, relaxed mind, not a sense of wild disorder like a zoo where all the animals have escaped.

Peculiarly, this phobia does not extend to radio. I’ve done live radio broadcasts in the studio, at home or on location and always been fine. On one occasion, after a mix-up over times, I was called and put on the air while the listeners were blissfully unaware that I was in the bath.

The recent news agenda has been punishing. I have worked long hours and a hotel room in Ballymena became my temporary home. It is one of the rare occasions when news organisations internationally have shown an interest in Northern Ireland.

After a late night and less than two hours of sleep, I am up early to fulfil a couple of radio commitments. As I am recording a piece for a Scottish channel, my employer sends on another request from an Australian broadcaster. Add it to the list.

I make contact and a link is sent to my email. This is unusual, but not unknown; some radio programmes prefer to connect with conferencing platforms which give better and more reliable audio than mobile phones.

I bounce from one interview to the next. I click on the link and an Australian man greets me and says audio is good.

Then, confusingly, he asks me to shift my laptop back a little and move the cover slightly forward. I comply without thinking. He then tells me he will put me through.

A newsroom appears on my laptop screen complete with a scrolling news ticker and an immaculately presented and coiffured presenter. She is talking about the situation in Gaza. The scale of my error becomes clear; in 30 seconds I will be on live TV across Australia.

I quickly glance at the mirror. My face is flabby and tired, my hair a bird’s nest, my beard a wiry mess. I am wearing the old, torn and stained grey T-shirt which I slept in. I look like a man who has been covering riots for several days with virtually no rest. I notice behind me that the door to the bathroom in my hotel room is open and the toilet is partially visible.

‘And now we’re joined from Ballymena by Jonny McCambridge….’

The interview passes slowly. Each time I think it has reached an obvious conclusion the presenter thinks of a new question to continue the ordeal. I see my own worn and tortured features staring back at me and have to stop from flinching.

Then it is over. I did not suffer the stage-fright which overcame me the last time I did live TV. I know that my answers were competent and professional. But it is the state of my appearance which is the concern. I looked like Worzel Gummidge with a hangover, on a really bad day.

I call my wife, who works in TV, and knows the importance of image on that medium. She consoles me by laughing uproariously.

My concerns over creating a bad impression are balanced by the fact that this was broadcast on the other side of the world. At least nobody I know is ever likely to see it.

My phone buzzes. There is a message from my Da.

It reads: ‘My friend saw you on the telly in Australia….’

It’s been a while since anyone asked me where I come from, but if ever the query were posed, I would reply without hesitation that I am a north Antrim man.

However, I have not lived in that part of our wee island for many years. I’ve had a home in Co Down for more than a decade and in Belfast for 20 years before that. The bald mathematics show that much more of my existence has been spent outside of north Antrim than within it.

However, it must be that the oldest attachments are the ones which cut the deepest tread. In my heart I’ll always be a culchie rather than a townie.

It follows that the north coast remains one of my favourite locations for day trips. I’ve lost count of the number of friends I’ve bored as I relate tales about Dunluce Castle or Sheep Island as we traverse the dramatic, winding coast road. There is a sense of belonging that, for me, exists only when I am close to that rugged landscape.

It is Sunday morning and it looks like it might not rain. The decision is made that we will go to Barry’s in Portrush (I know it is now Curry’s, but I still call a Snickers bar a Marathon). The decision to drive north is not quite spontaneous, we had briefly discussed the possibility the night before, but it is not well organised either. I’ve never felt the need to plan a trip home, I just go when the mood takes me.

All is well at first. We make our customary stop at the service station for coffee and sausage rolls. There is excited chatter about which rides we will go on first. My wife seems to doze off in the back seat as I deliver my well-worn lecture on the history of the Frosses trees.

My first sense that something might be different is when I see a large electronic sign at the end of the motorway. The message advises that the Carrick-a-Rede rope-bridge is fully booked.

Instinctively, I bridle at the advice. Through my youth and early adult years I went to the rope-bridge when it suited me. My da used to help in erecting that bridge in the spring. Even though I had no intention of visiting today, it still annoys me slightly to be told I cannot go.

But worse is to come. I am close to the end of the Ballybogey Road, still a couple of miles from Portrush, when I meet the traffic jam. The sight alarms me. I’ve been driving this route to the port for more than three decades, through the busiest of summer days, and I have never encountered traffic this far from the town before.

We barely move for the next 45 minutes. My wife goes online to find social media full of warnings for motorists to avoid Portrush due to a car cruise. The images on Facebook show hundreds of vehicles bringing the streets to a standstill. Regretfully, we explain to our son that we won’t be able to get to the amusements and drive east rather than west.

We stop briefly in Bushmills to stretch our legs. The small car park is full of large tourist coaches. I wonder how some of them will be able to manoeuvre the narrow coast roads. We walk along the main street and I’m struck by the number of cafes and restaurants, the sheer level of the footfall in what I’d always remembered as a sleepy village.

We drive further along the coast, past the causeway, Lisnagunogue and White Park Bay. I turn left and inch my car down the treacherous winding path which descends towards Ballintoy Harbour. I inform my now restless son that we can play on the rocks, explore the coastal path, get a treat in the wee café. I tell him that my own da used to bring me down here on Sundays when I was a boy.

But another plan is quickly abandoned. The cars are backed up in a long queue snaking out of the tiny car park. The best I am able to achieve is to turn my vehicle around and take a quick look at the dramatic rocky landscape before we drive away.

I have a low feeling as my car struggles on the climb back up the hill. This road will never get any wider, the tiny harbour is the size that it is, but the number of visitors just continues to grow and grow. I wonder how long it is before the tipping point is reached.

We drive on into Ballycastle, the pretty coastal town where I spent so much of my youth. There is much that I remember, but plenty which is new. Morton’s fish shop is there, Harry is still selling his ices, his hair and moustache now as white as the ice-creams he serves.

I am pessimistic about getting parked. We crawl around the large harbour car park and my son gets excited when he spots a free space, the most animated he has been in some time.

We go for a stroll on the beach. It is uncomfortably busy at first, close to the tennis courts and golf course, but we walk on until there are fewer people and more open stretches of sand. We keep going, in the direction of the Pan’s Rocks, until it finally feels like we have the beach to ourselves. I tell my son that I used to walk on this same sand decades before.

We throw stones into the sea, trying to skim the smooth and flat pebbles off the surface. Away from the crowds now, for the first time today, I notice the sky. The clouds have formed into a creamy void with threatening dark grey streaks. It is at once both ominous and beautiful. I stand there with my son for a few minutes, just staring at the sky. I wonder how I did not notice it before.

I’m old enough to know better, but as I step out of the warm building and feel the cold blast on a black and frosty Friday night, I am as light as a feather, happy as an angel, merry as a schoolboy.

I’m leaving the Lyric Theatre after watching their stage adaptation of the great festive morality fable A Christmas Carol. I could confidently state that there is no story anywhere in the vast canon of literature with which I am more familiar, but Scrooge’s spectral hauntings and subsequent miraculous transformation of personality still stirs me, dulls the edges of something which might otherwise remain hard and sharp as a flint.

I know that it is gushingly sentimental. Indeed, as I write this, hours after the show, there is a little voice telling me to show a bit of professional detachment and judgement, not to have my emotions so easily exploited by the juxtaposition of a mean old miser and an angelic but sickly child, not to let my typing fingers run amok like Ebenezer on Christmas morning spreading festive cheer wherever he goes.

But it is no good, the force of the narrative cannot be resisted. It is as well that the theatre is dark to hide my tears when it is foretold that Tiny Tim will die if Scrooge does not change his ways. I heartily but tunelessly sing along to the Christmas songs and carols and laugh and cheer at the triumphant climax. As Dickens himself wrote, ‘There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour’.

I’ve digested more versions of Scrooge’s antics over the years than I’ve had helpings of Christmas pudding (and I eat a lot of pudding). I’ve seen the show on stage in the West End in London, watched animated retellings at the cinema, enjoyed countless TV adaptations. I own a handsome volume of Dickens’ collected Christmas stories, which I dust off every December.

What is different about the Lyric’s effort is that it is ours. Grimy Victorian London has been substituted for grimy Victorian Belfast. The city’s labyrinth of ancient entries and alleyways provide the dusty and dark backdrop. 

‘Sleekit’ Scrooge mixes his ‘bah humbugs’ with a rasping ‘Catch yerself on!’ When he attempts to explain his first haunting by Jacob Marley away as the result of a digestive disorder, ‘there’s more of gravy than grave about you’ is brilliantly replaced by ‘there’s more of tatie than tatie bread about you!’

I was slightly worried because I’ve seen attempts to shift the Scrooge story to other settings before which didn’t quite carry the magic. Here, playwright Marie Jones pulls it off seemingly without effort. The story oozes Belfast’s unique wit and charm while never straying far enough away from Dickens’ classic tale to jar or annoy the traditionalists. In truth the blend is so seamless that it is often difficult to detect (even for a self-confessed expert) where Dickens ends, and Jones begins.

At the centre of it all is Dan Gordon’s towering presence as Ebenezer Scrooge. I’ve had a soft spot for Gordon for some years. Once, when I was close to a deadline and struggling to find a voice to lend authority to an article I was writing about the impact of Covid lockdown on live theatre, I was passed the actor’s number and interrupted him at his dinner (whether the meal included tatie bread was not disclosed).

Despite the fact that my disturbance of his meal was likely as welcome as the Ghost of Christmas Past’s interruption of Scrooge’s sleep, Gordon generously gave up his time and chatted to me for more than half an hour, providing enough quotes to fill a dozen stories. Journalists are well used to speaking to people who are guarded, suspicious and regard our attention as a troublesome nuisance. For this reason, I always remember those few who are unafraid of letting the barriers down a little, who give more than they have to in order to help.

On stage tonight Gordon is a spluttering, snarling, gurning dynamo of rage as the stubborn Scrooge who obstinately refuses to conform to the general enthusiasm about Christmas. Through the hauntings, his seemingly impenetrable hide of hostility is first softened and then punctured. By the finale, he is a rolling, bouncing rubber ball of joy and contagious enthusiasm.

The show delights children, parents and grandparents alike. As the crowd slowly shuffles out, I hear the word ‘brilliant’ uttered over and over. It reminds me that there is something intoxicating about theatre; when done well it ignites and fuels your emotions in a way that television or cinema struggle to match.

But despite our proximity to the stage, the theatrical fourth wall exists for a reason, a barrier between the performers and audience, between fiction and reality. A Christmas Carol may be the finest of stories, but it remains just a story. How long will it be until the strong effects of its potion wears off and I, solitary as an oyster, return to my previous state of worrying more about myself than others?

There is one last surprise. As we leave the theatre a smiling Scrooge appears before us. A top-hatted Gordon is there in the foyer to meet and greet every member of the audience. He doesn’t have to do it, but here he is. No remark is ignored, or handshake refused. There is time for everybody.

My son and nephews, already joyful from the show, cannot believe their luck. It is as if Santa Claus himself has descended the chimney. They rush to him and he happily gives his time and poses for pictures.

The fourth wall has been breached. Perhaps a little bit of the magic of the story has leaked out too. I hope that it takes a deep root within me.

As I prepare to face the cold of the night, I am possessed of a thankful heart.

Merry Christmas to all.

• This article first appeared in the News Letter