The Big Boy Department Store Santa Claus Forgot

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Back in 1980, and barely out of school, facing my first long period of unemployment when the Thatcherite government had to admit there were three million people out of work, I actually applied to one department store about being their grotty grotto Father Christmas. The interviewer dismissed me right away for not being fat enough. Now in 2015, thirty five years on, I weigh eighteen stone instead of twelve. I am very tempted to find that interviewer, and burst into his office dressed as Santa yelling, ‘well how about now?’ but I expect he won’t remember me. Yo-Ho-Ho and all that humbug! Arthur Chappell