We are about to find ourselves in 2025, the quarter-way mark of 21st century, a bewildering thought for those of us who still think of the 21st century as some weird new thing and the 20th century as a kind of default.
Since 2025 is going to be rung in nationwide with the traditional combination of drinking, forgetting the words to Auld Lang Syne and feeling like new year never lives up to the hype, it feels like a good moment to look back at the moment, 25 years ago, when we rung in the new millennium.
(harp music, screen goes wibbly, pictures turn black and white)
You join 16-year-old Chris at his aunt and uncle’s house, this being the venue for the family’s new year celebrations at the end of 1999. Most of the family is here, at a big house in a village near Selby. Music is playing, drinks are flowing, and every conceivable surface is creaking under the weight of bowls of nibbles and snacks.
My family has a longstanding tradition – much beloved of my grandma, who is here somewhere, probably on one of the La-Z-Boy recliner chairs in the living room with a glass of Bailey’s – that the new year must be “let in”.
This tradition stipulates that good luck will befall the family for the coming year if the first person to open the door and cross the threshold on the first of January is a tall, dark man bearing symbolic gifts. Should anyone else be the first to open the door and “let the new year in” – a chubby ginger toddler, perhaps, or a fair-haired woman of merely average stature – the year would be beset with problems. My grandma often told a cautionary tale of the year she absent mindedly unlocked the front door and went into the house first, only to find she had let the new year in herself. Nothing went right that year.
For many years my grandad was nominated to let the new year in. He was an imposing figure, a senior policeman over six feet in height with a no-nonsense jawline and black hair. Luck was always on their side when he turned the door handle. But over the years the duties were shared out. Once he had grown up my dad got to do it sometimes, or his brother. At my aunt and uncle’s house my uncle – not easily described as “tall”, but certainly dark haired and a man – would do the honours.
Anyway, the millennium was considered a special event. I was 16, and to my surprise was asked to let in the new year. The news was broken to me in hushed tones, a coming-of-age moment and a sign that I was joining the grown ups.
At about ten to midnight, I put my coat on and was handed the gifts I was to bring in. There was the shiniest coin anyone could find, to bring wealth; a match and a piece of coal, to bring warmth; and some food, to bring food or plenty or something like that. And with my pockets duly stuffed, I stepped out of the door.
Not much was happening outside, so I walked round to the living room window, where I could see everyone inside and could make out the Hootenanny on TV. The cat was sitting on the windowsill so I gave him a scratch under the chin. After a while, the moment arrived, there was much cheering, and inside the house glasses were clinked and hugs were exchanged. In the distance some fireworks started to go off. I then made my way to the front door to let myself and the new year in. It was locked. Nobody had put the Yale lock on the sneck, so when I went out it had locked itself.
I knocked on the door. Nobody was in the kitchen. I rang the bell. Nobody could hear it over the music. I went back to the living room window. Nobody was looking. Eventually, when there was a lull in the music, I banged on the double glazing, someone finally saw me, and there was a stampede to the door as it dawned on the party that one of their number had been standing outside since the previous century.
When the door finally opened, I’m not sure whether it was me or the cat that actually let the new year in. But I can make the claim that, 25 years ago, I saw in the new millennium standing on my own, in a front garden, and holding a match, some coal, a slice of white bread and a 50p piece.
(harp music, screen goes wibbly, glorious Technicolor returns)
This year I intend, once again, to be safely inside a warm house when the fireworks begin. Having tried the alternative I recommend it. Wherever you are, have a very happy new year. And don’t forget your lump of coal when you step through the front door.
