The branches have three prongs and fold up into the main stem, like an umbrella. It is quite tall, and that was quite rare at the time. It felt like seeing an old friend every year. My parents would unwrap it quite reverentially, decide where to put it and then unfold it. It started with us putting the tree up a few days before. My first memory of it – and the whole excitement of Christmas – is from when I was six. Some people bought small real trees, or just a branch. In our small community, having an artificial tree was aspirational.
It is one of the earliest mass-produced artificial trees – they started making them in the 1920s. When they married and settled in a small mining village, she brought the tree with her. Mother was brought up near Aberystwyth, but met my father in south Wales. I’m 74, which makes the tree at least 80 years old. My Christmas tree has stood in my mother’s childhood home, my childhood home and my adult home.
