Tommy

It's not Christmas without the annual youth orchestra Christmas party.  The first one was seventeen years ago. In those days we were in a dusty Quaker Hall, with the handful of children that were members then. The losing quiz team (there were only two) were just as happy with their bag of lemons as the winners were with their sweets. Some things never change: even if there are more teams there is still as much competition for the lemons. Other things do change, though: we get older. Thinking about the seventeen Christmas parties has made me feel a little old, sad and nostalgic.

This was the first Christmas party my dad has missed. When we started, he was the musical director, happily in the limelight, being sparkling and scintillating. He was fun and energetic. I had a small baby and was knackered, happy to be in the background, doing paperwork, writing quizzes, buying lemons. Then time passed and our roles reversed. I had more energy than he did and although I'm more reserved than he is it was time to step out from the shadows. After a while the paperwork became became too much. It was time for him to take another retirement. Luckily, the members we had fifteen years ago are grown up and have formed a team with some current parents to take on these roles. Dad is still on the team, coming to rehearsals when he can. These wonderful people keep me sane. Friday evenings wouldn't be the same without them.

Now we have grown, we hire a room in a local pub for the party and have food, drink and lots of games, as well as the quiz (which is now written by a guy with a PhD). There is still one tradition that is as important as the bag of lemons: Tommy. It wouldn't be a youth orchestra party unless it ended with a game of Tommy.

"I've got the sweets for Tommy but I'm not really sure how it works," said the guy with the PhD. He played the game for ten years but the rules still seem weird and mysterious.

It's a very simple game. All the participants form a large circle and five sweets are placed in the middle. A little time is given for everyone to look,longingly at the sweets, then someone is chosen to leave the room. While they are gone the others choose which sweet is called Tommy. If they have been clever they will have seen which one the person drooled over the most. When they return the room goes silent as they pick sweets, one by one. As soon as they touch Tommy everyone shouts as loudly as they can. "TOMMMMMYYYYYYY!" This makes the person jump and they can't have any more sweets. This is repeated until everyone has had a go, the party is over or everyone is bored.

"Where does it come from then?" asked Dr Who of History.
"It's a really old children's party game," I told him.
"Oh, because I was thinking your Dad just made it up."
"No. We played it at our birthday parties."
Then I began to doubt myself. Had I played it at anyone else's party? I couldn't remember. I remembered pass the parcel, musical bumps, the memory game, guess who I am but not Tommy.
Could it have been a game invented by my grandparents in a party version of 'pinch pudding day'?
Pinch pudding day was a method my grandmother used to make a six person apple pie feed nine. She knew that there wasn't enough to go around, so made a game of it. If you had finished yours then you could steal from someone else's plate unless (and here's the good bit) they had their little finger on the edge. Tommy is a bit like that. It makes you think you are going to get five sweets but you could end up with none. In those poorer than church mice, post war years no child would have ever dared to suggest, "it's not fair."

It might have fallen out of favour now that every child has to win a prize. The way we play it is brutal. The only reference to the game I could find on the Internet was a description on a Mumsnet party forum. It suggested that you put some coloured smarties on a plate (a plate? We put wrapped sweets on the floor. How can you lunge for them on a plate?) and named one Tommy Smartie. If a child chose that one the other children were to say, politely, "No, no, don't eat Tommy Smartie." You can imagine them putting their little hands to their mouth, smoothing down their velvet party frock and giggling guiltily.

This is not a game for nice middle class mum's in their Joules gilet and nautical top. No. In fact it always goes best when it's delivered by a man who played pinch pudding day and understands the rules of survival in a large pack of children. Someone who can prance around in a tutu or silly red braces getting people excited about the prospect of getting more than one sweet from the Quality street tin and changing the rules at a whim, so that all the sweets are suddenly called Tommy, or none are.

"They're all Tommy, aren't they?"