Button Meltdown

This is getting out of hand now. Today I went to see a choir sing a few Christmas dittys on the ground floor of the building I work in. I was standing there while they sang 'The Holly and The Ivy' thinking I really love this song and feeling quite uplifted and happy. Then they sang I didn't know or recognise. Then they started to sing 'Hark the Herald Angels'.

My mind went straight back to when I was about 7, I was in the school choir and we were performing at a summer concert at Guildford Civic Hall (UK). I was sat in the back of the car singing 'Scarborough Fair' to myself and playing with my little ice creamed shaped metal and enamel buttons on my blue and white gingham school dress when Muv leaned back and said, 'You're supposed to be wearing your winter uniform.' I ended up, standing at the back of the choir singing my little heart out, still playing with my ice cream buttons.

Muv had a button jar. When she was sewing I would tip it out on the floor and sort through the buttons. The ice-cream buttons had been in the jar and I was always asking her to put them on something for me. She never did until that summer when she made me a couple of new summer school dresses. I didn't know she had put them on until one morning when I put my uniform on.

I had to stop watching this morning and leave. I have no idea why 'Hark the Herald Angels' should set me off by triggering that memory, but it did and now my eyes won't stop leaking.