Only the ‘real’ Father Christmas wears gold boots
Nick Churchill talks to Nigel Spiller, the man within the golden boots for 55 years
Published in December ’19
AS EVERY SON AND daughter of Wareham knows, only the ‘real’ Father Christmas wears gold boots. And for more than sixty years the ‘real’ Father Christmas has arrived in Wareham in his gold boots to make his way down the chimney from the roof of the Red Lion Hotel to his grotto, where he meets all the girls and boys.
Big boots to fill… The original gold boots made by Jack Spiller for Wareham’s first Father Christmas event in 1958, and in use by his son Nigel until 2017
From 1962 until his last appearance in 2017, Nigel Spiller played the part of Father Christmas, every year pulling on the famous golden wellies – the same size tens his father, Jack, wore that first Christmas in 1958. Now, in his first interview, he reveals in his own words the inside story of the ‘real’ Father Christmas.
‘How it all started was in the late 1940s, when they had a Father Christmas event in Corfe Castle that Father’s brother, Reg Spiller, was involved with. The village all came together to set it up with the lights, then Father Christmas arrived in the Square and set up in his grotto around the stone plinth there. At that time Father was on the council in Wareham and after meetings in the Town Hall, they used to go over the Red Lion for a drink. One year the landlord there, Gurner Jones, told them about a friend who owned a racehorse that he’d been to see in training on the gallops as this friend was going to get a decent jockey in and put the horse in for a race. He reckoned it had a chance if anyone fancied a flutter.
‘So Father, Gurner Jones and another chap put in a fiver each and this horse came in at 20-1, so they ended up with a pool of £300 and wondered what they could do with it. It was quite a bit of money in the late 1950s. Father said he fancied having a Father Christmas event in Wareham like the one they had in Corfe Castle, something for the children that would bring the town together.
‘When Father Christmas arrived in Corfe Castle, he used to go up onto the roof of what was Holland’s shop, where the National Trust is now, so that’s how Father ended up on the roof of the Red Lion in Wareham. George Burt from Modern Radio and Sparky Mears, the manager of the SEB showroom, rigged up the first strings of lights, the tree came from Harry Perry of Wareham Transport, who had a sawmill, and we got the timber to make up the dummy chimney. Father got the idea for the gold boots from his friend, Harry Ashley, the chief photographer on the Bournemouth Echo, who did Father Christmas in Bournemouth with a parade every year. He always wore gold boots.
Father Christmas makes his way up West Street to the Red Lion
‘This went on until Father injured himself. Our family’s always been builders, but Father took us into the boat business after Gordon Sansom, the landlord of the Quay Inn, who had a couple of launches, and Jimmy Hapgood, who had the boathouse where the Environment Agency launch is now and used to run hire boats, both packed it in. The council said it was a shame there would be no more boats on the river, so Father bought an old passenger boat from Blue Funnel Cruises in Southampton and started running trips. In time it was decided we should replace the boat, so Len Haswell of naval architects Cox & Haswell in Poole designed this boat and we engaged a shipwright to build it that winter using our barn workshop – it was probably the last big boat built in Wareham. Three weeks before Christmas, Father fell off a carpenter’s stool in the workshop and ended up with three broken ribs. He was in a bad way and said he couldn’t do Father Christmas, so I’d better stand in. He said that from a distance nobody would know.
‘Afterwards, people told him what a good job he’d made of Father Christmas, so obviously nobody had noticed and the job was mine. What he did, though, was tell the blokes inside the Red Lion to make sure the tot of whisky Gurner left for him on each landing had been emptied before I got there.
‘In those days the whole town would be involved. There were teams of men from all the local builders – Spillers, Marsh and Moss – the Westminster and Lloyds Banks used to chip in and so did the town’s little department store, Hicks. The grotto used to be in a big furniture lorry we got from Churchills and the children would come up a ramp, meet Father Christmas, then go out through a side door.
‘Lots of things were very different in those days. We never had a safety harness and to close the road, we’d just go up the police station to let them know and they’d send a couple of officers down. Today you have to apply to the council and provide first aid, marshals, crowd control barriers, all sorts of things.
The literal highlight of the Wareham Father Christmas experience is when Santa safely emerges from the Red Lion’s chimney
‘I got through lots of beards because they’d always get snagged, but I had the same boots Father had, although they’ve been re-sprayed so many times that they’ve taken on this bark-like quality.
‘One thing we always try to keep a secret is the transport and over the years I’ve arrived in everything from a JCB to an armoured car, pony and trap, horse and carriage or the Whitbread dray with heavy horses. In the year 2000 we even had camels.
‘The committee often met in the Red Lion and we’d start out with quite modest ambitions, but by the end of the night, anything seemed possible. One year I was in a three-wheeled sled drawn by huskies, which was fine until one of the dogs got a scent and took the lot up onto the pavement. With the sled stuck on the kerb heading for a lamppost, I was capsized, then when I set up again, they went off like a rocket – poor Hughie Elmes was commentating and sounded like Murray Walker as I shot past him.
‘Another time we had a big white horse called Lumpy, loaned by Peter Andrews and escorted by Boy Scouts carrying flaming torches made of cocoa tins stuck on broom handles and filled with cotton wadding soaked in paraffin. As we turned the corner of Trinity Lane, the fumes from these torches got up the horse’s nose and it reared up like the Lone Ranger’s horse, Silver. Somehow I survived and got to the Red Lion.
‘I’d been sharing Father Christmas duties with Ray Derek when I had a stroke last year and was told to cut back on things, but I’m still the Mace-Bearer for the town and belong to the Guild of Mace-Bearers. I’m president of Wareham Camera Club, belong to Wareham Dining Club and still work in the family business, so after sixty years it’s time for a new Father Christmas.
‘Things change and although there is still some support, it’s different from how it was when all the local businesses and organisations were involved. People will always want to come to see Father Christmas, but if it’s to continue, we need younger people to get involved with making it happen.’
