When I left the north of Ireland for the University of Glasgow 20 years ago, I threw myself into the city’s hard‑partying lifestyle with all the vigour you would expect of a Presbyterian pastor’s daughter raised amid the weirdness of 1990s Belfast. My first term was a whirl of dancing to techno music in railway arches and warehouses, making new friends at 10am at afterparties in the kitchens of tenement flats. I slept on strangers’ carpets, wrapped in my massive leopard-print faux-fur coat from a vintage store called Starry Starry Night. I wore a fluffy hat that doubled up as a pillow. I barely ate anything solid and rarely saw daylight – not that Glaswegian daylight is anything to write home about.
After a particularly wild week of parties turning into afterparties turning into pub daytime sessions turning into parties again, I woke up to the realisation it was 23 December, term was over and I had to catch my train to the ferry and home for Christmas. As I threw jumpers and odd socks into a grubby American Apparel holdall, it dawned on me that I hadn’t bought a single Christmas present.
Happily, there was a branch of Fopp just outside Glasgow Central station, which sold CDs and vinyl and strangely cheap cult-classic books. Walking around the store in a daze, my eyes landed on the new Moby album, Play, which had received rave reviews. I bought 10 copies and croaked a request to have them gift-wrapped, ignoring the quizzical glances of the checkout staff. I dragged myself on to the train to Stranraer and fell asleep with my fluffy hat pulled down hard over my eyes.
By Christmas morning, I was in Belfast – and in less of a stupor. My family gathered around the tree, exchanging thoughtful, personal gifts. My sister Naomi had bought me Anne Lamott’s book Bird By Bird, full of anecdotes about writing, because she knew I wanted to be a writer. Mum and Dad bought me a fancy Millican rucksack, because they knew I loved to travel. My brother Peter had chosen me an art deco vintage necklace, because I was now at Glasgow university and once mentioned Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
This is what my presents – or present – were up against. Dad, AKA the Rev Hart, opened my gift. The Moby Play album! OK! Mum opened hers. The Moby Play album! How thoughtful! My sister opened hers … you get the idea.
I sat there smiling at my family, trying to pretend that a single sensible thought had gone into my Christmas shopping (or, indeed, my entire term) while they feigned gratitude and surprise like absolute heroes, plainly wondering what had happened to their formerly thoughtful and conscientious relative.
That Christmas was excruciating. But it was also the shameful festive catch-yourself-on moment that I needed. When I went back to university, it was with my head screwed on a bit more firmly. I went to lectures; I went to bed. But I have never listened to a Moby album since.
