ONE of my favourite Christmas stories concerns the British ambassador to Japan, back in the 1950s. He was contacted by a radio station that catered for the European expatriate community based in Tokyo. Each year they ran a Christmas message from all the European ambassadors aimed at the local expats. Our man was keen to help, so arranged for the pre-record interview to take place in early December. The message for the year was to be on the theme “What I want for Christmas”.

On Christmas morning, he and his wife listened eagerly to the recording. But it was with a growing sense of gloom that he realised he had completely missed the correct tone of the message.

The French ambassador spoke of his desire for a cure to be found for all those diseases that were causing terrible suffering in the world.

The German ambassador, referring to troubles emerging in the Korean peninsula, spoke of his desire for there to peace in the region.

And the British ambassador, sadly missing his home in Croydon, wanted nothing more than 2 ounces of his favourite pipe tobacco, a bottle of sherry and a new pair of slippers!

There are many, many things that we all want for Christmas. All the desires of the French, German and British ambassadors are worthy (although not all necessarily healthy). But I guess that I want to see a healing of those splits in our society that have emerged from a whole range of issues, from race and religion to how we voted in the referendum. United societies are strong and healthy, and look after each other: Divided ones fail.

And when we’ve fixed all the splits, we can settle down to a glass of good, old fashioned, sweet sherry. Happy Christmas!