A religious holiday really isn’t the same in the UK without a bit of Ray Harryhausen, is it?

I grew up thinking that Jason/Sinbad had something to do with the nativity story, because at my primary school, they used to screen one of those films for us each year (and always one of those, never something a little more up-to-date) the week before we broke up for the winter holidays, and usually on the same day as the school nativity performance. So the two things got inextricably combined in my mind - as far as I knew, they were all part of the same huge myth. When thinking about the christmas story, I would sort of see the three kings shuffling in from the east (well, the props cupboard) in oversized kaftans, and then the skeleton army bearing down on them. The shepherds on the hillside who were looking after the golden fleece. The nasty King who wanted to chop the heads off babies and that big dragon thing with three heads, and that chick with the weird hair, and a halo made of tinsel. It all made perfect sense, aged about seven.

Every year Mr Robertson, the headmaster, who had a permaboil on his bald head, much like Jean-Claude Van Dammage, would announce the day before the play what film they were going to show, and then give the same speech (to be said in an authoritative monotone, apart from sudden strange emphases, with no pause for breath):

“Listen up class 4 tomorrow we will be showing Jason and the argonauts in the hall for the whole school and so you can all bring from home ONE drink NOT fizzy and ONE packet of crisps NOT chocolate OR chewing gum to enjoy during the film if anyone would rather NOT see this film PLEASE get your parents to write you a NOTE and DON’T forget to bring it in tomorrow and those children who DON’T watch the film will do some work for Mrs Oliveira instead OTHERWISE you will all be in the hall AFTER lunch to enjoy this wonderful film does ANYONE have ANY questions no GOOD class dismissed.”

So the next day we would dress in warm clothes, and file excitedly into the main hall, which served multiple functions - assembly room, theatre for dodgy nativities and non-religious seasonal plays (the school was in the middle of Notting Hill in the seventies, and only 120 children, there were kids from all over the world, including me, which made it a good multicultural learning environment, but such broad cultural diversity often made it hard to concentrate on typical primary school messages. Too many choices. Too much information. We didn’t study all religions, but none, for example. So rather than being multi-racial, multi-faith, multi-ethnic, the school described itself as non-religious, non-racial. A petty differentiation, but an important one in the tense seventies in inner London) and also served as the school dining hall, which meant it permanently smelt of spinach and sweet peas (as in overprocessed vegetables, not flowers) and generic red jam, the stuff that they used to dribble on the top of semolina - what was semolina, anyway? - and hereinafter referred to as “hoof and sugar flavour”. Oh, and the smell of cake and custard - pink cake and brown custard, or brown cake and yellow custard….but all tasting eerily identical.

A-n-y-way, we’d file into the hall, and sit cross-legged on the floor as Mr Robertson would set up the cranky old loud projector. We’d lay out our cartons of apple juice and Smith’s Salt’n'Shake crisps and then get pins and needles in our legs as we watched the story unfold in front of us, slack-jawed.

So I’m kind of annoyed that there’s no Harryhausen on over this bank holiday. I’ve got a cold wooden floor. I’ve got apple juice. I’ve got boring crisps. I’m ready. Those movies are forever linked in my mind with these things, best seen sitting on a cold floor with dead legs and the taste of warm apple juice in the back of your throat, wondering when the baby jesus is going to show up.

If any of the TV channels decide to show it this year, revel in the glorious kitschy campness. Treat yourself to an apple juice and some dull crisps. Get someone to freeze your bottom and cut off the circulation in your legs. Oh yes.