The final hours before Christmas Day.

The final hours before Christmas Day.

It almost feels like the last lap of a Formula One race where Lewis Hamilton roars past the flag to clinch yet another victory, then leaping out of his car with all the exuberance he once showed as a child go karter, a time when life was all about finishing your school homework. Hamilton must wake up every morning feeling that every day is Christmas Day. And so ladies and gentlemen Christmas Eve. Of course it is. We just knew it. It could hardly be anything else because if you look outside you'll find emptiness, lifelessness, not a soul or car on the road and eventually, once darkness falls later on today, it'll feel strangely eerie and gothically mysterious.

But here we are on Christmas Eve. It does feel like the final day of a cricketing Test Match, the concluding chapter of a riveting book, the final set at Wimbledon, a compelling final day of a Premier League season where those at the top are intent on outwitting each other and games of  psychology are all that matter. We now know that Christmas Eve is rather like the final furlong of a flat season horse racing classic, the build up to the FA Cup Final or that end of season game where it all hinges on one controversial decision.

Then again Christmas Eve does feel like the preparation for something that is indescribably special, something we can't help but look forward to. There is that obvious anticipation and excitement before the big day, a buzz around the local town and city, an atmosphere of feverish expectation, a sense that the world will just explode with happiness tomorrow. But then again that can't be so because, as the cynics would tell you, we do the same thing ever year and have done since the beginning of time.

Every year we sprint over to the shops and supermarkets, quivering with fear in case we haven't got enough food when the reality is that we have. We don't need any more tinsel, more wrapping paper, more decorations, lanterns or soppy cards with snow on the ground. But oh I hear you say, it's Christmas and it's no time for Dickensian humbug or mean spirited gentlemen sitting in lonely attics refusing to give anything to Tiny Tim. Mr Scrooge, how could you be so stingy and parsimonious? This is the time for giving and sharing, not airing your grievances to anybody within earshot.

It's hard to imagine what exactly Charles Dickens must have been thinking when he wrote 'A Christmas Carol' but I don't think Albert Finney was uppermost in his mind. Still the tale of the miserably miserly Scrooge still resonates throughout the ages. True, life was considerably harder and much more poverty stricken than it is now but there are similarities and perhaps some striking parallels.

In Britain and particularly London, the whole issue of homelessness, estrangement and isolation continues to be a disgraceful blight on the landscape. For years and decades those who have been forced to live on the cold, freezing streets have once again been left to their own devices. We shake our heads in revulsion and horror at such criminal neglect of the human underclass, those who have slipped under the radar with only a blanket for a friend and a draughty doorway.

Of course the plight of the homeless is rightly highlighted but the truth is that regardless of the circumstances, the lonely people always seem to be unforgivably overlooked. Why is it that Christmas is the only time of the year when the homeless are given any kind of recognition or publicity? It almost feels as if Dickens will miraculously come back to life this Christmas and write the same story with a 21st century slant.

Dickens did his utmost to emphasise poverty, social injustice, those in pain, discomfort and permanent suffering. And yet for Dickens Christmas was not the broad canvas he would have preferred to portray his characters on. In many ways Tiny Tim and that impoverished family came to represent not only the society he was writing about but the bigger world outside. Christmas was truly a joyous festival for one and all but for Dickens there was a much more serious aspect to the holiday, a pronounced gravity that most of his readers could easily identify with.

There were people crouching pitifully in shop doorways with only a dog for company, people huddling in the corner with torn pieces of cardboard for comfort. These were the silent minority, the ones who'd lost their way in life, driven out of house and home because the homes they were brought up in were no longer the warm and welcoming homes they thought they'd known and could trust in. It all seemed dreadfully unfair and callously cruel.

We've all heard about those cold and bleak back alleys where those seeking just a modicum of warmth in a hospitable hostel are then mercilessly turfed out into the wild wilderness, a place inhabited by nobody at all and nobody who seems to care. It is the traditional rejection of the unfortunate, the lesser known and, quite possibly, the forgotten members of society. These are the people who should be noticed and comforted but are somehow destined to be outcasts, those who feel marginalised by society and then tossed into some shivery alcove, some horribly squalid place where only the morning seems to come to their rescue.

But the current news bulletins never tire of telling us that this is indeed the loneliest time of the year for those with nowhere to go and then find themselves consigned to street life through no fault of their own. Homelessness seems to be that incurable social condition that none of us can find an adequate cure for and now as the last Christmas shoppers push and shove their way past each other as if their lives depended on it, it is time to think of those for whom the holiday period must surely be  one, long continuous nightmare.

Of course those shoppers deserve their quality family time together and may they eat and drink abundantly and freely. Sadly though, we may find ourselves thinking that the sad and alienated may never be able to enjoy the privileges and luxuries the rest of us take for granted. This is of course a time for humanity and compassion to come to the fore - as they must do without fail. But even the most heartfelt sympathies may not be what the homeless are genuinely looking for. Still, one day the hope must be that things will improve considerably for the better and that's all that matters.

It could be said that this is my festive message for the year but this is no cry from the heart nor some sentimental plea. It is simply my attempt to underline those ageless difficulties that always seem to present themselves to us over the Christmas period. In the midst of the celebrations they lurk in the background rather like some dirty mark on the wall or some vile smell that can never be traced. These are the imperfections, the inconsistencies, the things that never seem to add up in any society at any time.

Anyway not long to go now before dear old Santa negotiates that familiar journey from the South Pole, tumbling and sliding clumsily down millions of dusty chimneys. Then he'll drop down onto that new floor you've just laid with the loudest thud. Now a million children will fall out of bed convinced that it was some old April Fools joke where Father Christmas was just some silly character, a mythical figure that is no more than a figment of everybody's imagination.

Me? I'm looking forward to Christmas Day and my yearly quest to find anything or anybody on the streets of London and suburbia. Nowadays though there doesn't seem any point so I'll leave that to you if you like. The streets of Ilford were completely deserted on Christmas Day and to this day memories of strolling down  Ley Street and the Cranbrook Road remain vivid. You've no idea how invigorating a walk is on the only day of the year when the country seems to shut down completely.  The numbers of vehicles and people could have been counted on the fingers of one hand.

Tomorrow our favourite TV channels will be alive to the perennial diet of heart warming family films, Top of the Pops which isn't quite the same to those of us who grew up listening to the 1970s medleys. Then invariably a Bond film explodes into action with its glorious fantasy and escapism, Bond surviving the impossible when we all know that he'll survive because he always does.

At 3.00 in the afternoon though Britain watches Her Majesty the Queen with her deeply admirable speech to the nation. From a quiet corner of either Windsor or Balmoral Her Majesty will deliver that now famous message which becomes more and more relevant with every passing year. She tells us about her year, our year, the events and non events that have so coloured our lives and moved us.

Sadly some of us will think back to our childhood Christmas when things were so markedly different. On Christmas Day morning ITV would allow us into a children's hospital where celebrities would comfort sick children with sacks of presents and the most impressive of Santa Claus outfits. By the afternoon when most of us would now be stuffed, a revelation would make its presence felt.

Deep into tea time, Billy Smart's Circus would burst onto our TV screens rather like some ho ho Santa Claus. Now what you have to remember is that British TV during the 1960s had yet to grasp the concept of political correctness so it had to be forgiven its faults and foibles. Then at roughly 5pm a circus appeared like some quaint musical box with a ballerina on the top.

Suddenly a circus came bounding into our living rooms with all the cliches we might have come to expect from the Big Top. Of course there were the jocular clowns with their silly red noses and their buckets of water. There were the high wire trapeze acts risking life and limb because it probably seemed a good idea at the time. There were those much admired jugglers, remarkable fire eaters, more clowns with childish cars and knife throwers galore where the audience briefly held their breath and gasped with delight.

It didn't stop though at that point. Then what seemed whole communities of lions, tigers and elephants would slowly make their way into the circus ring without so much as a second thought. It was now that the animal rights activists would have hit the roof. The ring master would crack his whip and what must have been every animal in the kingdom would entertain thousands of excited children.

Then our Christmas Days would be complete with the unforgettable Morecambe and Wise and a delightful helping of The Two Ronnies, a day when the whole world fell in love with their comic mastery. And so we count the hours to yet another Christmas Day wonderland where all of our loyal friends come back for some more of the same. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you smiling children's faces, giggling and guffawing, guilt and remorse as that last piece of turkey is consumed and old fashioned board games such as Monopoly and Scrabble followed by a spot of hilarious karaoke from Uncle Tom. All in all I think we're in for a terrific Christmas Day this year. That Christmas pud looks wonderful. Have a good one everybody.