The (gloriously British) spirit of Christmas past
The Cider With Rosie author’s magical memories of childhood carol singing. The most evocative account of that WWI truce. A little boy’s wonder at the opulence of his aristocratic family’s Christmas in a castle. Three spellbinding accounts that capture ...
JOHN JULIUS NORWICH, the son of Conservative politician Duff Cooper and society beauty Lady Diana Manners, loves Christmas and has written extensively about it. Here, drawing from his new anthology of the best Christmas writing, we present three enchanting memoirs from a time before the true spirit of the festive season was overwhelmed by commercialism . . .
The week before Christmas, when the snow seemed to lie thickest, was the moment for carol-singing; and when I think back to those nights it is to the crunch of snow and the lights of the lanterns on it.
Carol- singing in my village was a special tithe for the boys, the girls had little to do with it. Like haymaking, blackberrying, stone- clearing and wishing people a happy easter, it was one of our seasonal perks.
By instinct we knew just when to begin it; a day too soon and we should have been unwelcome, a day too late and we should have received lean looks from people whose bounty was already exhausted. When the true moment came, exactly balanced, we recognised it and were ready.
So as soon as the wood had been stacked in the oven to dry for the morning fire, we put on our scarves and went out through the streets, calling loudly between our hands, till the various boys who knew the signal ran out from their houses to join us.
One by one they came stumbling over the snow, swinging their lanterns around their heads, shouting and coughing ughing horribly. ‘Coming carol-barking then?’ hen?’
We were the church choir, so o no answer was necessary. For a year we had praised the Lord, out of key, ey, and as a reward for this service — on top of the outing — we now w had the right to visit all the big houses, to sing our carols and collect our tribute.
eight of us set out that night. There was Sixpence the Tanner, who had never sung in his life (he just worked his mouth in church); the brothers horace and Boney, who were always fighting everybody and always getting the worst of it; Clergy y Green, the preaching maniac; Walt t the bully; and my two brothers.
As we went down the lane, other r boys from other villages were e already about the hills, bawling g ‘ Kingwensluch’ and shouting g through keyholes, ‘Knock on the e knocker! Ring at the bell! Give us a penny for singing so well!’
They weren’t an approved charity as we were, the choir; but competition was in the air.
Our first call as usual was the house of the Squire, and we trooped nervously down his drive. For light we had candles in marmalade jars suspended on loops of string, and they threw pale gleams on the towering snowdrifts that stood on each side of the drive.
A blizzard was blowing but we were well wrapped up, with army puttees on our legs, woollen hats on our heads and several scarves around our ears. As we approached the Big house across its white silent lawns, we too grew respectfully res silent. The lake near by was stiff and black, the waterfall frozen fro and still. We arranged ourselves our shuffling around the big front fro door, then knocked and announced ann the choir.
A maid bore the tidings of our arrival ar away into the echoing distances di of the house. The door was left ajar and we were bidden to begin. We brought no music, th‘ L the carols were in our heads.
‘Let’s give ’em Wild Shepherds,’ sai said Jack. We began in confusion, plu plunging into a wreckage of keys, of different words and tempos; but we gathered our strength; he wh who sang loudest took the rest of us with him, and the carol took sha shape if not sweetness.
T This huge stone house, with its ivie ivied walls, was always a mystery to us. What were those gables, those rooms and attics, those narrow windows veiled by the cedar trees? As we sang Wild Shepherds we craned our necks into that lamplit hall which we had never entered — until suddenly, on the stairs, we saw the old Squire himself, standing and listening, his head on one side.
he didn’t move until we’d finished; then slowly he tottered towards us, dropped two coins in our box with a trembling hand, scratched his name in the book we carried, gave us each a long look with his moist blind eyes, then turned away in silence.
As though released from a spell, we took a few sedate steps, then broke into a run for the gate. We didn’t stop till we were out of the grounds. Impatient, at least, to discover the extent of his bounty, we squatted by the cowsheds, held our lanterns over the book and saw that he’d written ‘Two Shillings’. This was quite a good start. No one of any worth in the district would dare to give us less than the Squire.
CROSSING,at last, the frozen mill-stream — whose wheel in summer still turned a barren mechanism — we climbed up to Joseph’s farm. Sheltered by trees, warm on its bed of snow, it seemed always to be like this. As always it was late; as always this was our final call.
The snow had a fine crust upon it and the old trees sparkled like tinsel. We grouped ourselves round the farmhouse porch. The sky cleared, and broad streams of
stars ran down over the valley and away to Wales.
On Slad’s white slopes, seen through the black sticks of its woods, some red lamps still burned in the windows. everything was quiet; everywhere there was the faint crackling silence of the winter night. We started singing, and we were all moved by the words and the sudden trueness of our voices. Pure, very clear and breathless we sang: As Joseph was a walking He heard an angel sing; This night shall be the
birth-time Of Christ the Heavenly King. He neither shall be bornèd In Housen nor in hall, Not in a place of paradise But in an ox’s stall...
And two thousand Christmases became real to us then; the houses, the halls, the places of paradise had all been visited; the stars were bright to guide the Kings through the snow; and across the farmyard we could hear the beasts in their stalls. We were given roast apples and hot mince-pies, in our nostrils were spices like myrrh, and in our wooden box, as we headed back for the village, there were golden gifts for all.