Caroling? They’d pay me to go away... in a manger

CAROL singing is now allowed under Boris Killjoy’s Christmas (Permission for Limited Enjoyment) Regulations.

Vocalists must observe social distancing outside and not sing too loud to avoid spreading lethal droplets.

No more than six can go door to door, and there must be no mixing or mingling between groups. And singers must keep two metres from the threshold.

I’m not making this up, it’s official guidance, as is the fatuous rule that anybody watching should be sitting down, as if parking your backside on a chair in the cold December night air is a good idea.

There’s no rule prohibiting “attendees” joining in the chorus, but that might come later when they think about it. I don’t know where these law-makers come from, but they have in mind something very different to the custom of my childhood.

I used to go out carol singing night after night in Normanton, no matter the weather. Sometimes I’d knock on the door first and ask, and they might give me twopence or even sixpence to hear their favourite, usually While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks.

Sometimes, they’d give me a tanner to go away. Maybe they’d heard me warbling next door, and thought the investment worth it. I could earn two or three shillings (10p-15p) in a night, which was good money in those days.

As a child, Mrs R used to go out with her brother Martyn, doing the same. She had a torch! It was shaped like a sausage dog with a bulb in its mouth. Luxury! I navigated by the street lights, and from the houses. A few put their room lights off to pretend they weren’t in, which was really mean. But we are talking Yorkshire.