While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night

Travelsleuth Stuart Buchanan MacWatt traces the long history of the Christmas Carol; its near demise and reinvention in Victorian times by the headmaster of Wellington College who became the Queen's Chaplain and then Archbishop of Canterbury.

At Christmas of Christ many carols we sing Door to door carol singing is a treasured memory of my early adulthood. Two weeks before Christmas Day, the Feast of the Nativity, some of us would meet up at a friend's house to rehearse a medley of popular carols, enjoy a glass or two of mulled beer, cider or wine, and work out the route we would take on our charity carol singing jaunt around the leafy avenues of Hampstead in North London. I can't remember which charity we were collecting for at the time but it was probably Oxfam.

The following Sunday evening we would gather again at the house to venture forth on our round. Our original group of six or seven had by then swollen to double that number with the accretion of brothers, sisters and friends aeger to join us on our Christmas parade through the misty streets.

Armed with lanterns, carol sheets and collecting boxes, and well muffled up against the chill December night, we set out. Our perambulating route might have seemed erratic but had been carefully pre-planned down to the last ornate brass doorknocker. We were calling on households which were expecting us, thanks to judicious advance telephoning. And what a welcome we received. After singing our chosen carol at the front door we would be invited in to enjoy a miniature buffet and a glass of hot toddy awaiting us in the dining room - and accept a handsome charity donation proffered on our departure.

When in later life I had settled with my family in a remote Cornish farmhouse on Bodmin Moor, we were the recipients of such an annual door-to-door visit of carol singers. But moorland farmsteads are some miles apart down unlit country lanes and the carolers beat a path to our door in a convoy of Range Rovers. They were unwittingly carrying on a centuries old West country tradition of the "Holly Riders"; moorland groups of carol singers touring remote farms with lanterns and wearing a sprig of holly on their coats and a holly wreath around hats. Their lusty singing was reputedly rewarded with pennies or cakes and cider. They in turn were following the much older custom of wassailing at Christmastide, where groups called on household to drink a round of good health for the coming year and receive gifts.

Go To Page: 1 2 3 4

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic