Seasonal Things - New Year

Hello

   I will be removing all my seasonal blogs on 5 January. So if there is anything in these seasonal blogs that you especially like, copy it now!

      Ring Out Wild Bells
(By Alfred Lord Tennyson 1893-1944)

Ring out wild bells, to the wild sky.
The flying cloud the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manner purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
_____

   Now as far as poems go I have to stop somewhere, so I may as well stop here, but not before recommending two poems. I am sure that they are under copyright, which is why I am not publishing them here. If you don’t know them, but can find them, they will give a lot of pleasure. The first is “Goodwill to Men give us your Money”, by Pam Ayres, who takes an amusing and very earthy view of the Christmas season. (A good poem to recite at a party.) The other poem, by Kit Wright, is, ”Just Before Christmas”. You will find it in The Puffin Book of Twentieth Century Children’s Verse, edited by Brian Patten. It is a perspective on Christmas from the top of a bus travelling down the Holloway Road in London; and not withstanding the happy atmosphere of the poem, there is a subtlety of meaning in the repeated line at the end of each verse.

Hopefully, if I have time, I will find a Christmas story, and I would like to do a short piece on Wassailing, so stay posted.

Those stories that I promised you:

Torture Comes But Once A Year

 from The Diary of John Evelyn 1620 – 1706

   J’accuse Henry Cole, Adolph Tuck, and Laurence Prang. They have made December a misery for us all, and the time has come to say “non”. Je dis “non” a Cole, Tuck, et Prang. The whole thing is ridiculous. 

   Why didn’t someone lock Henry Cole in his bedroom on December 18, 1843, and plead through the keyhole: “Henry, don’t do it. Think of others. Think what it means.”

   But no, Henry was a live-wire, a colourful character, always doing something new and original, like helping to introduce perforated stamps and founding the Victoria & Albert Museum. So he sent the first-ever Christmas card, and Tuck started manufacturing them, and Prang commercialised it, and now we are all up till dawn sending embossed robins to everyone we know.

   I, meanwhile, am here with three dozen Adoration of the Magis and the phone book, trying to work out my list in the certain knowledge that a card from me will cause nothing but panic (“we didn’t send him one”), relief (“we did”), or embarrassment (“we should have”). The pleasure involved is absolutely minimal.

   It is the one area of social contact upon which etiquette falls strangely silent. For God’s sake, couldn’t someone give us some rules? “No need to send them to people you have seen in the last two months” would be helpful. And “forget it” if you’re just going to write “Jack and Doris”. This merely gives the impression that you’ve been Having A Session, whacking them out like a Dagenham conveyor-belt.”

   Of course, the best solution was invented accidentally by my old landlord. A wonderfully vague academic, he once stopped up all night writing cards with his wife. But the days passed and no mail came in return. Then one morning a solitary card arrived signed, “Love from Tom and Kitty”. “Do we know them?” asked the wife. “No,” replied the bemused academic. Next day, 13 cards arrived, all signed, “Love from Tom and Kitty”. “They certainly seem to know us,” said the academic, don’t they, Kit—” At that point he realised that he had addressed all their cards to himself.

_____

   Now during the Puritan era in English history, the celebration of Christmas as a Christian festival was banned, which resulted in some parts, in serious civil disorder. I have a marvellous piece about the mayhem in Canterbury, when the Mayor tried to compel people to work on Christmas Day. But unfortunately it is copyright material. It is called “The Plum Pudding Riots” and you will find it in “The Folio Book of the English Christmas.” This next piece, written in an old English format, with abbreviations, reflects something of the atmosphere of that time. I hope you can follow it. It is also taken from “The Folio Book of the English Christmas.” Published by the Folio Society.

Christmas Day 1657
from The Diary of John Evelyn 1620–1706

   I went with my Wife &cc: to Lond: to celebrate Christmas day. Mr Gunning preaching in Exeter Chapell on 7.Micha 2. Sermon ended, as he was giving us the holy Sacrament, The Chapell was surrounded with Soldiers: All the Communicants and Assembly surpriz’d & kept Prisoners by them, some in the house, others carried away: If fell to my share to be confined to a roome in the house, where yet were permitted to Dine with the master of it, the Countesse of Dorset, Lady Hatton &c and some others of quality who invited me: In the afternoon came Collonel Whalley, Goffe & others from Whitehall to examine us one by one, & some they committed to the Martial, some to Prison, some Committed: When I came before them they tooke my name and aboad, examined me, why contrarie to an Ordinance made that none should any longer observe the superstitious time of the Nativity (so estem’d by them) I durst offend & particularly be at Common prayers, which they told me was but the Masse in English, & particularly pray for Charles stuard, for which we had no scripture: I told them we did not pray for Cha: Steward but for all Christian Kings, Princes and Governors: They replied in so doing we praied for the K: of Spain too, who was their enemie, & a Papist, with other frivolous & insnaring questions, with much threatening, & finding no colour to detaine me longer , with much pitty of my ignorance, they dismiss’d me. These men were of high flight, and above Ordinances: & spoke spiteful things of our B. Lord nativity.

_____

And here: a lovely and pertinent story in dialect:

A hangover
By George Sturt

from The Bettesworth Book, 1901

   December 27. The weather has remained so wonderfully mild, or “open,” as we say, that outdoor work has received no serious check, and the labouring people were better prepared to face Christmas than it is their wont to be. Bettesworth, amongst others, has had plenty to do, as I have been able to keep him employed.

   But looking for him this morning, after the two days’ holiday, I discovered him at work in his own part of the garden.

   “Oh; going to dig that up this morning?” I asked.
   “Ah, it looked so ontidy. An’ I ben’t jest up to the mark; so I thought I’d have a smack at this.”
   Observing him more narrowly, I saw that he looked pale and gently sick. “Feel a bit Christmassy?” I said.

   He looked ashamed, and answered with a feeble smile. “That is it, sir, to tell ye the truth…some o’ my mates with their wives come round to my place last night. They wanted me to go round to they; but I says, “No, I en’t goin’ out. You best come an’ see me.” So they all come, an’ we made a reg’lar evenin’ of it.”

    “You’ve been having a merry Christmas, then?”

   Oh, there’s no mistake about that. We did enjoy ourselves. One or two brought a bottle o’ home-made wine; an’ then there was a jug o’ beer, an’ so on … But I ben’t fit for much ‘s mornin’. I come an’ made a start as soon’s ‘twas light; but my ‘ead was that queer – there’t seemed all mops and brooms. So I says to my ol’ gal, “I shall do a bit o’ my own today.”

   “Perhaps you were up late?”

   “An, we was. Past the turn o’ the night. Turn o’ the night? What be I talkin’ of?    ‘Twas two o’clock afore we broke up.” (Remember that during the winter Bettesworth is generally in bed by half-past eight or nine o’clock.) “An’ we did git merry, too. Got to singin’ at last.”

   “Oh! You did go it. We were pretty quiet up here.”

   “Well, there didn’t seem to be nothin’ gwine on nowhere. I come out once while they was singin’. An’ all up the valley was as quiety. .. There didn’t seem to be nobody about, an’ nothin’ gwine on nowheres, ‘xcept ‘twas at my place. But I heerd ol’ Biggs – my neighbour, ye know sayin’. “What! Bettesworth’s got a party of ‘em, then! That’s the furst time sine we bin here.” An’ when I went indoors again, I says to ‘em, “You be disturbin’ the neighbours.” But we did enjoy ourselves, an’ no mistake.”

   I tried to imagine the jolly party; eight of them in a little stuffy room, with a paraffin lamp and the reek of tobacco smoke to aid the fire in keeping them warm. Want of ventilation had probably more than the beer and wine to do with the old man’s headache. Besides, he had had too little sleep.

   “I don’t wonder”, I said, “that you feel queer, if you didn’t get to bed before two o’clock.”

   " 'Twas purty well three afore I got to bed … An then I got up … Well, the clock struck six, and my ol’ gal she says, “There’s six o’clock. Ben’t ye goin’ to git up?” “No,” I says, “I shall have another half-hour.” I wa’nt ready to turn out. An’ there I laid, until the clock warned for seven. Then I did git out an’ lit the fire. But I ses to the old gal, “My head do ache,” I says. “So do mine,” she says.

   The old man seemed needlessly cast down and ashamed. I tried to encourage him, and suggested that “it will wear off as the day goes on”.

   “Oh, yes, sir! It’ll wear off. Now I be about – there, I seems better a’ready.      
   ‘Twas just at first startin’ I seemed so queer. But once I can git on workin’ and git into a good sweat I shall do.”
   And his surmise was correct. Before night came round again, all his discomfort had vanished; and the pleasant recollections of his cheerful evening remained unsullied.

_________________
Cormac  E. McCloskey

Note: This blog "Seasonal Things - New Year" was first published, by me, on Windows Live Messenger on 16th December 2005

I did not, as suggested at the outset, remove my Christmas blogs. I was persuaded by "Jy" (then a student in Shanghai to leave them so that people could have the benefit of them later