Christmas 2017

The Nativity, from a 14th-century Missal

Thank you to everyone who turned up last Friday and made our Christmas session a great success. The numbers at the bottom of this article speak for themselves. With festive preparations and professional panics weighing heavy I can only skim the surface of the festivities. Not only did we have lots of fun singing songs of yule and not-so-yule but we enjoyed a well-deserved half time buffet, with thanks to all those present for their edible donations.

Geoff gets the award for man of the match, bringing half his family with him; I hope they enjoyed themselves and may even grace us with their presence in the future, and perhaps even sing us a song or tell us a story. My ringing, and emailing and texting brought forth fruit in the presence of Chris, Roger and Phil, Tom, Steve G and Keith G (no relation as far as I know). We were also joined for the second time by visitors to the area from Yorkshire, Malcolm and his lady, whose name I'm afraid I didn't catch. We couldn't have asked for much better.

Colin MCed as usual and started us off with tongue firmly in cheek, singing Merry Christmas You Suckers (Paddy Roberts) - some true words sung in jest perhaps.

Before the start I had been discussing The Ballad Of Lady Jane with Chris, which she had sung on a previous occasion, and she sang it again, just as sweetly, for her first song of the evening.

Our next Christmas song came from Simon, being Gaudete (published in Piae Cantiones). Geoff said it sounded as though Simon needed an extra lung for the singing and himself felt the same problem when giving us Allan Sherman's Twelve Days Of Christmas.

Tom said that his self-penned poem, Once Too Often (Tom Mossman) was the only thing in his repertoire that even mentioned Christmas. But his most popular contribution of the evening must have been Home Lass Home (Tom Mossman), a parody of Homeward. Both Colin and Mike (who had a sick-note for the evening when it came to singing) asked for the words, so here they are.

Malcolm gave us two monologues: My Mother's Cooking (Bill Newton) and the second One Of Those Days (His Worship And The Pig)

Roger avoided Christmas songs though he did tell an interesting story from his days as a policeman of a night spent in a cemetery. The closest Phil got to something seasonal was Plastic Jesus (Ed Rush, George Cromarty) though I do associate She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain with Christmas pantomimes when I was a child, with my first year junior school teacher, Mrs Smith always being the principle boy.

Steve G sang us one of his favourite songs of the moment: Northbound 35 (Jeffrey Foucault). Finishing off the evening feel to Keith G who played and sang a medley of I'm Too Far Gone To Turn Around (Belford Handricks, Clyde Otis), at least I think it was that, and something else I've failed to identify from my sparse notes.

Here's a selection of songs sung during this session.

(Number of people present - 15, of whom 10 performed)