Songs of Christmas Past

One damp, December afternoon,

I biked out through Stroud’s featureless streets,

Out along the Slad Valley to Bull’s Cross:

Past pollarded willow trees all along the road,

Past well wrapped farmers stacking logs in a dripping coppice,

Past chapels turned to guesthouses,

Their graveyards full of cars,

Past families cutting mistletoe from high, tall branches,

Long handled secateurs silhouetted

Against a setting sun’s cloudscape,

Past rooks, copse-calling in the gathering dusk,

Until, all was silent and still,

As twilight turned to darkness,

That moment,

When all life seems suspended,

A brief moment of seeming equipoise;

I listened to the silence

And then turned for home –

And when I got back to Stroud,

Nocturnal winter-spring had sprung,

Every window was now ablaze

With lights and trees and candles,

Doors were hung with stars and wreaths

Of holly and mistletoe:

Christmas has come!

Mum and dad are singing again!

Cold season’s magic!

This note below is from my brother, ten years ago, when mum still used to perform this song (she would have been a hundred this year):

‘My mother told me that she bought this play as a sixpenny publication in Woolworths. The family may well have put a strong West Country influence on the rendition which shows in my recollection.’

CHRISTMAS WAITS

In our village, Christmas Eve,

I sez to zeveral mates:

"Now look 'ere, mates", I sez,

Sez I,

"Now ‘ow about some Waits?"


We gets zum carols, lairns ‘em up, and on an evenin' wintry,

We muffles up and zallies forth to try it on the Gintry.


"Good King Wenceslas looked out,"

We zings we with splendid power,

Zeveral neighbours looked out too,

To see what all the row were,

We zings forte (sounded like an ‘underd),

Even in the soft bits 'ow we thundered,

Bill, our bass, 'e 'urt 'is face, we thought that it was torn,

Yet all agree there were none like we, to 'ail thee, 'appy morn.

Perkins took the treble line (a lovely voice 'e's got),


I were tenor, Bill were bass, and Fred sang all the lot,

'E wandered up and down the scale,

And though 'e rather marred it


Cuz 'e never knewed the words, and so 'e "lah-lah-lahed" it,

"Lah-lah-lah-lah looked out", ‘e sings with splendid power,

Zeveral neighbours looked out, too,

To see what all the row were,

We zings forte (sounded like an 'undered),

Even in the soft bits 'ow we thundered,

Every verse got worse and worse,

And though we all felt worn,


Yet all agree there were none like we, to 'ail thee, 'appy morn.

Still we never got no cash, which didn't seem quite just,




Zeein' we'd stood there for hours, a-singin' fit to bust,

Then our policeman, old Bob Bates, comes down, a-scowlin' proper,

"Good old Bob", young Perkins cries, "At last we've got a copper!"


Good King Wenceslas last looked out, we zings with splendid power,

Zeveral neighbours looked out too, to zee what all the row were,




Then a change came on the situation,


Bob got nasty and took us to the station.


"Look 'ere, Bates, we're Christmas Waits,"

I says to him with scorn.


He said, with a sneer,

"Now wait in here

And ‘ail thee 'appy morn.”

The piece below was mum and dad’s Christmas special – they used to perform this in fancy dress as a duo and remembered the lines perfectly, almost to the end of their lives.

Little Nell

It was a dark and stormy night


When my Nelly went away


And I'll never forget her


Till my dying day


She was just 16


And the village queen

and the prettiest trick


That the valley ever seen


The farm ain't the same since me Nelly went away


The rooster died and the hen won't lay


But in this window I'll put a light


40 below zero, gosh what a night



Who's that a knocking at the door?


It's your own Little Nell


Don't you know me anymore?


What happened to the actor guy,

Who used to call you Honey


Did he leave you all alone when you hadn't any money?

Oh, he's a slick town guy and he lies with ease


And he's got more money that a dog has fleas


But he left me alone when I was most forlorn


The very night that my little Dumbell was born.

Is that there Dummy?


Well it ain't no other


The gosh-darned image 
Of his gosh-darned mother.

Hoity Toity my fair beauty


Or you'll come to harm


Cos I hold the mortgage 


On your gash-darned farm.




Give me back my Dummy.


Your Dummy?




My Dummy.


Your Dummy?


My Dummy.



Who's this a comin’?


It sounds like a mule.

I ain't no mule you gash-darned fool
,

Can't you tell by me badge
I'm the constibule



Now what's the harm?
Do please tell.

Well he ain't done right by my Little Nell.




Yes I have.

 
You have not.

Yes I have.

 
You have not.
Well he's spoilt me farm and ruined me daughter.





Well I guess I'll have to fine him a dollar and a quarter.

Which all goes to prove the price of sin -

And tomorrow night we play East Lynn.