Thursday 18 December 2014

Advent calendar 18 - Ding dong merrily...

It’s unlikely that you’d ever hear me humming a hymn, but there is something about a Christmas carol that changes all that, something that sets it apart from other hymns. In fact, I don’t think of carols as hymns at all, just jolly good songs to be sung at Christmas.

Maybe it’s the themes; after all you need to look hard at some of them to find much religious content. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen always reminds me of drinking in the pub for some reason, I Saw Three Ships is basically Greensleeves reworked for Christmas and The Holly and the Ivy is based on a much older, much more pagan, song.

As a not quite teenager I was in the school choir. I got drafted in for some reason even though I don’t think my soprano voice was that good. I guess I helped make the numbers up. After all, you can’t have a choir without lots of choirboys otherwise it wouldn’t be a choir; it’d be a trio or something. Anyway, being in the choir was a real pain in the arse. Far too much practicing in lunch breaks, more thwacking on the back of the head with a hymn book that was good your constitution, and of course being in the choir was seen by some of the other boys as not really rugger-bugger.

I guess you could say that I was an enforced choir boy, Shanghaied you might call it.

Yes, I hated it. But that all changed at Christmastime.

The Christmas Carol concert at the local church was fantastic in so many ways. For me it was the end of school and the start of Christmas. Well worth the weeks of practice and the long droning service itself, even to a not at all religious twelve year old it was beautiful. I have the fondest memories of standing in the choir stalls with my hair neatly brushed singing Gaudete and the Coventry Carol in a candlelit and holly decked church. For a few minutes, as I sang my heart out, I almost believed.

Yes, it seems my dong was truly dinged merrily for a while; and then my balls, which were on high, dropped - and that was that.

8 comments:

  1. I am the big, fat, half-hidden one at the back by the way. The one with the bushy hair singing slightly off-key.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Andrew Height
    Steve you might remember the carol concerts at St Mary's church in Thame.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cloe Fyne on FB
    Lol this one is funny! Think I might go to a carol service this year, lots round here x

    ReplyDelete
  4. Cloe Fyne on FB
    Even jamie says he'll come as a one off! lol

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Andrew Height
      Like I say, there only needs to be religion involved if you choose to believe. I don't, but it is a nice, warm, sing song which is why most people go to them I think.

      Delete
  5. Andrew Height
    Lindsey, do Lord Bills still have a carol concert at St Mary's each year? I really hope that they do,

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lindsey Messenger
      I don't think so.... The junior schools do xxx

      Delete
    2. Andrew Height
      Shame Lindsey. They used to hold the Founder's Day service and the Christmas carol concert at St Mary's before we joined with Wenman. They were like something from a past age even then, the masters parading up the aisle in gowns and mortar boards and banners from the world wars. I was lucktyto be there and to sing in that choir, although I never understood that at the time really. x

      Delete