7 sleeps to go - Away in a manger...

I can’t remember the last time we had a group of carol singers at our door. Where have they all gone? There was a time when groups of shuffle-footed boys would start mumbling carols in your porch as soon as Guy Fawkes Night and ‘Penny for the Guy’ was over.

“Clear off. I’ve only just put out my bonfire.” I used to say.

Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps I put them off. Or maybe the full grown trend for ‘Trick or Treating’ has made carol singing unfashionable - who knows? Of course it could be that in these modern times, where school assembly is more of a inspirational non-religious rally than daily worship, that carols simply aren’t sung or learnt anymore - in which case: ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.’

I bought the first self-bought present for my mum with my carol singing money. It was a blue glass dish with modern (well modern for the sixties) swirly inward curves. I saw it in the window of a shop just opposite my school and decided that she had to have it. I think it was the combination of the sapphire blue glass and the Mobius band-like curve of the rim of the dish – it seemed to go on for ever. It was expensive, a full five shillings (25p), but I planned on co-opting my sister into raising the money through a bit of carol singing.

Back then carol singing was common, and dozens of bands of children roamed the streets at night singing carols door-to-door on the build-up to Christmas. Three full nights we sang on the estate. Five shillings was sixty old pennies and at a tuppence or thruppence a time, and often not even an opened door, it was a long cold trek. I’m sure that without my sister’s almost too quiet to hear lisping of ‘Away in a Manger’ I’d never have reached my goal. But somehow we managed it and the blue bowl was duly bought and wrapped.

The days of carol singing children seem to be long gone and I’ve no idea where that blue bowl is today; probably discarded as junk long ago like so much else. It’d be nice to hear the sound of faltering children’s voices outside my front door this year, but I doubt that it will happen. What a pity, it was best the sound of Christmas.

How I miss it.