Carole’s service
THERE is something about the Advent hymns which brings a distinctive shiver of expectation, however often we have sung them. It’s like the spurt of a lighted match to the wick of a candle flame, and we feel it in choir practice the moment we turn to “Lo, he comes with clouds descending”, and then “O Come, O come, Emmanuel”.
The hymns take us by the elbow and steer us on towards Christmas, just as surely as the appearance of Advent purple. A congregation member anchored in the seasons of the Church’s year was the first to notice the absence of Christ the King, reflected in the readings and sermon for the Sunday before Advent, but not, alas, in the altar frontal.
And it leads us to mourn afresh the loss of Carole, who was steeped in knowledge of the liturgical colours; who quietly took the communion linen home to wash; who led the cleaning team; who created the individual bunches of daffodils for Mothering Sunday; who, in her beautiful calligraphy, entered names on baptism certificates and in the book of remembrance. The Caroles of the church are custodians of all that we hold dear.
Baht ’at
I FLIP through the December diary, and reflect on the many contexts in which I’ll be singing Christmas carols in the next few weeks. There’ll be the candlelight services, of course, and we are experiencing in rehearsal the haunting holiness of “Three kings from Persian lands afar”, in which the soloist breaks through the silence as if it were a spell.
It will be worlds apart from Thursday carols in the warm fug of the White Lion, with the packed clientele in the upper and lower bars almost in competition. It will be worlds apart from Saturday singing with the MySight choir of blind and visually impaired people in the Victoria shopping centre, when passers-by join in, and the donation buckets overflow with generosity, and the guide dogs take the wave of affection in their stride.
Tears will likely come to old eyes when the children of one of our city primary schools don their Christmas jumpers and sing at the care centre near by. I’ve been drafted in to assist in walking them safely — and in great excitement — through the streets, and I’ll have the joy later of a Christingle for which parents of all faiths and none turn out in force.
And we’re hoping for crisp, dry weather for an “Hour at the Tower”, when we’ll partially floodlight our 13th-century church tower (ancestor of the present church); light the path with lanterns and the trees with sparkle; serve hot chocolate and mulled wine; and join in with a community choir singing South Yorkshire carols in the open air. If you’ve never heard “While shepherds watched” sung to the tune of “On Ilkley Moor”, then you haven’t lived.
Cracking show
GUSTY winds and sideways rain sweep us along from Birmingham New Street station to the Hippodrome and Birmingham Royal Ballet’s annual production of Peter Wright’s The Nutcracker. We’ve not so much disembarked as been decanted from a two-coach train that should have been at least four coaches; and which — with many stops to go, including Derby and Tamworth — was already full by the time it left Nottingham.
So we sink into our seats with relief and thankfulness. When the curtain goes up, we lose ourselves in the rich abundance of an Edwardian Christmas. Having reviewed it many times in the past, I’m no stranger to this spectacular production, and I know the magic that’s about to unfold when the suddenly giant rats stream out of the suddenly giant fireplace, and the toy soldiers assume human size. But I still find myself curling my toes with excitement and wonder. I have become as a little child.
It’s the adult, though, that is responding to the exquisite dance of the Snow Fairies, on a crystalline set upon which snow gently starts to fall. The music soars. In the world beyond this haven of beauty and peace, whole regions lie in rubble, whole populations are on the move, and the planet is crying out in pain. But, for two brief hours, there’s a window into something so flawless that maybe it, too, holds the promise of Advent.
Bound in love
I HAVE inherited several of my late sister’s childhood books, familiar stories that evoke remembrance and bring an ache of both pain and pleasure. A throng of schoolgirls from an age of camp fires and Girl Guiding, hockey matches and ghost- hunting, crowd into my bedroom and beg to be heard. The books demand to be opened and I reject It Was Fun in the Fourth for Over the Sea to School, by Mabel Esther Allan.
Dillian Harvie, “captain of her form and perfectly contented with life at the local High School”, is sent to a progressive boarding school on the Isle of Skye, where she is determined to hate everything Scottish and to behave so badly that they will expel her. As she helps unmask the impostor Chief of Dundonay, I find myself as gripped as I was when my sister lent it to me (having first inspected my fingers for any signs of ink).
This Christmas will be the first without her: a sadness and emptiness that thousands of families will share. But buck up, as Dillian, or Diana of the Lower Fourth, would say. We had some ripping times.
Pat Ashworth is a journalist and playwright.