4 minute read
BARTLEBY
Carols of comfort
Funny the things you miss. I used to dread Wednesdays because for about a decade I spent the hours after school dragging the kids to their swimming lessons, watching said lessons, then getting everyone home again. Wednesdays were about lost goggles, chlorine and shouted conversations through the door of the female changing rooms, where Ms B would be attempting to beat the world record for slow dressing. I think about those times quite fondly these days, remembering the conversations with random parents and that first length of proper non-doggy-paddle crawl.
Carol singing in the park only happens once a year, rather than every week, but my feelings about it used to be broadly similar. Carols were a chore, and one it was impossible to get out of because we were friendly with the vicar and he always made a point of saying how much he was looking forward to seeing us… tomorrow, in the park, at 6pm, in front of the old park lodge, at 6pm. Although generally easy-going, the vicar took carol singing in the park seriously. Kick-off was at six sharp, then he and the keyboard player competed to see how quickly they could race through a repertoire of familiar classics interspersed with occasional modern offerings from the happier, clappier end of the church spectrum.
Of course the older singers only knew one way to sing Once in Royal David’s City, and that was slowly with the occasional warble or trill, so the congregation was always a bar or two behind the piano. Add the wail of a baby and the occasional bark and you ended up with something more like experimental jazz than anything beamed live from King’s College.
We would inevitably arrive late, forgetting until we got there and were handed our laminated carol sheet that visibility in the park on a December evening is not great. As the keyboard player banged out the opening bars of Away in a Manger we peered around for someone we knew well enough to share words with. The kids, meanwhile, vanished into the darkness, resisting our hissed entreaties to ‘stay here and enjoy the carols!’, and were soon to be heard shrieking with their friends in the play area. Moments later we were being divided up by gender so we could perform Good King Wenceslas with high and low parts, despite mutterings in certain quarters about the king’s part being sung by men, and the page’s by women.
A couple of carols later the keyboard player paused, allowing the vicar to say a few words. Readers of a certain age may remember the bit in The Two Ronnies where Ronnie Corbett sat in a chair and told a story, and this is what always came to mind when the singing stopped and the vicar shared his thoughts. Shoulders drooped. Eyes lost their sparkle. Feet shuffled towards the table where the vicar’s wife was preparing to serve mulled wine. Then the piano burst into life once more and we went hurtling towards the climax of the show: a breathless rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas. We would begin confidently, knowing all about partridges and turtle doves, but as the days grew more numerous the inevitable uncertainty would creep up. Was it nine lords-a-leaping? Or ten? What were the ladies doing? Fortunately the mounting chaos of each verse was brought to order by the vicar bellowing ‘Five Go-old Rings!’ every so often, bringing us back to the cosy world of calling birds and French hens.
Then it was over and we made a beeline for the mulled wine. One year it had snowed, and we all stood about stamping our feet, wreathed in plumes of white breath like carol singers from the past. Another year someone brought a trumpet. And last year there were no carols in the park, which I’m really hoping was a one-off. Christmas just isn’t the same without them. ■
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