Traditional Christmas carols

I am not a naturally out-going person. Consequently I find the four or five weeks before Christmas, made up of a relentless series of social gatherings, parties and office dinners, rather heavy going. Plus my sister is extremely ill with throat cancer (any Christians reading this entry please pray for her recovery).

The past two weeks in particular have consisted of too many late nights, when I have battled against a perpetual cold (which shows no signs of leaving), and an average of five hours sleep per night. So when Marie-Astrid e-mailed me to ask me along to a birthday celebration I was not enthusiastic. Especially when she told me she wanted to mark her birthday by going along to a candle-light Christmas musical evening in a local “castle” (an event that sounded so high-kitsch and embarrassing that normally I would not go near the place).

But Marie-Astrid is half-Danish and is enthusiastic about Old English customs (including entirely fabricated ones such as this). Also, as a recently-divorced person she is struggling to build up a social network - most of her previous friends were members of her husband’s family, and have abandoned her. And Marie-Astrid is always good company.

So I said I would go along, and on Wednesday drove to the northern town where she lives (“northern” is a relative term - some people would consider it to be in the east Midlands). Because I went there straight from work I was still in a suit, and wondered if I would be over-dressed. When I got to Marie-Astrid’s house I found she was dressed smartly, plus we were joined by two of her friends (Emily and Julie, both of whom work for a big charity) who were in long dresses (long formal dresses, like you would see at a ball).

Anyway, we drove for miles along narrow muddy lanes, until my car became almost entirely plastered in mud. We were obviously going deep into the countryside as there were no houses, no other cars, no lights whichever way one looked. Eventually, following Emily’s directions for about half an hour, we saw in the distance the “castle” lit up on the top of a looming black hill.

The “castle” is not a castle at all, but is in fact a ducal palace built in 1816 in a form of Regency Gothic (turrets, battlements and gothic arches overlaying a symmetrical and rational style of architecture that is essentially Georgian). The place is huge, and built for entertaining on the grandest scale. The ducal family must have considerable reserves of money, as everywhere was well kept - none of the usual signs of decay you see in big houses.

We couldn’t drive right up to the “castle” but had to park on the lower slopes, stewards directing us into a field. There were many other cars parked in rows, and I began to fear that the event would be crowded. Leaving the car we walked across the field (Marie-Astrid, Emily and Julie picking their way in high-heeled shoes, complaining about the mud) and past a sort of lodge, joining a procession of other guests making their way up the extremely steep hill, the direction indicated by electric lights strung out along the side of the path.

After about twenty minutes of stiff walking we arrived on top of the hill where a very cold strong wind was blowing. The “castle” towered over us, floodlit and looking as insubstantial as a film set. We followed everyone else through a gothic doorway into what seemed to be a sort of armoury (the walls decorated with displays of antique guns and swords, suits of armour standing in niches). This chamber although vast, was absolutely crammed with people, so that we could hardly move. Upstairs, on a sort of gallery, a big choir was belting out traditional Christmas carols, and at a bar glasses of mulled wine were being handed out. My worst fears, that the evening would be crowded, clichéd and uncomfortable, seemed to be realised.

But I was wrong.

Although there were hundreds of people at the event (almost all of them in full evening dress), as soon as we moved away from the armoury the “castle” absorbed everyone, so that there were never more than twenty or so people in each cavernous room. The interiors of the “castle” are so ornate and decorative that the swathes of Christmas baubles and tinsel seemed positively restrained by comparison. And the effect of such big chambers lit almost entirely by dozens and dozens of candles gave even the most over-familiar Christmas songs and carols new and (I hesitate to use this word, but nothing else seems apposite) magical settings.

We could wander all over the “castle”, each room we entered having a different musical performance, the thickness of the stone walls preventing the sounds from clashing. From the choir in the ballroom to a jazz band in a picture gallery, to a piano soloist in the State Dining Room (blond hair, serious expression on her young face, she played a succession of piano pieces on the theme of moonlight - Clare de lune, Blue Moon, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata). Open fires were in every room, and so many candles were on display that the fire risk must have been considerable.

At one stage we entered a sort of long gallery, a room of ridiculously expansive proportions (over a hundred and thirty feet in length), the furnishings sumptuous and extravagant. As we approached the end of this gallery the wall was made up of a huge floor-to-ceiling mirror. Marie-Astrid, Emily and Julie stood in front of this giant looking-glass and in a co-ordinated act of vanity dropped their coats to the floor and admired their long dresses (at a risk of catching cold, since the chamber was not warm).

We finished the evening in the small chapel (the altarpiece being a painting of The Holy Family by Murillo). A choir of women called Voices From A Small Place (eleven of them, various ages), were singing medieval carols. The women were dressed in red evening clothes, all different. They were led by an extrovert women aged about forty-five, and seemed just as interested in singing for each other as performing for an audience. Normally I am ambivalent about middle-class interpretations of English folk culture (satirised by Kingsley Amis in Lucky Jim), but this choir didn’t take themselves too seriously and stayed the right side of sentimentality. Their voices were very fine, and a rendition of the Coventry Carol was genuinely moving.

At the end of the evening we returned to the car. Most other people had already left, churning large parts of the field to mud. Consequently my car got stuck in a boggy patch and refused to move forward. Marie-Astrid, Emily and Julie immediately got out of the car and attempted to push it (in the dark, slipping in mud, not thinking of their shoes or long dresses) but still no movement. The field was on a fairly steep slope, and eventually I just let the car roll backwards onto some un-churned grass where the wheels could get some grip and I could get some momentum and go forward again. When I looked at the car the next day there were three pairs of handprints in the thick mud on the back.