{"id":7431,"date":"2023-12-24T16:23:35","date_gmt":"2023-12-24T16:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bilyreid.com\/?p=7431"},"modified":"2024-01-10T19:23:09","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T19:23:09","slug":"in-the-bleak-midwinter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/?p=7431","title":{"rendered":"IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christmas Eve\u00a0 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n

A time for counting one’s blessings and thoughtful reverence\u00a0 for the true spirit of Christmas.\u00a0 \u00a0A time for reflecting on Christmas eves past which in my case go from the sublime to the ridiculous. <\/strong><\/p>\n

First the sublime. Attendance at Christmas evensong in King’s College, Cambridge with choral voices in four part harmony slicing through damp, dense air and resonating off cold stone, penetrating body as well as the soul. Or attending midnight service at Florence Nightingale’s old church\u00a0 on South Audley, London with a now departed love.\u00a0\u00a0So it is not by accident that I have become a fan of English Christmas chorales of the 18th and 19th centuries. This is music that only a proud, confident culture can produce with even, dare I say, a little swagger.\u00a0 Something totally missing\u00a0 in the fractured Anglosphere of today where even agents of the crown can label Christmas to be “discriminatory”.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>KING’S COLLEGE UNDER RAINBOW<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now the ridiculous! Never to be forgotten was the\u00a0 warmth of austere accommodation in Raxual, India one lonely Christmas eve halfway around the world. I had exited the Nepalese Himalaya’s crammed into the back of a dump truck with about 15 other pieces of assorted humanity. Upon crossing the border and\u00a0 reaching the railway station in Raxual, I had missed the last train and decided to pitch up for the night in the dirt of the railway platform. Fortunately I was spotted by a US Peace Corp worker who offered a basic lentil curry and\u00a0 accommodation in the darkness (no electricity!) of his humble abode.\u00a0 I can’t even remember his name but I remain eternally grateful for that act of Christian charity.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the past few years the following, “In the Bleak Midwinter”,\u00a0 has pushed past\u00a0 my old reliable “Good King Wencelas” to become my favourite Christmas carol.\u00a0 Made all the more emotionally intense when I learned\u00a0 that the lyrics, a poem by Christina Rosetti<\/strong>, was set to music by Gustav Holst. Though not born there, Holst chose to live in Thaxted, Essex\u00a0 after his discovering it on a hike. Hiking in Essex, I know what that’s like! Thaxted was the first English village that I\u00a0 ever had the opportunity to explore in depth.\u00a0 My partner in crime was an older English tradesman, Alf, who delighted in showing me the hidden jewels of his rural Essex.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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