Advent by Candlelight
THE CELEBRATION OF CHRISTMAS HAS BEGUN. It began in the half light of Sunday afternoon, the first day of Advent, with the excellent Cambridge Voices and Ian de Massini's Advent by Candlelight. This celebration, with its mixture of inspiring music and soaring voices; its somewhat quirky readings and lusty congregational singing; its mystifying transfer of the whole company from one church to the other in the middle of the performance, has become a tradition in the village.
This year there were echoes of other occasions; St Andrew's Day, the last day of November, with readings about the Saint (the first read by an Andrew 'manly and gentle') and several Scottish connections with St Andrew's University. Also with the 90th anniversary of the cessation of fighting in the first World War, the flowers in St Cyriac's a particular heart-pull to that optimistic eleventh hour reminder of the horror of war. Ian's tribute to the Christmas Eve truce, The Flanders Carol, with its renderings of Silent Night in both English and German was particularly moving.
The singing as ever, was beautiful; the power of unaccompanied voices blending and soaring, carrying us to magic places. Uplifting; inspiring. And then Ian's irrepressible sense of humour infecting us as we joined in with his prancing rendering of The Skye Boat Song on the accordion. The readings too were wideranging in their scope, well read by torchlight in the darkness. (And whose was the choice that brought a smile to the faces of those in the know of a particularly apt reader for one of them?)
And the whole thing brought to a conclusion with what Swaffham Prior does so well, a time to chat, and share thoughts, with a glass of mulled wine and a mince pie, provided by the congregants of St Mary's Church.
And the bonus of our Advent Concert, enjoyed on so many levels? Over £700 raised for the charity Emmaus.
...and some background:
The Ypres Christmas Truce MIRACLES DO HAPPEN every so often - even in battle.
For those soldiers locked in fierce combat near Ypres in the Ypres salient
region of Belgium, that miracle was the Christmas Truce of December 24, 1914.
The British and German troops were mired in heavy mud, biting cold, barbed-wire
boundaries, and water-logged trenches. The war was supposed to be short, but
already predictions were being made that it would drag on for months, if not
years. Casualties had been heavy - hundreds of thousands had already died since
the beginning of the fighting in August. Soldiers on both sides of the battle
field - some not more than 30 yards from each other - were weary and
dispirited. And it was Christmas Eve.
The soldiers had received little gifts from their homelands for their muddy Christmas celebration. Both sides got boxes of tobacco and food from their respective governments, but logistics gave the Germans an edge on gifts from home. They were closer to their homeland borders and were also sent small Christmas trees and candles, which they began setting out on their parapets - the low earth and stone ridges erected to protect them from the British. Then they started to sing Christmas carols, and, although the words were in a foreign language, the tunes were familiar to British ears.
They watched, and they listened. And, after a while, they began singing too. Amid continuing shouts back and forth of Christmas tidings, the troops became emboldened. By Christmas morning, the "no man's land"between the trenches was filled with British and German soldiers, with men visiting across the lines and gifts of food and tobacco being exchanged. In several places, games of soccer were organized: Private Ernie Williams of the 6th Cheshires reported, "I should think there were about a couple of hundred taking part...There was no sort of ill-will between us."Amid the music and sports, both sides frequently joined together for large Christmas dinners.
In some areas, the unsanctioned truce lasted until New Year's Day, but while the lower ranks were celebrating in the trenches, the high commands were both livid and concerned. Under the threat of court marital, commanders ordered their troops back to combat.
Shaking hands and parting, the Germans and British trudged back to their sodden trenches to begin the killing of those who, only hours earlier had shared in a celebration common to them as Christians. The Great War would stretch on through another three Christmases and beyond, until the Armistice signed on November 11, 1918. In all, 8.5 million would die and 21 million more would be wounded.