Changing customs \u2013 let’s start with very recent times!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Christmas this year seems to have started before Bonfire Night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hallowe\u2019en was a wash-out, with heavy rain \u2013 but also seems to have fallen out of favour post-pandemic. (It only become \u2018a thing\u2019 in the UK in the 1990s, when British kids started to copy what they saw on American television series). Stores did sell Hallowe\u2019en costumes this year, but very limited \u2013 and other side of their \u2018seasonal aisle\u2019 was filled with early Christmas goods. Including lots of mince pies with a shelf life way short of December 25!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have known Christmas card catalogues drop through the letter box in July. Hot-cross buns seem to be on sale all year round, not just at Easter. And the ad reps at my old newspaper put decorations up in September, to get them in the mood to sell Christmas advertising space. But this year, it seems more pervasive, somehow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyway, with the radio playing Christmas songs, it\u2019s time for a seasonal post on Cumbrian Characters. <\/em>Which means looking back for some customs even older than 1970s pop songs and watching films about neglected children inflicting violence on criminals!<\/p>\n\n\n\n A lecture given by a Mr F Harrison, in Penrith, in 1886, also referred to changing customs. It referred to one \u2018which had gone, he feared never to return\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018About Christmas time, in most Cumberland villages, the scholars got inside the school early in the morning, and barred the master out until he had made arrangements as to the length of holidays etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018The master, who always expected the barring out at the proper time, used to adjourn to the village alehouse and treated the biggest boys to mulled ale\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n In case you were wondering: <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018in the winter season, plenty of big fellows 18 and 20 years attended the schools\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It would seem \u2018the recent Education Act\u2019 and the School Board system \u2018gave the death-blow\u2019 to this time-honoured custom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the Kendal area in 1856, it was apparently still the custom to go from house to house on New Year\u2019s Day, seeking gifts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Some dressed as mummers, but others made no effort at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To neet is New Year neet<\/p>\n\n\n\n To morn it is the day<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve cum\u2019t to lait our New Year gift<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wid a hag-me-na.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n There are a LOT more verses. One about a \u2018lile nag\u2019 (small horse) bringing turfs \u2018that beyak\u2019d my breed, as heavy as leed, as clam as clay, as rough as hay\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another is about a calf called Ralf being blown off the fell by hail and snow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The householders would perhaps have been glad to give the singers a gift to make it stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Children knocking on doors, one verse of \u2018We wish you a merry Christmas\u2019, then silent expectation of payment. Another custom that seems to have fallen by the wayside in the 2020s.Tho\u2019 the mangled lyrics of \u2018to you and your king\u2019 would actually work this year!<\/p>\n\n\n\n But surely carol singers were popular in times gone by? TV series\/movie makers seem to think so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In December 1865, a writer in the Kendal Mercury <\/em>muses on \u2018waits\u2019. First (s)he ponders on \u2018where to they go the rest of the year?\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He describes how:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018some experience pleasurable sensations from the familiar airs that came soughing on the night wind, they turn on their pillows, listen for a minute or two to the dulcet strains\u2026 and fall asleep again, soothed and gratified.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n But then again\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018There exists another class of persons, happily not very numerous, but still possessing some influence, who, from their morose and splenetic dispositions, not only object to the ‘-Waits” nuisances, but hold them in possitive and active hatred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018These are the unhappy individuals who empty the water jug on the heads of the nocturnal musicians below\u2019.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n One changing custom fell into abeyance in the early 1850s, only to be revived at least once, in 1855.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018of Westmorland and Cumberland it has been custom, from time immemorial, for the fiddler to go round and visit each house on the 12th day, accompanied by a number of young men..<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018In Martindale in particular this has been a custom of very ancient standing..\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The Kendal Mercury<\/em> continues:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018During the last few years the innocent old custom\u2026 had almost fallen into disusetude.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n But was happy to report that this year (1855), it had been revived \u2018in all its vigour\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ‘Mr Mounsey went round as usual on the eve of Christmas and new year; and on the 12th day he was accompanied by nearly all the young men of the valley, amounting at times to 20 or upwards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n ‘The minstrel and his band of volunteers were received at each house with every demonstration of hearty welcome, and in the evening a ball was held at the Star (inn)\u2026 more familiarly known as the “Cwoat How.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018The evening was spent in the most agreeable manner\u2014the young men and damsels of the dale joining in the mazes of the contra-dance\u2014tripping the same old fashioned tunes, which had resounded amongst the timbers of the same old place generations before they were born. The ball was amost agreeable one, and the whole proceedings went off with eclat.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n However you spend it, Cumbrian Characters hopes you have a very happy Christmas<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSchool\u2019s out<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Changing customs 1856<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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A Christmas carol<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Christmas rejoicings<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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