Posted by Magersfontein on December 21, 2009 at 7:38pm
BBC Radio 2 is running an interesting four-part programme about unusual English and Welsh traditions of carolling. Part One was broadcast this evening, the 21st December, and the rest will be on succeeding evenings up until Christmas Eve. I'll try to catch them all... Here's the first programme, celebrating the wonderful tradition that flourishes in a dozen or so villages just outside Sheffield.
Roger
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Here's the second programme, in which the Scottish singer Julie Fowlis discovers the Welsh tradition of Plygain.
Roger
TheMadBlonde > MagersfonteinJanuary 5, 2010 at 7:29pm
Fascinating! For several years I was getting emails in Welsh after I had spent months contacting everyone I could find to ask about plygain carols for our Celtic Revels show. I have no idea what any of the emails said, but it was an experience. ;-)
Magersfontein > MagersfonteinDecember 23, 2009 at 6:06pm
In the third programme Billy Bragg goes to Padstow in Cornwall, a little fishing port that's better known for its glorious May Day festivities.
Roger
Magersfontein > MagersfonteinDecember 25, 2009 at 5:56pm
And finally Jon Boden - whose usual haunt is the Royal at Dungworth in Yorkshire, where the first programme was recorded - visits the Essex fishing port of Leigh-on-Sea, where a Folk Carol Service has flourished for thirty years.
Roger
semoshorts > MagersfonteinDecember 25, 2009 at 7:18pm
These productions are excellent. Thanks for sharing.
Here's a bit more information from the Radio 2 website:
"Radio 2 goes on a journey to celebrate local voices and different carolling traditions around England and Wales. Across the country, pockets of people have been keeping alive Christmas traditions that were lost to most hundreds of years ago. This Christmas, they're inviting you to step into their homes, pubs and churches, to share their festive sounds.
"Hark, Hark! the carollers are coming. In the month before Christmas the village pubs of small towns around Sheffield are packed with the merrymaking of enthusiastic singers. Sheffield-born folk singer Kate Rusby invites you to come out of the cold and warm yourself by the fire as you eavesdrop on a centuries-old tradition of secular Christmas carols, songs and lyrics that locals - including multiple Radio 2 Folk Award-winner Eliza Carthy - fiercely claim as their own.
"The other presenters in this four-part series are Billy Bragg who explores West Country festive traditions; Julie Fowlis who hears some Welsh Plygain singers; and Bellowhead's Jon Boden who lends his voice to a good old knees-up in Leigh-on-Sea."
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Roger
Roger
Roger
"Radio 2 goes on a journey to celebrate local voices and different carolling traditions around England and Wales. Across the country, pockets of people have been keeping alive Christmas traditions that were lost to most hundreds of years ago. This Christmas, they're inviting you to step into their homes, pubs and churches, to share their festive sounds.
"Hark, Hark! the carollers are coming. In the month before Christmas the village pubs of small towns around Sheffield are packed with the merrymaking of enthusiastic singers. Sheffield-born folk singer Kate Rusby invites you to come out of the cold and warm yourself by the fire as you eavesdrop on a centuries-old tradition of secular Christmas carols, songs and lyrics that locals - including multiple Radio 2 Folk Award-winner Eliza Carthy - fiercely claim as their own.
"The other presenters in this four-part series are Billy Bragg who explores West Country festive traditions; Julie Fowlis who hears some Welsh Plygain singers; and Bellowhead's Jon Boden who lends his voice to a good old knees-up in Leigh-on-Sea."