9 December - Past Three O' Clock
One of the formative books of my childhood was Fell Farm for Christmas, by Marjorie Lloyd, the second in a trilogy beginning with "Fell Farm Holiday" and ending with "Fell Farm Campers" - very much in the Ransome "Swallows and Amazons" mould, it's set as a journal by one of a family of Jolly Children (teens, but teenagers hadn't been invented yet) who return to the Westmoreland (now Cumbria) farm where they lived as Second World War evacuees a few years before.
Incidentally, the farm where the stories are set is a real place - High Arnside farm is abought halfway between the Lake District towns of Ambleside and Consiton, just north of Tarn Hows, and operates holiday cottages. #NotSponsored
I bring up this story because it's where I first heard of this carol - the elder boy, Pat, sings it on Christmas Eve as the children and the farm couple go carolling to a neighbour's. This recording is sung from Carols for Choirs 1, truncated to the first three and the final verse.
Music: Traditional English, harmonized by Charles Wood
Words: G. R. Woodward
Musicians: Kathleen Jowitt, Tony Evershed
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Past three o' clock, Born is a baby, Past three o' clock... Seraph quire singeth, Past three o' clock... Mid earth rejoices Past three o' clock... Thus they: I pray you, Past three o' clock, |