With Emily at the helm and with no more public events on the books this side of Christmas, we sang our way through a mix of festive and seasonal songs. Choices were directed by requests for old favourites but also included a couple of others with Christmas 2026 in mind. We opened with "When It's Christmas Time" before the "Boar's Head Carol", "Sweet Chiming Bells", "Masters in this Hall", "Pentonville", and "Ideo". "The Moon Shone Bright" was one we haven't sung for a while but was well remembered by those who knew it.
Emily reminded us of "Christmas is Drawing Near at Hand" - a sombre song about the rich and poor at Christmas which has never been a favourite at the Worthing sessions. Later Henny and Alan suggested the "Ditchling Carol" (known by some as "Be Merry All"), which has a similar theme, and Alan led us through a shortened version of it; they both advocated its use by us because of it Sussex heritage.
"Angel Gabriel" and "Deck the Halls" took us to a break and some notices about local events over the festive season - including plans for wassails in Tarring and Findon (both listed on our Diary Pages on this Blog). We also debated plans for our January session at the Barn with our usual first Thursday of the month being New Year's Day - and it was agreed to move it to the second Thursday instead.
Before we revived some wassail songs ready for use in January, Alan sang through the "Halsway Carol", brought to our attention by Mick Bullen who is leading a 'pub carols' session in Worthing on December 15th (also mentioned on our Diary page). Although not of Sussex origin it was approved as a lovely song to try - and will be put on our Blog page for that purpose and maybe use in 2026.
Our wassailing songs started with the "Apple Tree" round which was fun, followed as far as time allowed by the "Sugar (or Sussex) Wassail", "Wassail the Silver Apple" and the much used "Gloucester Wassail" with some confusion over which of the many verses to use!
After this jolly finish we parted with seasonal good wishes exchanged - and our next meeting on JANUARY 8TH 2026 to look forward to. (This has since been confirmed - but with a slight change to our venue - the Barn had been booked by another user, so we have been given permission to meet and sing in the church next door instead - please use the church entrance to come and join us.)
HH
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