I am enjoying this!! It brings back those nights years ago over large glasses of whatever hooch we had available.

Let me throw this one into the equation.

On Sunday I shall be in the pub singing along with a load of others the traditional carols wiped out when Hymns Ancient and Modern drove them from the churches and (in our area) into the pub.

We call them traditional and indeed no other description would fit this, described as "one of the most remarkable instances of popular traditional singing in the British Isles".

Similar traditions exist in Cornwall at Padstow, (who have exported it with their miners to Grass Valley California and to Australia)and in Glen Rock Pennsylvania where a small pocket of these carols exist thanks to some people who went there in 1848 and wanted to celebrate Xmas like they did back in England.

There are other areas of such singing in the UK, notably in Odcombe Somerset, discovered in the early 1970's. And a revived tradition in Canada.

Yet thanks to meticulous research by Ian Russell we know the author of the vast bulk of these carols and generally they remain unaltered from the originals.

Yet virtually all of these are learnt orally - I did and so did most of the people who go regularly. We continue to change by introducing new (old) carols - also all written down, and I can remember many of these changes and why they came in.

So there we are, by those who have listened clearly traditional, learnt orally, yet written down with known authors and unchanged!!

Errrr..........

And it starts Sunday - can't wait!!!!!!

Dave