Keeping Tradition Alive at Christmas
Episodes: 1/4 Monday 21st, 2/4 Tuesday 22nd, 3/4 Wednesday 23rd, tand Christmas Eve Thursday 24 December 10.00-10.30pm GMT each day.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pdkn3
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pdkt9
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pdkw1
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pdkxx

BBC 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 people hundreds of years ago. This Christmas, they're inviting listeners to step into their homes, pubs and churches to share their festive sounds.
Keeping Tradition Alive At Christmas explores the centuries-old tradition of singing secular carols, songs and lyrics that locals fiercely claim as their own in the village pubs of small towns around Sheffield. Also featured is the procession in Padstow, as locals go from street to street singing the Cornish Curls they have proudly nurtured.
On a frosty winter's night, in tiny villages dotted across North Wales, there's a local tradition in which Plygain singers step forward in a candlelit church to present the Christmas hymn that has been in their family for generations.
Also featured is a good old knees-up at Leigh-on-Sea, where Christmas revellers have introduced their own carolling tradition to welcome Yuletide. Borrowing a lyric here and a melody there, reviving old instruments to play their songs, a group of carol singers, musicians, folk fans and storytellers meet to celebrate Christmas the old-fashioned way.

Presenters in this four-part series include Billy Bragg, who explores West Country festive traditions; Julie Fowlis, who hears some Welsh Plygain singers; Bellowhead's Jon Boden who lends his voice to a good old knees-up in Leigh-on-Sea; and Sheffield-born folk singer Kate Rusby. (via BBC Publicity)

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