With contributions from Cirencester Archaeological & Historical Society, members & friends
Cirencester Christmas Recollections
The beliefs, customs and traditions associated with Christmas are many and varied, and have evolved and changed over the centuries. We make our own traditions within family and social groupings, as well as responding to national religious and non-sectarian beliefs and thoughts.
Many of the traditions and customs associated with the keeping of Christmas have a pre-Christian origin. The church of Rome did not establish the festival until the fourth century but previously in all northern latitudes the solstice has been celebrated, marking the sun’s annual rebirth, and festivities on December 21 was one of the vital religious times of the year.
In the depths of December with shortened day length, work on the land was limited – and hence there was time for festival. The Roman feast was the Saturnalia and it would, no doubt, have been celebrated here in Corinium as elsewhere in the Empire, joined by the indigenous population who associated their own appropriate, pagan, customs with it.
The giving of presents, particularly of dolls was part of the festival. This was a time when slaves were served by masters and all rules were turned inside out. The Greek Libanius (314-393 CE) wrote, “the impulse to spend seizes everyone. He who, through the whole year has taken pleasure in saving and piling up his pence, becomes suddenly extravagant.” Nothing much changes there!
Christmas Eve and the twelve days following was the great season for the Mummers’ Play. The cast usually consisted of six to eight boys, dressed in ‘disguises’, visiting cottages and public houses to perform their play. ‘Here comes I, Father Christmas am I, Welcome or Welcome not I hope old Father Christmas will never be forgot. Christmas comes but once a year. When it comes it brings good cheer with a pocket full of money and a cellar of beer, roast beef, plum pudding …’ .
The Sunday before Advent was the traditional time for housewives to make their plum puddings, giving them time to mature before Christmas day. This Stir Up Sunday has come and gone this year, but there is still time to make a ‘feggy dump’, to be carried blazing to the table, topped with a sprig of holly. Originally both mince pies and Christmas puddings contained meat, to be replaced by suet, and now more usually vegetable shortening. ‘Plums’ were any form of dried fruit, and ‘feggy’ was a dried prune (also called a ‘plum’ – just to confuse you!).
For entertainment on dark winter nights, gone are the days when 470 people crowded into the Corn Hall for a Penny Reading. Begun in the winter of 1862/3, the Reading Committee selected suitable extracts from the popular authors of the day, confident that ‘all classes of society might derive entertainment, instruction and improvement’. For the price of a penny the visitors were regaled by the works of Jane Austen, Thackeray, Charles Dickens and Longfellow.
Today local authors such as Laurie Lee, Humphrey Phelps, John Moore, Leonard Clark and Michael Morpurgo would be first choice for seasonal reading. Another such author would be Jim Turner who was born in Cirencester in 1903. He trained as a teacher and taught in Yorkshire and Bath before returning to Cirencester in 1943 where he was head of Deer Park comprehensive school before retiring in 1963. Retirement allowed him to devote time to writing poetry and verse. Often reflective it was also entertaining, showing a keen sense of humour as in this piece (to be hummed or sung):
“Good King Wenceslas rang Joe
Weeks before Saint Stephen’s.
‘What price, Joe, for Christmas snow?’
Honest Joe said: ‘Evens.’
Wenceslas said: ‘Watch it, please.
Now you’re in my bad books.
Good my page got thirty-threes
Yesterday with La-ad-brokes.
Snow fell thick on Christmas Day.
When he saw it dinted
Words they heard their master say
Never could be printed.
Page and monarch through the snow
Journeyed round the mountain.
What d’you know? They chucked poor Joe
In Saint Agnes’ fou-oun-tain.”
Snow at Christmas, depending on age and experience, is either a blessing or a nuisance. For some the winters of 1947 and 1963 are a strong memory, for their snow drifts and travel disruption, frozen pipes and chilblains. School may have been cancelled, but disruption to food supplies and fuel shortages does not make for pretty Christmas card images. Other images must be conjured up instead.
Linda & David Viner
Thanks to: Flowers from my dustbin, a garland of nonsense by Jim Turner, 1984
Support Cirencester’s principal heritage societies and their event programmes: Archaeological & Historical Society (www.cirenhistory.org.uk) and Civic Society (www.ccsoc.org.uk), which runs a programme of Town Walks in the season plus pre-booked for small groups. See the Society’s website or phone William Cooper on 01285 88 55 90.
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