A pause for Advent 3: Advent Calendar Day 11: The Box of Delights

I wonder if you have a favourite Christmas carol at all?  I'm not sure what mine is, I like so many, but there is a Christmas carol that I have special affection for because of something very simple.

When I was around only 3ish, the BBC made a Christmas TV serial of John Masefield's Children's Story. I was both delighted and terrified by it.

The premise of the story is that a boy called Kay (who featured in a previous book, The Midnight Folk) is coming home from Boarding School for Christmas.  He meets and helps a Punch and Judy man who is struggling with his luggage.
Meeting the man opens the magical world to Kay that he previously encountered in the previous book.  The previous villain, Abner Brown, seeks the magical box of delights that Cole Hawlings, the Punch and Judy Man is the custodian of.

As the Advent Season continues, strange things start happening and one by one, people including Cole and then most people he encounters, start to disappear as Abner Brown desperately seeks the Box.  The Bishop, all the choir boys and practically all the priests in the area, and Peter, Kay's house guest for the holiday.
The only person that he fails to capture is Kay.  He totally underestimates Kay, thinking him to be a dreamy child, and no one to have been trusted with the 'missing' Box of Delights.

But Kay is the person to whom the Punch and Judy man has entrusted the Box.

It remains for Kay to help rescue all the missing people from Abner Brown, to defeat him, get the box back to Cole Hawlings and for everyone to go against all the odds and get back to the cathedral for the Midnight Mass service on Christmas Eve.

It is a wonderful story for Christmas and I have the TV series fixed so much in my memory.  I associate it so much with Christmas

I like the fact that they are trying to get back to the church for Christmas eve, that is the ultimate aim and that the church is a part of the central story- it being the 1000th anniversary of Midnight Mass at Tadchester cathedral.
I like the fact that Abner Brown totally underestimates Kay and doesn't even consider him. I like the fact that Cole Hawlings trusts a young boy with this responsibility when he might have chosen anyone.  You might say it is a tenuous link, and I think it is, as it has only really entered my head now, but like God, not choosing someone important to do an important job. He chose someone young, insignificant and not the obvious choice as it were.


One of the most magical aspects of it is the theme music to the show.  It was originally serialised for radio and the same music was used for it in that setting too.

The music comes from a Carol Symphony for Full Orchestra called 'The Carol Symphony' by Hely-Hutchinson, in which various melodies are woven together, disguised and then revealed in various ways.  The opening credits begin with a held violin note followed by the harp setting up a repeated pattern.  It is eerie, uncomfortable, mysterious and ominous as the faces of certain characters flash up. Suddenly, the violin notes resolve to the tonic (the central note of the piece), with the French horns and the tension suddenly releases as we hear 'The First Nowell' tune from the 1st violins.  It is a truly magical moment musically.

In the closing credits, they took the resolution/ending of the movement of the Symphony where the strings take over the Harp ostinato and pass it to the flutes and woodwind whilst the lower strings take over the tune with several layers of harmony.  It is such a moment of joy and beauty (You can hear both the opening credits and closing credits above) and I have such an affection for the First Nowell because of this piece.

One pinnacle moment in my musical training was when I was in about Year 10 and my Youth Orchestra were performing the Hely-Hutchinson Carol Symphony.  At this point, I had no idea that this was the Box of Delights music.   We got to the point in the third movement where the Coventry Carol froze and suddenly the harp ostinato (repeated pattern) began with the strings and my heart leapt to my throat.  I almost choked with joy at the recognition of this.  I wanted to tell everyone around me but bizarrely, none of my friends seemed to know what on earth I was talking about. I looked at the front of the hire scores we were using and saw that it said 'BBC with the dates that it was recorded and realised we were using the very piece of music that the BBC had used.  The only person that understood my excitement was the Head of the Music School who had chosen it and was conducting it. I excitedly went to tell him it was the Box of Delights and he said he knew and he loved it too!  It's not widely performed because it has triple wind (you need 3 flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons etc) and it is quite short, so it was a big deal to be playing it.

Now for me, every Christmas, I seek my CD version of it to play.  It is a real Advent tradition for me to listen to it repeatedly- the whole symphony, not just the Box bit- and I almost always shed a tear at the sheer delight and magic of it.  The family had a VHS version of the video which my sister and I watched repeatedly at Christmas time, which is perhaps why I was so familiar with it and none of my peers were.  I think I gained such a fascination with it because of those fearsome wolves in it, which even now slightly terrify me.  I have both books by John Masefield featuring Kay and I love his writing.  But for me, the TV version will always be my first love.
I am so glad to have found it on Youtube (you can watch it in its entirety  here)

I would also suggest you listen to the wonderful Victor Hely-Hutchinson carol symphony and share in my Advent tradition which you can do here.)

Have you heard of or seen this?  If, like me, you love it, you can check out this blog I've found purely on this series here!

This is my Pause for Advent with Ang Almond et al and is my Day 11 of my Advent Calendar with Julie at KC's court.

Be seeing you...

Hi there,
Just a quick check in amidst packing. Don't ask.
SO. MUCH. STUFF.

 I do love a secret cosplay and I decided to do one yesterday for parents evening as the items of clothing were to hand.

Patrick McGoohan from the cult TV show, The Prisoner was my inspiration. If you look at the Google images link I put there, you will see what I am wearing is very much based on his look!

It was a super cosy outfit for being at school all day and evening but it looked relatively smartish. I quite like the androgynous look sometimes.

And here is my Number 6 badge but....

I AM NOT A NUMBER, I AM A FREE MAN!


And this is the last time I shall sign off from blogger in this house.

Be seeing you....


P.S. If you liked the Prisoner, please let me know. The only person yesterday that recognised what I was trying to do was the random bike engineer who was doing bike advice at school during parents evening! I felt a bit too geeky!
P.P.S.  If you've never heard of it

Thoughts on The Doctor

I must say, I am really enjoying Peter Capaldi's interpretation of The Doctor in Doctor Who so far. I'm also enjoying it because CBC has voluntarily watched it with me each week, the day after on i-player. I woke up this morning to find him watching the previous night's episode on i-Player in bed on his phone!! CBC usually disses Doctor Who. And yet, though he denies it, I think he's starting to like it.

I'm trying to think what it is I am enjoying:

• I love the accent- nothing like a good old Scottish accent to cheer me up (I love any accent north of Birmingham! I often bemoan my boring accent and confess to saying the Lord's prayer at church aloud with slight northern twang on certain words- and the life ever-laaaasting).
• The fact that there is no Doctor-Assistant love-triangle,will-they-wont-they relationship. Honestly, with new Who, I was really tired of that. I know that with Donna, there wasn't any of that, but I was getting a bit bored with it.
• The fact that he is bossy, grumpy and sarcastic with Clara.  It's funny and sets a different mood.
• He's so different to the others, yet there is that Doctor magic that stays despite the change of personnel.
• He does, for me, hark back to Old-Who a bit more. This is good.
• He's a super actor and he's a bit insane! He reminds me of my old Scottish flute teacher! Also insane.

On the subject, I really do like Clara as an assistant. Great actress, she's clever, has a good job (aha, we teachers are all secretly travelling with The Doctor), wears nice clothes (sorry, superficial, but it's nice to be able to think, "Oooh, I can dress up secretly as Doctor Who and know one except super geeky-fans like me will know!"  I love surreptitious costuming! I think it's known as Cosplay. Can't wait till my Collar clips arrive. I ordered them a month ago!) and as I said, I like an accent.

The outfit is wrong but the dress was bought because it looks a tiny bit like Clara's dress from Journey to the centre of the TARDIS a bit.

This is brighter in real life/other photos....

It's not like I can subtly wear this for work...

This is a bit more obvious. But more get-away-able with than the Dalek...

If there are a few things that annoy me with New Who, they are this:

• New Who is SO centered on Earth. Why can we not visit different planets more, with different locations,see more. I tend to find that most episodes are either,on Earth, hovered in a space-ship above Earth, in Earth in an alternative dimension. Seriously??????? You could go anywhere!?!?!?!!
• Why is everything ALWAYS apocalyptic?  The world doesn't have to ALWAYS be in imminent danger of being totally blown up forever. Some old Who had danger, intrigue, suspense but it could be more localised. Everything is always SO extreme. Can we just have something that is focused on the one place getting destroyed or something going wrong?
• I know the overarching theme wraps things up in terms of a series but I wouldn't mind if there wasn't one? Why does everything have to be linked up all across the time and space. I just don't like the coincidence. It's just too convenient! 

What I'd like:

• Can the Doctor please go back to the Eye of Orion? I always wanted him to go back to that place.I even began my own Doctor Who novel based on the Eye of Orion when Paul McGann became the Doctor.  Never got very far with it because, well, it's hard writing a novel!
• Some old classic monsters to come back.
• For the Doctor to find and meet up with old assistant, Romana, or Ace or indeed any of them! It happened to Sarah Jane Smith, so why not anyone else?
• More historical stories.

Other than that, I am loving it!  I really hope that Capaldi sticks at the role longer than Matt Smith and co and gets many series under his belt and doesn't decide to move on and make the Doctor run out of regenerations!

What do you think of Doctor Who?  Old Who? New Who? Assistants? Capaldi? Monsters? 

You name it, I'm happy to listen!!!

xx

What's on the box?

I'm sorry I didn't blog yesterday but I left work at 6 to arrive at my local station 10 mins later as a suicide attempt was dragged out from underneath the train. Miraculously, she was alive and was lying there groaning. They'd got her out pretty quick. The police, fire and ambulance people all arrived and were dealing with the situation but I stood on the platform for 45mins before it became clear that the trains were going nowhere. A guy who worked for the train company suggested I go somewhere and come back later as they had no idea when the line would reopen. I walked to a friend's I don't know if she lived (the police were saying she was conscious) but I pray that she is ok. It's a pretty horrendous way to try to kill yourself. I am SO fortunate that I decided not to run for 6.10 train (feeling exhausted) otherwise I would have seen and heard the whole thing. I was talking to a girl this morning who had been there as well and she barely slept last night as she was so traumatised by it and was feeling nervous about catching a train in case anyone jumped. Anyway, trains were cancelled for ages so I eventually got home after 9 and I was so tired that I just zonked out on the rug and then woke up and crawled to bed rather than any schoolwork or my daily blogging.

The BEDN prompt today (or rather yesterday as it's past midnight-I just got back from orchestra) is about World Television Day and indeed TV! Nowadays, I don't have a TV as when the digital switchover happened, I still had an analogue TV. I got used to not watching TV and even though my sister gave me a digibox, somehow I didn't ever bother trying to work out how to connect it. If I am desperate to watch something, I can watch on Catchup on the internet. What I do watch, if I am going to watch on Catchup is Downton Abbey. I love a good historical drama. Likewise, I will watch the Apprentice when it's on and Doctor Who. And that's about it!

Doctor Who is possibly one of those programmes I love the best. Which is funny as it was a programme which caused me much trauma and fear from the age of 7-11. There was an episode in the Sylvester McCoy era called 'The curse of Fenric' which [dinosaur]* featured these 'monsters' called Haemovores. They were like vampires with pale faces and long talons and I was UTTERLY terrified of them for those 4 long years. My rational mind told me they didn't exist but somehow,my brain believed they were coming out of my Mum's bedroom to get me when she wasn't in there. I would have to go to the bathroom with the door open so I could keep my eyes fixed on her door in case they suddenly came out. I slept with cuddlytoys in a ring round my head to protect me. Nowadays, if I am camping and I don't have a torch and I have to walk through the dark, somehow the thoughts of them come into my mind and I have a little shiver. It's ridiculous really! It was when I was about 14 that Paul McGann became the Doctor and I was smitten by him. I started getting interested in it and I bought lots of videos of past episodes and books and the suchlike. That first Christmas, my sister bought me 'A trial of a timelord' (Colin Baker) in a TARDIS tin. I was really happy.

The Good Life is another classic I have always adored. I was fascinated by the self-sufficient lifestyle that Tom and Barbara Good left, was always amused by Margo and Jerry and enjoyed all that 70's fashion. I would gladly watch an episode when it appeared on TV.

The Crystal Maze was a programme that we all longed to go on in the 80's/90's. In case you don't know it, a team of mullet-haired sporty-types would follow Richard O'Brien through 4 zones (Medieval, Futuristic, Aztec Industrial- later Oceanic) to try a series of challenges- physical, mental, skill in order to win crystals that each secured 5 seconds in the Crystal dome where you had to collect as many gold tokens as possible whilst a big electric fan blew them and silver ones (which deducted a point) all around the dome. It was so exciting and gripping and I adored it. It's often on Challenge TV on Sky on a Saturday morning (or at least it was when CBC lived in his old house!) My ultimate favourite kids programme was the cartoon 'The Ewoks'-based on the Star Wars characters. To say I was obsessed is an understatement. I lived for the weekly episode, begged for a video for my birthday and wrote two novels worth of my own stories of their adventures. I spent hours drawing Princess Kneessaa and had a peach coloured dressing gown so I could be like her (she had a peach-cape).

I won't go into anymore nostalgia as we all know I can waffle for hours but I'm intrigued which classics do you love and still love despite the stampede of time?

* CBC just came and asked if he could type a spontaneous word. I said yes and Dinosaur was his choice