Shepherds--and Carolers, Tipteers, Etc.--Arise!

A Sussex Christmas, compiled by Shaun Payne

Alan Sutton Publishing has a series of these "Christmas anthologies," the first which I bought at a book sale several years ago, and I try to pick up inexpensive copies when I can find them. Most of them concentrate on a certain shire or area in England (there are a handful, like A Dickens Christmas, A Wartime Christmas, and A Bronte Christmas that are set around a historic era instead).

This volume is stuffed with Christmasy and wintry goodies, covering the southern shire of Sussex, known for its rolling downs and sheep, so there are several entries that have to do with shepherds and their importance in the Christmas story as well as providing a portrait of Sussex in the old days when the independence of farmers and livestock owners was prized. A good deal of the tales are those of families celebrating in an old-fashioned style, with beef roasts and turkeys that had to be cooked in the bakers' ovens; trees covered with candles, and children happy with gifts like tops, dolls, and nuts; lottery drawings for Christmas dinner prizes; and cutting fresh holly in the woods. Of course there are a couple of ghost stories, an excerpt from the "Mapp and Lucia" stories; and several essays about walking the beautiful Sussex downs in wintertime. The routine story about the Christmas mummers is presented in a different manner, this time concentrating on a man who was trying to revive the custom in Sussex. Offerings from Bob Copper, a popular folk singer, are also included. Poetry also scatters the volume, including Francis Thompson's beautiful verse "To a Snowflake," and, of interest among the illustrations (maps, posters, advertisements, and more) are vintage winter photographs from the late 1930s, some from the George Garland collection.