A Wiltshire Christmas, compiled by John Chandler
I found the first one of these Sutton Christmas anthologies (A Worcestershire Christmas, if you care) at a library book sale several years back, and another at a library sale a couple of years later. Since then I've been collecting and reading them all; they contain short excerpts of Christmas/Christmastide passages from various British novels, memoirs, and poetry books, with the action taking place in the shire or historical era denoted in the title.
This is the final volume of the regional ones I've collected, and happily, it's one of my favorites. Several of the volumes seemed to just repeat the same old "George and the Dragon" mummers play over and over, and the entries were blah. This one contains a variety of memories from various decades, including the story of evacuees from London during World War II, accounts of a devastating pre-Christmas storm in 1859 and flooding in January of 1915, Christmas carols unique to the region, an odd version of "George and the Dragon" with a Duke and Duchess and a Captain Curly, an account of mummers and another of waits, and even the sweet story "Mog" about a little boy who wants a cat for Christmas, but his dad is dead set against it...until...
So. I'm done! I have the whole set!
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