The boundary wall of the troop embarkation site at the side of the Grand Harbour Hotel West Quay.
Visitors from around the world, but especially from North America, emerge from cruise ships at Southampton Docks and head immediately for London or Stonehenge. Many stay at the prestigious Grand Harbour Hotel on West Quay without knowing that their country’s heroes had stayed on that very piece of land before sacrificing their lives.
Southampton. The day before D-Day
Port from lift of Grand Harbour Hotel
This historically, was the site for troops to be stationed before going off to wars, from Agincourt to The Falklands.
WW2 allied troops would have health check-ups and their vehicles disinfected. Servicemen would kill time playing cards and etching their names on the red-brick boundary wall. One of the most prolific times was when North American service personnel were stationed here during the run up to the D-Day manoeuvres.
Southampton Docks. Convoy during preparations for…
WordPress say that my blog site is full and I have used up all my library space. Does anyone know what one does when this happens? Can’t post any more at the moment which is just as well as I should be packing up to leave by the end of the year.
Thanks for all the lovely comments and greetings. Enjoy the day whatever your beliefs…
Everyday things suddenly become festiveThe town gets crowded with men, who get drunk, do their final shop and harass the shop assistants for kisses with mistletoe. Listen Sisters! You don’t have to do it and get their germs – Just tell them Pagan is so Yesterday!Buy a poem written by Budgie the Homeless Poet as a unique gift for your loved one rather than an uncomfortable, sexy underwear setPetrol (Gas) stations open late on Christmas Eve while other shops close. Disorganised people can pull up and fill up on high-priced fuel, get cash from the machine and buy milk, logs for the fire, flowers and what ever is left on the shelves for stocking fillers as they have left it all to the last minute. “Sure she’d like this steering wheel cover!”Brits tend to have high tea on Christmas Eve, a buffet which might include mince pies, prawn filos, mini beef wellingtons, salmon paté followed by a night of assorted cocktails, fruits and chocolates. We have our main Christmas meal on Christmas day lunch time.accompany pianist for singers of carols at the pubcarol singing in pubs is usually in aid of a charityOn Christmas Eve stockings are hung by the fireplace and a mince pie and small glass of brandy is put out for Father Christmas – sometimes also a carrot for his reindeer. Though many British still hang their stockings at the end of their bed.Ssssh! Merry Christmas
Blessing the orchard at Manor Farm Country Park, Southampton
Wassailing, an ancient custom from Saxon times to give blessings of good health over the twelve days of Christmas, is making something of a come-back.
Traditionally, livestock, crops and farm machinery were blessed as well as people. Blessings were taken from door to door. In Scotland and the North of England this is known as First Footing in the New Year.The Lord of the Manor would give food (figgy pudding) and drink to peasants who worked on his estate in exchange for their blessing and goodwill.
Toasting the apple tree in the literal sense
This was the forerunner of carolling – considered too rowdy to be done in church and also the forerunner of trick-or-treating in America, as Halloween was the original New Year’s Eve in the Celtic calendar.
“Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail too;
And God bless you and send you
a Happy New Year”
Another example of a carol originating from wassail is “We wish you a Merry Christmas” (see Advent 15)
In the Southern shires of England – apple wassail blessings were to ensure a good crop for cider, especially in Kent which produces the best apples for commercial cider, and in the south-west for Scrumpy. English writer Thomas Hardy wrote about wassailing in his books and short stories set in Dorset ensuring that the custom has never died out there. The proceedings for apple wassailing are led by a Wassail King through the orchard, toasting trees and pouring cider on the roots:
Hampshire Wassail Rhyme:
Stand fast root, bear well top.
Pray God send us a good howling crop
Every twig, apples big. Every bough, apples enow.
Hats full, caps full, Tall quarter, sacks full.
Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!
Cider is drunk, songs are sung and drums, sticks, rattles and bells are beaten to drive away bad spirits and encourage the trees to give a good harvest.
Mummers play with St George and Olde Father Christmas
Mummers plays, about the Good fighting off Evil, are often performed at apple wassails too. These were known throughout the UK and Ireland and were even taken to Newfoundland with The Pilgrim Fathers. Though kept in much of Wales, the festivals elsewhere gave way to Morris dancing in England, sword dancing in Scotland and pantomime(see Advent 8) just about everywhere. Raggedy characters (literally in costumes made from rags) introduce themselves in rhyming couplets:
Policeman Plod: ‘Ello, ‘ello, ello. In comes I, Policeman Plod.
Jack the Sniffer: You’ll never catch me you silly old sod. (He exits)
Betty Bertha: He’s gone off and scarpered all hurt and affronted
You’ve poked your nose in where it’s not wanted.
Mummer-characters have been Christian crusaders versus Moors, St George (Prince George or King George) and the Dragon, Beelzebub, Dracula, Robin Hood and the Sherif. But secondary characters kept in these plays included Olde Father Christmas and The Fool. These were obviously continued in our pantomimes.
Dipping toast in the wassail bowl to put on apple tree branches at Manor Farm
Wassail also refers to the spiced-cider punch in the wassail-bowl. There are many recipes, which you can find online, but I use beer (left-over and flat) along with fizzy cider and a small cup of brandy in a slow-cooker. Throw in some brown sugar, the juice and rind of a clementine or two, a squirt of lemon, some apples quartered (pips & stalk removed) and Christmas spices such as ginger, cloves, cardamom and a few sticks of cinnamon. It makes the house smell lovely and is a warm welcome for guests coming in from the cold.
At 3pm on Christmas Day each year, the majority of British citizens switch on BBC TV to listen to The Queen’s Speech.
There will be clips of the Royals and what they did throughout the year; as well as a topic which will be the focal point of what the Nation will focus on in the coming year. This could be an emphasis on: older people who live on their own, disabled veteran servicemen and women, war and our defences, unity of faiths, what is a Christian? etc.
However the speech is really commissioned by the Prime Minister for the Government of the day. People watch The Queen intensely to see if there is a flicker of approval or disapproval in her manner while delivering the words.
For instance, in her last speech at the re-opening of Parliament in May 2016, it was virtually a list from Cameron’s Conservative Party manifesto and The Queen looked very miserable. She just looked down and read it off the paper: “Proposals will be brought forward for a British Bill of Rights. My ministers will uphold the sovereignty of Parliament and the primacy of the House of Commons…”
The programme ends with a rousing anthem of God Save The Queen and though I know of many who will be crashed out and snoring on the sofa by this time on the 25th of December, there will be others standing up and raising their glasses.
Santa took this selfie but where did he go? The Royals as depicted by Madame Tussauds waxworks in London
The boundary wall of the troop embarkation site at the side of the Grand Harbour Hotel West Quay. 
Southampton. The day before D-Day 
Port from lift of Grand Harbour Hotel 
Southampton Docks. Convoy during preparations for…
I saw three ships come sailing in
This was the forerunner of carolling – considered too rowdy to be done in church and also the forerunner of trick-or-treating in America, as Halloween was the original New Year’s Eve in the Celtic calendar.
Hampshire Wassail Rhyme:
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