To all my Portland Columbia Symphony Friends,
My memories are varied and copious—most I will keep very private. The Holidays are a special time, though increasingly stressful it seems, and as I get older I become more nostalgic about Christmases from my childhood; Christmas is about the birth of a child and it brings out the child in us. I must admit, the Holidays start so early over here! Back in Britain we don’t have Thanksgiving a month before, so Christmas starts much later, when schools break up and often folks only put up their tree on Christmas Eve. (Need I remind you the “Twelve Days of Christmas” only start on Christmas Day!) I do like hearing carols as several of them may be the only universal folk music we now possess.
So, some salient and vivid memories are: seeing my grandparents and parents get up at about 5 AM on Christmas morning once my big brother and I were given permission (after much nagging) to run downstairs and open our presents; my sleep-deprived and dressing gown-clad grandfather always made a tray of tea for the oldies! I recall going around the neighborhood on Christmas Eve singing carols with a friend from the St. Paul’s choir (Simon Dean); we especially appreciated it when some homes would give us 50 pence to sod off! Going for a walk with my dad late on Christmas afternoon—after our epicurean feast and watching the annual Queen’s speech to the Commonwealth on the BBC—when it was dark and invariably drizzling, and walking by houses with their festive lights and decorations wondering what their Christmas Day traditions were like. Being in the spacious York Minster one year for a Carol Service; for once I almost felt like I was in the manger with the baby Jesus. My Scottish friend Spence Meighan (so dearly missed) giving a cozy, fireside reading of poetry and prose inspired by the Season (T.S. Eliot, G. Manly Hopkins, Thomas Hardy, Dickens etc). His rendition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ballad Christmas at Sea was scalp-tingling, with its prophetic closing line, “But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold, was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.” Walking around Vienna one year on December 22 & 23 was truly moving, and I also can never forget one Christmas when I was plagued with a painful inflammation of the pharynx; my Christmas dinner was turkey soup through a straw—a tragedy as my mum’s Yuletide cooking is a joy to behold!
Ah yes, Christmas does conjure up many indelible memories and emotions; it is, indeed, a special time. It is hard being away from home at Christmas, there is definitely a gravitational pull about it for an expatriate, so I get more nostalgic by the year. But, sadly, nostalgia is just not what it used to be…
Huw Edwards, Music Director & Conductor
James Bash' great story at