I believe that it was in 1980 that my wife Pat and I arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport on the morning of Christmas Eve. As we waited for our luggage, I saw a notice announcing an 8 o’clock Christmas Eve “Carol Sing” in the Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields at Trafalgar Square. I was delighted, for I knew of Sir Neville Marriner and his orchestra of St Martin-in-the-Fields and thought that it would be wonderful to celebrate Christmas by singing carols at the famous church accompanied by a fabulous orchestra.
We settled into our room at the small but wonderful Basil Street Hotel, close to an underground stop and close to Harrod’s Department Store, where we spent a great deal of time trying to keep ourselves upright and suppressing our urge to sleep.
We took the London Underground to the Charing Cross station which has an entrance located in Trafalgar Square where our church was located.
It was cold but we took a quick walk around the square before finding a nondescript restaurant where we grabbed a quick dinner before presenting ourselves at the church at about 7:30. Upon entering, we were greeted by cacophonous snores. The central part of the church was surrounded by stalls on both sides. On closer examination we found that there were many homeless people in those stalls – most of whom were asleep, and their snores let us know that they seemed to be happy – at least for the moment. Nonplussed, we sat in the center of the church trying to figure out what was going on. Clearly something was wrong. What was our mistake? There was certainly not going to be a “Carol Sing” in thirty minutes unless they woke the homeless. Could they sing? Orchestra players had not begun to arrive and, there didn’t seem to be a place for orchestra to sit.
Soon, a man with ecclesiastical garb came in and started waking the sleepers and shooing them out of the church. Pat and I were also shooed out. Pat made the statement “We found ourselves out on the front stoop with all the rest of the bums.” We asked the garbed man what was happening, and he told us that we all had to leave so they could have an hour to clean the Church before the 8 o’clock “Carol Sing.” Our mistake was that when we changed our watches at the airport this morning, we missed it by one hour.
What to do? It was too cold to sit on the steps and we were not allowed back in for an hour. We went back to the nondescript restaurant for a long cup of tea.
When we returned to the church, this time we were not treated like bums. As the church filled up, mostly with working class people, it became evident that there would be no orchestra and no Sir Neville Marriner. We didn’t know at the time, but the famous orchestra and the church have no connection other than the name.
The organ accompaniment was terrific, and I soon got over my disappointment. All was wonderful. O Come All Ye Faithful, In the Bleak Mid-Winter, Oh Little Town of Bethlehem plus many others. But what made it special was a mother and her 3 young children – about 8, 9 and 11 – where were sitting in one of the stalls facing us – about 6 feet away. While the mother would sing the melody, the children sang wonderful descants – high above the melody, without vibrato, sounding pure and like silver. Unbelievably beautiful! The mother thought so too, for when she would look down at her children, her smile was so beautiful that you just knew that her heart was singing also.
Joy to the World!
