Christmas Donkeys
I’ve always liked donkeys. It probably began when my favourite aunt paid for me to ride on one on Ramsgate Sands back in the 1930s. So, when I was writing new Christmas carols a few years ago, donkeys presented themselves before me and insisted that I should write something about them. 'After all', they said, 'we're part of the Christmas story'.
I fell to imagining three of them in their retirement, standing happily together in a field somewhere, chatting about their memories. The oldest one said he remembered carrying a young woman up to Bethlehem. She was about to have a baby.
The second one nodded slowly. He said yes, he remembered carrying that baby when he’d grown to a 12-year-old boy. His name was Jesus. And the third, the youngest, said he could remember carrying that same boy Jesus after he’d grown to a man. Lots of crowds in Jerusalem, he said, all cheering him.
I wrote the carol especially for children’s choirs, with composer John Barnard setting the words to music. Listen to it now, while you read. NOTE: The version below is the present one; the singers had a slightly earlier version - but the meaning is the same.
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No Small Wonder
One November morning in 1983 a young composer gathered up his week’s bundle of laundry and was about to leave for the local launderette when he remembered the envelope. It had come in the post that morning. He quickly opened it and scanned the letter. It was from me.
The letter ended with a new work - a Christmas carol, just three short verses. The great composer of choral works, Paul Edwards, had already set a number of my lyrics for choir and this was a new one. He slipped it into his pocket. Something to read while he waited for the machine to do the washing, he thought. Then, as an afterthought, he picked up a sheet of music manuscript as well. He just might get an idea while he waited for his laundry.
In the launderette he loaded the machine and sat down. He took out the envelope and read the poem. He grabbed the scrap of manuscript paper and began writing.
Listen now to what Paul Edwards wrote:
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Trying to imagine how any composer could write this profound music while surrounded by the noise of washing machines is practically impossible.
The words had a similarly unlikely beginning. Earlier that same November I must have heard someone say something like, ‘Small wonder you didn’t see it - they cancelled the programme!’ Just those two words, small wonder, stuck in my head for the rest of the day and they were the first thing I thought of when I woke the next morning. All through that day they were going round and round. I tried writing it down to see if that would stop it - and then I had a bright idea. I was in the middle of writing lyrics for a new collection of Christmas carols and I wondered if I might write a carol based on the words. And so the carol emerged.
The sheet music is published by (click on Animus ) and it is available in collections published by the (Click on) Jubilate Group.
COMING VERY SOON - Christmas Donkeys