ON THE 1ST DAY OF DECEMBER
These days I find I arrive at the month of December like a bedraggled Master Arnold/Prospero-figure seeking shelter on a (hopefully) snow covered desert island from the raging tempests the year has thrown at me and the rest of the world. There seems to be a collective, unsaid agreement between many of us 'cock-eyed optimists' that everyone is going to try their hardest to keep their shit together so the entire month can somehow be immune from hardship and chaos although invariably not even the delusional spirit of Christmas can prevent the oncoming streams, lakes and rivers of human suffering that perpetually threaten to lap at each one of our doors.
But heigh ho, it's the 1st of December and we need all the good cheer we can muster in this conflicted world of ours and so I start the month knowing I've fully prepped and stocked my musical storehouse with Tchaikovsky, Humperdinck (not that one), Britten, Rutter, Sinatra, Torme and all the Christmas film soundtracks at the ready, embracing the positivity of the season from the deep heart of winter to keep my own dim spark alight amongst the enveloping existential darkness.
My hope is that enough of us will muster enough collective sparks to propel us all into a full on spectrum of light that will restore kindness, decency and rational discourse back into the world sustaining goodwill to all men, women and children the rest of the year round.
And if that doesn't work, there's always the 41st repeat of Raymond Briggs's 'The Snowman' to look forward to before we're all plunged back into the 'Groundhog Day' treadmill of war, technological authoritarianism, global poverty and environmental apocalypse for another eleven months of the year.
On a less angst-ridden note, I should mention that one of the most evocative cultural lynchpins for the month of December that even now I still return to in some form or another is John Masefield's 'The Box Of Delights'. I can remember watching the original 1984 BBC series of the book in a state of complete wide-eyed wonder and genuinely believed in the rural world of Condicote, Tatchester it depicted. Although set back in the 1930s and a fictional creation of Masefield's, to me it was an extension of my own home town and environment in the Cotswolds where snowy woods and church bells were not beyond the realm of my own wintry reality. In fact, there is an actual Condicote in Gloucestershire not far from where Masefield lived when he wrote 'The Midnight Folk' (1927), the first book to feature the schoolboy protagonist Kay Harker.
If you haven't yet come across the story of 'Box' then you're in for a treat. The story begins when Kay Harker returns home for the holidays and meets old man Cole Hawlings on a station platform who asks him to look after 'The Box Of Delights' for safe keeping not realising, much like 'the ring' in 'The Lord Of The Rings' that nefarious forces are seeking it to help them gain total power of the world. From Punch and Judy shows to flying cars and scrobbling plots to hot possets, miniature boats and Herne the Hunter, this magical tale very much pre-empts 'Harry Potter' and possesses a similar magical atmosphere to other childhood classics such as "The Lion, Witch And The Wardrobe', Peter Pan' and 'The Railway Children'.
As for the TV adaptation itself, it remains especially iconic because it introduced me to the most mysterious orchestration of 'The First Noel' which begins with a magical harp that acts as a perfect 'leitmotif' for the 'Box Of Delights' itself. Composer Roger Limb deployed very much the effects and sounds that were in vogue in this period of television history where the fusing of electronic music with orchestral instruments combined to create a sense of the future and the past a la ‘Dr Who’, for which he also wrote music for. It was only many decades later that I accidentally stumbled upon the orchestral extract that Limb had adapted for the iconic title sequence taken from Victor Hely-Hutchinson's 'A Carol Symphony' (1927). This was before the days of 'Shazam' and so hearing that same twinkling motif emerge from the austere orchestral bleakness of the composition's Andante felt like being reunited with something sacred from my ancient past, the Holy Grail of deep England that stirs like Aslan in the heart of winter.
Perhaps it seems particularly pertinent on a frosty, cold day such as today is in Gloucestershire to conjure the spirit of 'Box Of Delights' once again so that those of us who know its secret can whisper under our breath in quiet excitement.
"The wolves are running."