Christmas In Yorkshire

Description

Mike Harding takes a magical journey in story and song through Yorkshire Christmases past and present. A special time in a special place. Mike Harding explores the many and varied ways Christmas is still celebrated across Yorkshire.

In York he learns how today's Christmas traditions were influenced by the Pagan festivities of the distant past; in Malton, how the town inspired Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol, and in Haworth, how the Brontes spent Christmas. On the East Coast he discovers that turkeys were first introduced into Britain by a Yorkshireman from Bridlington while on the Wolds he samples a Yorkshire Christmas Pie.

As he travels round the three Ridings he shares some living Yorkshire traditions with the Grenoside Sword Dancers, the Knaresborough Mummers and the Village Carollers of the South Pennines. He also joins the audience for the annual Nativity play at Westfield Primary School, Cottingham , near Hull, and he enjoys more unique Christmas music from the county with Jim Eldon, Coope, Boyes and Simpson, Leyburn Ladies Choir, Hawes Silver Prize Band and East Witton Male Voice Choir.

Featuring: Jim Eldon, Hawes Silver Prize Band, East Witton Male Voice Choir, Leyburn Ladies Choir, Village Carols from the Black Bull, Ecclesfield, The Ebor Singers, The Very Reverend Keith Jones, Dean of York, Brian Oxberry and Selina Scott, Knaresborough Mummers, Grenoside Sword Dancers, Thorpe Hesley Junior School Sword Dance team, Coope, Boyes and Simpson, and the children of Westfield Primary School, Cottingham.