Silent

Silent, Tight

Sid says:

"There's a story behind this carol. It starts with an old boy in our village called 'Leaky' Lee. Now he had bit of a bee in his bonnet. Well, to be Frank, he had a complete bat in his belfry. What it was was he decided to have fresh garden peas for his Christmas dinner. So he built this great old heated greenhouse, and he planted peas at different times, and tried different sorts of animal muck, until finally, one Christmas, it was full of peas ready to be harvested.

Now there was far too many for just him and his family, so he give some to everyone in the village. And from then on he done the same thing every year, whether you wanted them or not. There was even peas for the wicked. Of course that was all very nice of him, though it would have been nicer if the peas hadn't been hard as marbles. Kirsty Cod said you could shoot pheasants with them, and then roast them ready stuffed. But most people said nothing, and left them on the side of their plates.

Of course they all told Leaky how lovely they'd been, because that's only polite, even though it meant they got even more peas next year. So, when he choked to death on a pea one Christmas Day everyone breathed a sigh, and thought that's the end of that. But no such luck. Because his boy, Evan, kept up the tradition in his memory, even though we'd rather have forgotten."

Christmas Day dawns, pour out a trickle -

Certain as eggs, she will be pickled.

Drunk as a lady, pudding half chewed;

Slumped on the table, face in her food,