Tuneful terrorism time for old folks

11:07am Friday 7th December 2007

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WE ARE now entering the annual terrorisation of old folks season.

For eleven-and-a-half months of the year they doze peacefully in their retirement homes, then suddenly their slumbers are disturbed by an endless succession of angelic- looking, but tuneless, children's choirs and musical groups determined to serenade them with carols whether they want it or not.

Particularly amusing is the point where carols require descant recorder groups to ascend into the shrill higher register. Immediately there is a mass grasping for ears in the universal assumption by the old people that their hearing aids have all gone on the blink at the same time.

As a brass band player, I have to confess to being a member of these Al-Carolida terrorist cells over the years.

The first premise in subduing the victims is to play two verses of a carol.

They all sing loudly, but the volume soon dies away into an incoherent mumble as few can remember the second verse.

Then comes the ritual trial by We Three Kings. In true X-Factor fashion any group will urge forward the three people who have most annoyed them during the year, determined to humiliate them by forcing them to take solo parts as the kings.

The pattern is always the same.

One king has the unshakable belief that the tune is all on the same note, another that it goes up and down, but diametrically opposed to the way the band is playing it and the third goes for a musical first by attempting to totally divorce the words from the rhythm of the music.

On the other hand it is often the aged who have a better grasp of just what constitutes a Christmas carol.

It is fatal to ask people in the street which carol they would like you play as they are likely to ask for Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody, or dredge deep into their memory and demand White Christmas.

Fortunately for brass bands, salvation has come to hand thanks to, of all people, the Salvation Army.

Some years ago the Army realised the religious significance in money-gathering terms of tunes such as When Santa Got Stuck Up The Chimney and Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, virtually doubling the size of their traditional Christmas carolling music books.

Re-armed by the Army we will no doubt Sally-forth again this year, but I hope it does not turn out like a memorable incident at the former Kendal Green home in the late 1970s.

In the common room an old gentleman was sitting in a wing-backed chair watching the footie on television and totally oblivious to the fact that we were behind him.

As we struck up he leapt to his feet repeatedly shouting in best Anglo Saxon for us to go away.

We beat a hasty retreat, but I was not fast enough as he managed to catch me with a hefty whack round the shoulders with his walking stick.