Xmas Book Scenes: Village Carol Service

Christmas Book Scenes!  During December I like to post entries which are more Christmas in Books than Clothes in Books, and kind readers say it puts them in a seasonal mood.

If you have a favourite Christmas book or scene not featured yet – please let me know

 

Because of Sam  by Molly Clavering

published 1953

[excerpt from book] The little church was full. Not only was there a good turnout of its own small congregation, but friends who belonged to the Parish Church had come as well to hear the carols. After the service people gathered in groups outside, exchanging greetings, telling one another how much they had enjoyed the singing, and what their plans were for Christmas. Mennan showed its friendliness to the greatest advantage on such an occasion, and in spite of the cold air Mrs. Maitland felt warm and cheerful while she talked to her neighbours.

 

comments: Could it BE more obvious what this top picture is? No? I could give you a dozen guesses…

This picture looks exactly like the aftermath of the carol service in the book – with the Women’s Rural Institute serving refreshments to singers and audience. In fact, surprisingly, it shows Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and her daughter the then Princess Beatrix, at a Christmas celebration in a Royal Palace in 1960. They are serving hot chocolate and buns, to their subjects presumably. From the Dutch National Archives

Every time I read a Furrowed Middlebrow book from Dean St Press, I think ‘this – this one is the archetypal book for the imprint’. And here we go again. Sam is a very charming book, first recommended to me by Tracy at Bitter Tea and Mystery, who made it one of her top books of 2022. It follows close to a year in the life of a delightful widow, Milly Maitland, who has a nice house in a village a few hours away from Edinburgh. She has a daughter Amabel who is quite hard going, and she has not quite enough money. She has a dog-boarding business, and the Sam of the title is a Labrador who comes to join the family in slightly unclear circumstances.

The year drifts by, with village events and personal relationships described in detail. There is the Scottish Women’s Rural Institute, and a lot of tea is drunk and cakes and scones eaten.  Milly would like nothing better than for her daughter (who is unromantic and unsentimental) to get married. Is it possible that she and her daughter will both have new directions in their lives? Wait and see.

Meanwhile there is much to love in the story – including a ‘pale blue bed-jacket’ which is ‘just right’ and makes the wearer look like a ‘marquise in negligee’.

There is a Hunt Ball, something I always enjoy – see this post for example, from the same era. It is described at second hand, but very nicely done:

It seemed very cosy to Mrs Maitland to be sipping her hot drink, with the electric fire wastefully blazing, and her daughter perched on the arm of a chair telling her about the ball. Often and often she had pictured a scene like this, but never before had Amabel been willing to play her part in it.

And with some excellent descriptions of everyone’s ballgowns: black and simple, or girlish white tulle, or ‘sort of cloudy dead-leaf brown with miles of material in the skirt’

 

There is a splendidly disastrous teaparty, to which the Village Siren turns up in a most inappropriate outfit:

She wore a suit of fine white tweed and a small white hat set at a dashing angle on her butter-yellow head, which was exactly matched by a yellow high-necked jersey. Pearls, a diamond clip in her lapel, the sheerest of nylons on her elegant legs, white doeskin gloves and a waft of expensive Parisian scent completed a picture which might have stepped straight from the pages of Vogue or Harper’s. It was quite extraordinary, thought Millie…how the two words “tweed” and “suit” could be used to describe garments so different in every respect as Mrs. Noble’s creation and Davina Gray’s solid serviceable brown Harris!

 

 

And there are a few  mentions of the new Queen Elizabeth II, and her upcoming coronation.  

Very much a comfort read – if you have an afternoon on the sofa over Christmas, this is the book.

The bedjacket picture comes from the sewing vintage blog.