Christmas Eve & Day and Boxing Day. Frohliche Weinachten!

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Yorkshire’s weather continued to behave wonderfully for me, the 24th no different. The day’s first job was a stroll to the Marketplace to see ‘The Horse’ - a bizarre medieval tradition maintained by some old friends.

The Deighton family lived across the road from us when I was born in a village near Richmond. John has always led the musical charge, and this year he was only accompanied by 1 of his sons - Tim.

The Horse is a pagan fertility ritual, and if you hadn’t seen it before you’d wonder what the hell was going on. They tour the town’s open spaces and shops, singing the song, smacking the horse down with sticks, and it then gets reborn. John has promised me a write-up he has on the meaning of the whole exercise but I haven’t got it yet, maybe I’ll track back later and tell you what it’s all about, ‘cos to be honest I don’t know.

Next was a nice stroll with my folks, down to Easby Abbey, over the Iron Bridge (I can’t actually believe we used to jump off it, it’s really very high) and along the river to the old station building which has now been converted into a cinema, café and shops. News to me, they actually have a little brewery there (imaginatively ‘The Richmond Brewing Company) and they make 2 beers which really were excellent. We bought a few bottles. Richmond Station Ale and Stump Cross Ale. I recommend both.

That night I went into town and met Bree, then caught up with Cath and Lyndsey too - more old schoolfriends I’d not seen for a fair old while. Cath lived in Sydney for a while but left 2 or 3 years ago, Lyndsey I hadn’t seen since last time I was here, but they're all as lovely as ever. We tried a couple of old haunts but stayed in the Buck. It was strange - deathly quiet until about 10pm then the whole town turned up, and we stayed till midnight or so.

Christmas day was a peaceful day, opening pressies, watching a film or 2, gorging ourselves…….all good. A very pleasant day.

Boxing Day is another recurring tradition - quite a lot of the locals all meet at 11am and go for a nice long walk to burn off yesterday’s excesses. Once again the weather behaved it’s self - I really was turning out to be lucky. We did a loop of 9 or 10 miles, up and over the racecourse, lunch at the town’s beacon (lit in olden days to signal things like an attack from Scotland) then Willance’s Leap.

In 1606 a guy called Willance was out on his horse, in fog, and accidentally managed to ride off the cliff and fall 200 feet. He survived with only a broken leg, but his horse wasn’t so lucky. With no chance of rescue in the fog, and the cold getting nasty, he cut open his horse and kept his broken leg warm inside the corpse. Sounds strange but it saved his life and he went on to be mayor of the town. There’s a monument to him on top of the cliff.

I spent quite a lot of the walk chatting to a girl called Elaine, who had also been to Richmond School but I think it was quite a while after me (I didn’t dare ask how long).

Boxing Day used to be a day when my old school gang met up and got leathered, it was often a full-on all dayer. The walking spared me this, but I met a few folk at 5pm and we checked out a few more of the local boozers. A couple were really pretty scary - people I kind of recognised but the names were long forgotten. The Weatherspoons pub’s nothing special, The Unicorn held too many vaguely familiar faces - and I’m ashamed to say that we wound up dancing - yes dancing - in the Town Hall (a pub, not the actual town hall). I don’t think I’ve ever danced in a pub in Richmond before. All good fun though. Kinda.

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Photos

The Horse
I wish I could explain the whole thing properly.....

The Horse
Giddiyup!