Partying at the Hall

How to Celebrate a Harvest

In November 1956, The Times newspaper reported on a Harvest Supper at an anonymous village hall in the English countryside.

To the accompaniment of a cold pie, the villagers decided to mark the community occasion with a song. A young farmer got things off to a fine start with an old marching song, and all feet were stamped in appreciation. Then the pub landlady reluctantly followed this up (she had to be pressed to oblige) with a rendition of ‘Roses of Picardy.’

The sing song was rather more earnestly finished off by an old groom who

“needed no pressing at all to warble a comic song about a young lady on the beach, which grew so perilously close to the knuckle round about the tenth verse that it was decided unanimously to clap hard and talk loud.”

Spoil sports. Still, the old groom was plied with drink to keep him quiet from that point on. A highly successful evening for the old fellow then.

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Woods Ware China at the Serving Hatch

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