I have been going to the Walthamstow Wassail for so long that it has been a decade since I wrote about it for the Guardian.
I have been going to the Walthamstow Wassail for so long, that when I tried to give my friend a hug, she pulled a muscle.
I have been going to the Walthamstow Wassail for so long that when I first attended, the organiser’s child was four.
He now resembles a laudanum-addled fin de siecle fop, or a doomed poet about to be send to the trenches.
I owe a lot to this fabulous event. Through it I have met friends, joined choirs, and ended up spending half of lockdown with a German punk called Boris.
I first became aware of it via friend Anna, who was there the very first year, and this year too. It’s her with the hug injury. We reflected on how London’s rent has forced so many of us into exile: she to Glasgow, me to wherever I am tonight.
This yearly event is a cut and shunt. Like a dodgy 1980s car dealership, Lucy, the founder, welds the two wassail traditions into one glorious Sunday.
First, the arse end of a Ford Escort: the Somerset tradition of singing to apple trees and honey bees, while making plenty of noise to scare the bad spirits away and ensure a good crop for the following harvest.
Correlation not being causation and all that jazz, it definitely works: at Bee 17, where we have been singing for many years, the hives have thrived and multipled. And as every year, we were welcomed with hot cider and many cheeses.
Second, the cheeky front bonnet of wassailing: going door to door to demand treats, snacks and booze. This is seen as the precursor to modern caroling.
We sang on the streets, we sang by bonfires. We even sang in the old church, where one of us burned away to nothingness upon the threshold, such was our godless communism.
We gathered at Walthamstow Cricket Club to learn the tunes, a new venue for such things, and one seemingly enjoyed by the staff, jaws agape and attention rapt as we worked through our repertoire.
Every year we learn a New Year Folk Tradition from a rival country, and this year was the turn of “Scotland”, a little known land located somewhere up and beyond the Northamptonshire Fault (Watford Gap).
And so a guest teacher taught us an arrangement of Auld Lang Syne, and we learned what the lyrics mean. Willy wanging isn’t what you think it is.
Then Lucy returned to teach our usual wassails, with me and Anna forced into the role of teaching assistant for some of the tenor parts.
Songs duly learned, we headed off into the Walthamstow cold, singing at strangers and trying not to get run over, until we came upon St Mary’s Church, where I once sang with my gospel choir.
We had learned all about first footing. A dark handsome stranger was thusly sent into the church offering bread, salt and whisky, and we repeated the tradition at the end of our journey, a guerilla-feeling (but actually pre-planned) performance in the round to the circled regulars of the venerable Walthamstow Folk Club.
In between, there was an orchard, a tree with toast in it, and assorted fires, drinks, and snacks. I see the same people every year, and every year I wish I saw them more.
I also made a new friend, a lad in his eighties called Bill, who I encouraged to toast a marshmallow for the very first time. Mercifully he didn’t accidentally set fire to his beard. I’d have felt very guilty about that.
Roll on 2025, when I will find out which university the child got into.
jamesofwalsh 
And next year we go again!
Can’t wait