A Festival Of Nine Lessons and Carols, Twenty Five Years On

Most children, if asked, would say that their favorite day of the year, with the possible exception of their birthday, would be Christmas – or a day like it in other of the world’s religions, when families gather and gifts are exchanged.

If you asked me now, I would say that my favorite day is Christmas Eve, because that is the day of anticipation, a state which is always more tantalizingly enjoyable than the day of realization which is just around the corner. But there is another more important reason.

Twenty-five years ago, I was lucky enough to be part of beginning what appears – now - to be an American holiday tradition, with the first live broadcast in the United States of “A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols” from the chapel of King’s College at Cambridge University, in the old and very beautiful town of Cambridge, about an hour’s train ride North of London.

On Christmas Eve afternoon at 3:00 pm in England (10:00 a.m. in New York), in the chapel commissioned by its founder, King Henry VI and finished by King Henry VIII, the choir of fourteen men and sixteen boys sing carols, interspersed by lessons from the Old and New Testaments read by members of the community and by prayers offered by the Dean of the Chapel.

In 1979, it was not clear that such a presentation would find an audience…a live broadcast from another country and a service not widely known in our country, at a somewhat difficult hour, by a choir of men and boys which produces a sound somewhat alien to American ears, and lessons read in strange accents.

Moreover, we had to surmount technical challenges from AT&T, difficulties in funding the broadcast, and the challenge of our first international live relay.

But we were blessed (and I mean blessed) with assistance from a variety of sources. Charles Watson of AT&T pushed his staff to solve their technical problems; Joe Gwathmey, then of National Public Radio and now of Texas Public Radio, arranged NPR’s fiscal support; an old friend , Walter McCarthy made another significant contribution, and NPR’s technical staff solved all the international linkage problems. (Minnesota Public Radio’s staff took over the following year and have overseen the broadcast since…from the days of transatlantic cable, then satellite, and now ISDN lines.) John Haslam was the BBC producer with whom I laiased (that loverly Brit term) who could not have been more helpful and has become a very good friend.

That first broadcast ran long, but as there was nothing scheduled on NPR’s single line distribution system after the presumed end of our program, we managed to present the whole service. As I remember, 78 stations took that first broadcast; most of them liked it, but there were a few doubters.

From the letters which poured in after Christmas, I was able to develop a sense of hope that the broadcast might have attracted enough interest and support to continue. One woman in Minnesota wrote that “I turned on the radio while doing meal preparations for Christmas Day. I was so enthralled I burned the sweet potatoes. I didn’t care.” Another wrote about listening to the service as she drove from her family to her parents’ home. Her mother had died the night before, and she was going to be with her father for a very sad Christmas. The broadcast was her Christmas service that year. (A year later she wrote to say that her father had come to her home, and they had all listened to the broadcast.) A Californian wrote to say that he listened to the broadcast while he meditated on world peace on a beach in Malibu. Over the years I was involved with the broadcast, there were many letters like that, and they, along with the response from radio stations, made it clear that for a large group of people, Christmas with the broadcast had become not just a tradition, but an important, nearly essential, tradition.

There are have been other more subtle results of the broadcast from King’s. One can find many more local versions of the King’s College service offered throughout our land, some of the English carol tunes have wormed their way into our voices, and - in Cambridge – the number of attendees from the USA at Evensong and Sunday services seems to have increased enormously in the last several decades.

A broadcast tradition, however long lived, is never a guarantee that it will continue. So enjoy the broadcast and then support your public radio station by way of appreciation.

Each Christmas Eve, I am grateful for having been part of the American beginnings of “A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols “ broadcast in the USA, thrilled that so many people have taken the service into their hearts, and deeply appreciative of the friendships which have been a great indirect benefit of my involvement with the broadcast.

Whether you listen to the service, celebrate another kind of holiday, or just remain undecided about it all, I hope your participation in the festivities of the season bring you great joy.