I SEE with interest that the wassailing ceremony has been held in English Bicknor for a second year and is catching on in other districts of Gloucestershire.

Of course this annual tradition has been held in apple orchards for years in Somersetshire as it is shown on West television with a crowd of people beating drums, dustbin lids and firing shotguns up into the branches and singing wassailing songs and playing tin whistles.

This is to drive away all evil spirits and to bless the trees for a bumper harvest.

I think other communities have their own versions of wassailing songs. As I remember one year the Wurzels group rendered their wassailing song while sampling mugs of cider.

In the early 1930s we were taught a wassailing song in a singing lesson at Christchurch Juniors.

I still remember the verse and will always remember the tune:

Here we come a wassailing among the leaves so green

The leaves so green

Here we come a wassailing so fanciful and free

Love and joy come to you

Come to you and your Wassail

And God bless you and send you

A happy new year.

– Dick Dunkley, Forest Bard, Cinderford.