Plot

"Nowhere are the traditions of Christmas kept up with such splendour as in Yorkshire". That's what a visitor to the county wrote in 1812. To find out how true it is today, Mike Harding sets out to explore the many and varied ways Christmas is still celebrated across the three Ridings. En route he enjoys some living Yorkshire traditions with the Village Carollers from the South Pennines, Knaresborough Mummers, Grenoside Sword Dancers, Leyburn Ladies Choir, Hawes Silver Prize Band and East Witton Male Voice Choir. In York he learns how today's Christmas traditions were influenced by the Pagan festivities of the distant past; in Malton, how the town inspired Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol, and in Haworth, how the Brontës spent Christmas, while on the East Coast he discovers that turkeys were first introduced into Britain by a Yorkshireman from Bridlington. Featuring: Jim Eldon, Hawes Silver Prize Band, East Witton Male Voice Choir, Leyburn Ladies Choir, Village Carols from the Black Bull, Ecclesfield, Jeremy Blundell, The Ebor Singers, The Very Reverend Keith Jones, Dean of York, Brian Oxberry and Selina Scott (Charles Dickens Society, Malton), Dr. Juliet Barker, Richard Marriott, James Mackenzie (Pipe and Glass, South Dalton), Knaresborough Mummers, Chas Marshall, Grenoside Sword Dancers, Joe Dunn, Thorpe Hesley Junior School Sword Dance team, Coope, Boyes and Simpson, Georgina Boyes and the children of Westfield Primary School, Cottingham—Joe Sargieson