Holly Head

Product Information

Mostly this summer, when we’ve had festivals, they came with us, got up and sung with us, like on ‘Three Little Birds’. Records that aren't in picture sleeves will either be in a company sleeve or a generic plain sleeve.

Do you know what, I know so many musicians from around here, and when we were kids there was a session scene around here, people getting together and playing tunes, and the folk clubs around here, and also those South Yorkshire carols being sung in pubs. In the early nineteenth century, it was still undecided which port would be chosen as the primary sea link along the route from London to Dublin: Porthdinllaen, on the Llŷn Peninsula, or Holyhead in Anglesey.A large jetty in the harbour received ships from Jamaica and Australia, and their cargoes of alumina were transported on a rope-driven conveyor belt running underneath the town to the plant. Prior to the influence of the fort on the name, the hamlets which came before it were likely known as Llan y Gwyddel ('church/parish of the Irish') and Eglwys y Beddi ('church of the graves'). Disc 1: 1 - Salute the Morn, 2 - Christmas Is Merry, 3 - The Holly King, 4 - Hippo for Christmas, 5 - Yorkshire Three Ships, 6 - Lu LayDisc 2: 1 - While Shepherds Watched, 2 - The Mistletoe Bough, 3 - Bleak Midwinter (Yorkshire), 4 - Celestial Hearts, 5 - I Am Christmas, 6 - B. And there were a few of your inspirations on that album that you got to record with, not least local-ish, lad, Richard Hawley.

I grew up in a musical household, my parents both sing and play, there were always instruments, they were teaching us songs when we were young, and me, my older sister and younger brother all started the fiddle when we were six or seven. Holyhead railway station is the terminus of the North Wales Coast Line and is currently served by Avanti West Coast and Transport for Wales services. A big lump of Cornish Kern cheese – it won best cheese in the world last year and is just gorgeous – and a bottle of Bread and Butter white wine to go along with it. This one is actually to the tune of a different song that I also love, but I wasn’t that keen on the words, then realised it went with the While Shepherds words, so yey, another has now been invented. Winter is supposed to be the season of barrenness, of Jack Frost nipping at your nose and of needing your big coat.

I quite fancied the kidney intake one, but they seem like a heck of a lot of faff, a mate actually talked me out of it. Do you see your true arrival as the day debut album Hourglass was released in 1997, when you reached the UK top 40 for the first time with Awkward Annie a decade later, got even higher with 20 in 2012, or before all that? The first of the three originals comes with a reminder that ‘Christmas Is Merry’, sleigh bells putting in an early appearance behind the cascading chords and swayalong melody, while, set to the traditional tune ‘Noel Nouvoulet’ and accompanied by an icy piano note, muted drums and minimal guitar, ‘The Holly King’ has an almost liturgical feel to its account of the pagan mythic archetype, a precursor of Santa Claus, representing the second half of the year, forever battling his adversary the Oak King.