Memories of my Auntie Madge at Christmas
Auntie Madge (Margaret Collins) Taken by a street photographer, probably Arthur Fields , on O'Connell Bridge, Dublin, late 1940s. (Please excuse the format of the photo!) Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town Written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie Arranged by Jim Clements Sung by Voces8 My Auntie Madge (Margaret Collins) would have been ten or eleven when this song first appeared in 1934 and no doubt heard Santa Claus is Coming to Town many times. But she never heard the marvellous arrangement by Voces8, the British choral ensemble that I often use in Sunday Reflections , here singing a different kind of music from their largely religious repertoire. Auntie Madge was the youngest of my mother's six sisters Jennie, Nan, Neita, Bridie, Eileen and Madge. I'm not sure where Bridie, who died in infancy, came in the sequence but I often heard my mother, Mary, talking about her. Three boys, Mick, Paddy and Jack, completed the family of my maternal grandparen...