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Winter Solstice

Keen to escape the trappings of a modern Christmas, Charlie wraps up warm and heads to Devon to start an investigation into alternative winter celebrations. Lots of wild winter festivals survive across the country, drawing crowds and followers on social media. Many have their origins in our ancient pagan past.\n\nThe barrel-burning festival in Devon’s Ottery St Mary is held every November. Its origins are a bit of a mystery, but one theory is that it’s a ritual to scare evil spirits from the streets. Charlie seeks out Mike, a local publican who has three generations of his family running the streets with burning tar barrels, the youngest being his seven-year-old granddaughter. It is a rite of passage and a privilege for locals, with only 63 people in the world eligible to roll the barrels. \n\nWinter solstice celebrations go back to prehistory and certainly from before Christianity reached our shores. Charlie decides that he wants to celebrate not with Druids but with Boss Morris, a local group of Morris dancers. He’s surprised to find that Morris dancing is actually growing in popularity and that dancing with the side on Rodborough Common is the perfect way to reconnect with the seasons.\n\nCharlie admits to having become a little despondent with the modern Christmas and is looking at alternatives, but throughout the episode, he’s badgered by his dad, who wants the Coopers to spend Christmas together as a family. Charlie is adamant - after last year, there’s no chance. But will having such a positive experience at these two festivals soften his entire position on a family Christmas?\n\nCharlie enthusiastically investigates both seasonal rituals that he's delighted to find thriving, despite being in the shadow of the biggest most sparkly festival of them all, Christmas.

Source: BBC 3