Remember Bethlehem

(spoken introduction)
Thank you very much. Here is another point number in a sense. It was commissioned to be written when I was a schoolteacher and it was for the school Christmas celebrations. This is a song of which I'm not very... ashamed.

It was ever so cold
She was far away from home
She was not very old
She was only a shabby little country girl

So long ago
It seems so far away, so far away
But even so
I know your nightingale remembers her still
Your pussy-willow and your daffodil
Even the stony old hills
Remember Bethlehem

She was awfully weak
For the journey'd been hard
She had nowhere to sleep
She lay down in the small dark farmyard

So long ago
It seems so far away, so far away
But even so
I know your lowly hedgehog knows what it means
Fish that twitch in your greeny streams
Even your shaggy old trees
Remember Bethlehem

When she laid herself down
She must have been afraid
There was only the ground
She had a baby in the painful darkness

So long ago
It seems so far away, so far away
But even so
I know the rain was there when her time had come
The wind won't forget what the girl has done
Even the sulky old sun
Remembers Bethlehem

When she looked at the child
For the very first time
I suppose that she smiled
And it's my guess that Mary cried a little

So long ago
It seems so far away, so far away
But even so
I've got the flesh and the blood to remember them by
Him in my mind and her in my eye
And every reason why I
Remember Bethlehem
Bethlehem
Bethlehem