New Year's Day morning in Shropshire

In his The Folklore of Shropshire, Roy Palmer quotes a letter by a John Noakes recording the belief that it was unlucky to have a female come first into your house of New Year's morning:

So generally does this absurdity prevail, that in many towns young lads "make a good thing of it" by selling their services to go round and enter the houses first that morning.

The folklorists Iona and Peter Opie noted in the 1950s that a boy of about 10 banged on a door at Pontesbury and recited:

Happy New Year! Happy New Year!
I've come to wish you a happy New Year.
I've got a little pocket and it is very thin,
Please give me a penny, to put some money in.
If you haven't got a penny a halfpenny will do.
If you haven't got a halfpenny, well God bless you.

A decade later in the Clun Valley, Michael Rix found small boys still going "gifting":

On New Year's Day as early as possible they visit outlying farms and cottages to recite versions of the poem:

The cock sat up in the yew tree,
The hen came chuckling by.
Please give us some pudding or a mince pie.
We wish you a merry Christmas and a cellar full of beer,
A good fat pig in the sty to last you all the year.
Please to give us a New Year's gift.

The first boy to reach the house got silver (a sixpence), all later comers got coppers.