Jona Lewie: Stop the Cavalry

This, says Jona Lewie, was not written to be a Christmas hit: it's an anti-war protest song. But a mention of the festival and a burst of tubular bells works wonders.

In the event, Stop the Cavalry was kept from the top of the charts at the end of 1980 only by the newly murdered John Lennon. 

Me? I like knowing that Lewie wrote and played on the 1972 hit Seaside Shuffle. That was credited to Terry Dactyl and the Dinosaurs, but the band had long played together under the name Brett Marvin and the Thunderbolts.

And I like the way the song reminds me of Christmas shopping in York when I was a student.