Exactly one week after the celebration of a special birth, tonight we will be celebrating the demise of one year and the birth of a new year. In days of yore, for many the venue was the same - a church or cathedral, but the Midnight Mass of Christmas was not ushered in with thunderous applause and revelry. It was a solemn affair of thanksgiving and the entrance hymn was ’Gloria in excelsis Deo’’, giving glory to the newborn King on high.

In those days the cathedral bell was in fine tune and its loud rings echoed 12 times at midnight throughout the whole city as the sexton pulled a long rope at precise intervals. Indeed, of all sounds of bells none are as solemn and touching as the peals which ring out the old year. All the churches were packed and at one time there were two Irish Dominican priests of the ’Order of Preachers’ (OP), renowned for their oratory, Frs. Casey and O’Sullivan.

There was standing-room only at the back of the cathedral as the congregation flowed outside. It was the era when priests and pastors spoke from pulpits and the burly O’Sullivan once began his sermon in his crisp Irish accent with these cheerful words: ’Ten of you will not be here next year.’ It was the epoch of fire and brimstone sermons. And the elderly congregation said to themselves: ’Lord, is it I?’

Meanwhile the rest of town, at the first peal of the cathedral bell, were hugging and kissing one another with great joy and alacrity (some, however, pretending to be happy) and all singing in unison the theme song of the New Year all over the world, akin to the ’White Christmas’ of the yuletide season. It was the ringing out of the Old Year and the welcome of the New. It was ’Auld Lang Syne’’.

Many of us did not know what those ’three little words’ exactly meant, albeit appreciating what they signified. It was an old Scottish poem written by Robert Burns around 1788 and the title when translated literally meant ’Old Long Since’ in keeping with the strange English phrases of that era. It was: ’Should auld acquaintance be forgot/And never brought to mind?/Should auld acquaintance be forgot/And auld lang syne?’/For auld lang syne, my Jo (meaning ’my dear’)/For auld lang syne/We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet/For auld lang syne.’ The next verse was hardly sung or known. ’And surely ye’ll be your pint cup/And surely I’ll buy mine/We’ll take a right goodwill draught/For auld lang syne.’ And so, it’s all about a toast to the old year with draughts of beer or ale.

For some it is a celebration of the achievements of the year now gone and an expectation of continued success in the New. Unfortunately, for others it is happy riddance to an awful year with an optimistic hope for a better one to follow; an exhilaration at the birth of the coming year and tender regrets for the decease of its predecessor. But as years roll by and man approaches the three score and ten figure, he ponders on the unpalatable ’draught’ of mortality, wondering indeed whether he, as Fr O’Sullivan prophesied, will see another New Year and also recalling the famous words of John Donne: ’Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.’

The new-born year was not dressed in simple swaddling clothes but in sartorial splendour; not in a manger but in posh and brightly lit clubhouses or hotels; not in an ordinary inn but perhaps in a five star Holiday Inn. It was the era when once a year we wore evening suits in some clubhouses (There was no Hilton Hotel then), usually black trousers and cream or white jackets, all tailored by Sydney Shim, black cummerbunds and bow ties (let us not forget the white silk scarves of some). It was opening the New Year in style with haute couture and I well remember one Old Year’s night in the large and well-appointed Maple clubhouse at the top of St Vincent Street when Frank Worrell, the only guest wearing an all-black outfit, was distinctively more handsome (and some men felt insecure with their girlfriends!).

But this time-honoured song is not exclusively sung at the birth of the New Year and one tradition in London, for example, was that it was always sung at the end of the last night of the Proms by the audience. In fact, in France ’Auld Lang Syne’’ is also used to mark a farewell, a parting song. The melody is the same but the words are different. The song is called Ce n’est qu’un au revoir (’This is only a goodbye’). It is a temporary parting as opposed to a definitive farewell.

Indeed, in the days when we left to study abroad by the French liners (The Colombie or ), as the boat slowly crept away in reverse gear from the dock, from its loud speaker was heard this plaintive tune (and sometimes ’Now is the hour when we will say goodbye’). Seeing the 20 or so girl and boy friends, who came to the dock that night to bid us farewell with the boat slowly receding in the distance as they continually waved goodbye, the nostalgia of it all is too painful to recall. Many of them are still alive and will remember this-some more.

To them and all, a ’Happy New Year’ for auld lang syne.