From The Times, Dec 30, 1939: NEW YEAR'S EVE QUIET OBSERVANCE EXPECTED TRADITIONAL CUSTOMS CURTAILED The New Year's Eve celebrations tomorrow will be without two of the traditional features - the watch-night services in the churches, and the exuberant sirens and hooters of peace-time. It is probable that a number of people will gather near St. Paul's to sing "Auld Lang Syne" as 1939 closes and 1940 begins, but the police hope that the crowds, there and in Piccadilly and elsewhere, will be much smaller than the customary assemblies. As we have not known a war-time New Year's Eve since 1917 there is room for speculation about the ways in which the people will see the old year out. Probably the general observance will not be so very different from what it has always been. For every family that sups and dances away the last hours of the year there are many more which prefer domestic celebrations. They may or may not include "Letting the New Year in" by some friend or relation, for choice a dark man. Such family observances will no doubt be prevalent to-morrow as in previous years. Blacked-out streets and curtailed transport are substantial inducements to spending the last night of the year at home. The fact that New Year's Eve falls on Sunday will further make for quietude. The churches will play a smaller part than usual. St. Paul's, in common with most other churches, will not hold the traditional watch-night service. So most of those who have held fast by the pious custom of attending the old year's passing in congregational worship and prayer will be found by the fireside to-morrow night. They will have much to fill their thoughts, in the happenings of 1939, and their unknown but inevitably momentous sequel in the coming months. General and private anxieties will be mingled. Yet here will be numerous companies immersed in the gaiety which attends a normal New Year's Eve - especially in London hotels and restaurants, which will do their utmost to drive care away with dancing and cabarets, and pageants intended to dramatize the transition from 1939 to its successor. Scottish pipers will have a part in some celebrations, more particularly for the pleasure of exiled Scots making Hogmanay. The hotels and restaurants have been granted an extension of licence till 2 a.m. on Monday. Public houses will similarly be allowed to stay open till 12.15 a.m. That relaxation, which appears to be general in the London boroughs, will be the first Sunday night extension granted by the magistrates for many years. It may be assumed that one motive behind the policy is to make merry-making as widely dispersed as possible, and so discourage unduly large gatherings in the central districts. There will be no cheap-fare excursions from the South to Scotland though bookings by ordinary train promise to be fairly heavy, and trains will be duplicated if necessary. One thing definitely forbidden in advance is the making of noises that are likely to occasion general alarm or possibly make the duties of the Forces concerned with air defence more difficult.
