Try teaching the words of Good King Wenceslas to a ten-year-old Ukrainian who’s still finding her way in English. I’d thought it would be easy, but clearly I hadn’t been concentrating in all the years I sang that song.

I had the vague idea of a king in a fairytale castle setting off with his loyal page boy through a snowy forest to bring pine logs and a decent dinner to a poor peasant. My secret mission was to moderate Vira’s unbearable enthusiasm for Jingle Bells, which she likes to pick out on the piano with one pokey finger, or Santa Claus is Coming to Town accompanied by disco dance moves. It was time to raise the tone.