Farmer, writer and broadcaster, John Cherrington, in an article about Christmas in the Financial Times during December 1978, noted:
In the 1930s farm workers only enjoyed Christmas if they were lucky as a privilege and not as a right. They certainly had no holiday on Boxing Day. Farmers of course could take a break and one of the customs in Wiltshire, although I never saw it actually performed, was to go out and shoot 12 blackbirds before Christmas lunch. What the origin of this particular slaughter was I never discovered (four and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie?). And I never indulged in the sport myself. But as game shooting is forbidden on Christmas Day, the addict could keep his eye in before the customary tenant shoot on Boxing Day.