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Magazine
CAMBRIDGE LETTER
Thriving traditions and modern concerns
BILL KIRKMAN
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While health and safety are important issues, an excessive obsession can lead to ridiculous situations.
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At the end of the meeting of our local parish council this week, all those attending enjoyed a mince pie.
The mince pie is a traditional festive sweet pastry which is usually eaten during the Christmas and New Year period. Paradoxically, the mincemeat with which mince pies are made does not actually contain meat. Rather, it is a rich mixture of dried fruits and fat, no doubt bad for those trying to avoid obesity, but enjoyable none the less.
The tradition goes back to the middle ages, when the mincemeat did contain meat. The connection with Christmas came in the 16th century, but a century later the tradition was temporarily killed during the rule of Oliver Cromwell — Britain’s republican interlude. Cromwell made the eating of mince pies on Christmas Day illegal. Cromwell’s rule, of course, did not survive; nor did the ban.
At our parish council meeting, the pies were a gift from the council chair, eaten in his absence. He was unable to attend because he was deeply involved in another tradition — playing the part of the Dame in the village dramatic society’s pantomime. Some two years ago (January 8, 2006) I wrote about the British tradition of pantomime. The local village event — and its counterparts around the country — is something different: traditional, certainly, but with the bonus that the members of the cast and the audience are mostly well known to each other. Watching the parish council chair bursting on to the stage in an extravagant dress and a wig and “over the top” (figuratively as well as literally) hat provides a new take on local democracy.
At one point in the performance he and another character led the audience in a song and afterwards rewarded us by throwing sweets to us.
Small mercies
If the local dramatic society had allowed itself to become as obsessed by health and safety issues as many people in the United Kingdom — essentially a healthier and safer society than at any time in our history — now are, he would doubtless not have thrown the sweets. In doing so he was, after all, exposing us to the risk of death by toffee impact. It is not a risk that fills most of our waking thoughts.
I am being flippant, but health and safety has in many quarters become a reason for stopping or constraining many traditional activities. In a town in the English midlands, for example, the traditional journey by sleigh of Father Christmas (towed at a speed of under 10 kilometres an hour) has been permitted only if he wears a body harness. In another town in the north of England, Father Christmas has been forced to travel by bus, because the local council’s insurance policy does not cover travel by sleigh.
My nephew, who has a two and a half year old son, told me this week that the little boy suggested to a neighbour that she should accompany them, with her young son, round the group of houses where they live. The neighbour insisted on locking the door of her house first. My nephew suggested that a journey of thirty seconds would hardly allow a burglar to get in, and out, with loot. She explained that her concern was that someone might get in the house and attack her on her return, a risk so slight as to be totally insignificant.
No sensible person, of course, thinks that health and safety are unimportant. Proper safeguards certainly ought to be taken. The problem is that the good sense of having appropriate legislation is too frequently combined with a total lack of common sense in interpretation.
Fortunately, more and more people are ready to challenge the more dotty manifestations of the health and safety culture.
Enshrining irrelevance
It is often useful to stand back and take a long term view before rushing into legislation. The argument for doing so is strengthened by examining legislation retrospectively. Last month the Daily Telegraph conducted a poll to discover what people thought were the 10 stupidest laws. Cromwell’s ban on eating mince pies on Christmas Day came fourth. Top of the list was a law stating that it is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament.
Some irrelevant laws remain, through inadvertence, on the statute book. This month, for example, two men caught catching rabbits and trespassing on someone else’s land were fined. Under an Act still in force, they could have been deported — a tradition which, fortunately, is no longer a feature of British society.
Bill Kirkman is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge, U.K. Email him at: bill.kirkman@gmail.com
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