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Magazine
CAMBRIDGE LETTER
In sync with the seasons
BILL KIRKMAN
Traditional celebrations in the U.K. are frequently linked to the seasons when people were far more dependent than now on the weather.
How widely is Plough Monday celebrated in Britain? This is not a question that fills most people’s waking thoughts, but this year quite a lot of people discussed it, because it featured on “The Archers”, the BBC’s most popular
non-news programme. On five days every week, millions of people listen to this radio soap-opera, as they have done for more than 50 years. It is set in the imaginary village of Ambridge and the story line is focused on farming, though in recent years Ambridge life has become far more varied. This year Plough Monday in Ambridge was a success, and some 30 clergy turned up to visit Brookfield, the main Ambridge farm.
The fact that these fictional celebrations involved clergy was appropriate, because Plough Monday, like many traditional customs, is essentially a religious festival. In this case, it marks the return to work by farmers after the 12 days of Christmas, and after the blessing of their ploughs on the previous day, Plough Sunday.
Feasting before fasting
As I write, we are on the eve of another traditional “day” — Pancake Day — which, like Plough Monday, is a feast day in the Christian calendar, properly called Shrove Tuesday, which occurs on the eve of Lent, the period of 40 days of fasting before Easter. The idea was that before the fast people feasted on pancakes. Fasting during Lent is now the exception rather than the rule, even with religious people, but Pancake Day still attracts people who have not the faintest idea about Lent, but do know that they enjoy eating pancakes.
Traditional celebrations are frequently linked to the seasons. They have their roots in a past in which most people in Britain lived and worked in the countryside, and were far more dependent than now on the weather. That explains Maypole Dancing, which traditionally takes place on May Day (May 1). It was a day on which people cut down young trees to stick in the ground in a village. The dance round the maypole was a celebration of the onset of fine weather that would allow planting to begin.
Climate change, and the development of planting under shelter, has of course largely removed the cause of the celebration, but maypoles are still to be found, and people still dance round them. To return for a moment to “The Archers”, it is significant that the signature tune which has always introduced it is a maypole dance, called Barwick Green, written in 1924 by the Yorkshire composer Arthur Wood.
Some things which the British continue to celebrate might well be thought politically incorrect. The most obvious example is Guy Fawkes Day, on November 5. It marks the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 — a conspiracy to blow up Parliament, and King James I when he was due to open it. As the traditional rhyme has it: “Please to remember the fifth of November, Gunpowder, treason and plot./ I see no reason why gunpowder, treason/ Should ever be forgot”. It is still recited, and the event continues to be marked by fireworks, and bonfires on which the effigy of the Guy (Guy Fawkes, who was the most famous of the conspirators) is burnt.
Local narratives
Some traditional customs are local. One such is well dressing, unique to the Peak District of Derbyshire and surrounding areas. It involves the blessing of the water supply. Some sources attribute the practice to the period of the Black Death in the 14th century, when a large proportion of the population of England died of the disease, but some villages were untouched. The local people attributed this to their clean water supply and gave thanks by “dressing” the village wells. The custom may, however, go back to pagan times. The fact that many well dressings have a “well queen” may derive from ancient spring fertility rites. Since the 1950s, well dressing has been revived, with the tourist industry in mind.
Some local seasonal customs are even more esoteric. Competitive cheese rolling at Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire — due this year on May 26 — is an example. It has now become international rather than merely local, and people come from around the world to take part. Last year’s winners were from New Zealand. Cheese rolling is said to date from the pre-Roman era, according to the BBC local station.
Nearer to home for me, the village of Stilton in Cambridgeshire (where Stilton cheese is made) organises an annual cheese-rolling contest down its high street. Perhaps I should have cheese with my pancakes.
Bill Kirkman is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge, U.K. Email him at: bill.kirkman@gmail.com
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