Rural England these
days is a shadow of it's former self,gone is the village school,the
village post office,the blacksmith and the corner shop. Even the
village pub is disappearing fast,morphing in to a “Gastro Pub”or
closing altogether.
The small mixed farms
have merged into huge single crop farms and their outbuildings have
become holiday lets or second homes for affluent townies. As all that
made village life sweet slips silently into history I would like to
say a word about a village activity dear to the hearts of all those
who are country born and bred, the village fête.
The great excitement
engendered by this event had nothing to do with it's size and
everything to do with the fact that village children and adults
alike,having spent the winter mewed up by snow and bad weather were
desperate for a little amusement,a little innocent pleasure.
For children there
would be the fairground rides,iced cream(rare in those times) candy
floss(even rarer) and of course the choosing and crowning of the may
queen and her retinue.
This last caused a
terrific bustle in the village from February onwards and there was
much jostling for position on “the train”, a velvet affair lined
with silk,edged with ermine and carried by eight little girls. To be
chosen for this honour was the high spot in many a school girls life,
the pretty frilly long dresses,made all the girls feel like queens.
Less of an honour was
being chosen to dance around the maypole,boys in particular detested
this event and bribery was often resorted to by parents and teachers
alike and eventually the two dozen boys and girls would assemble fro
practice with much shuffling of feet among the boys and giggling
amongst the girls.
The real fun was,of
course the village sports,tug of war,tossing the sheaf,firing the
anvil and,one of the most risky of all spectator sports,wellie
wangling!
A long course was set
up in the centre of the field, at the top the contestants would line
up with their wellies and further down the field would be the
markers,intrepid souls who risked much to see fair play and ensure a
winner without a riot!
The contestants would
fill their wellies with custard from a bath full of the stuff and
then, with whatever technique they preferred they hurled the wellie
as far down the field as they could. Quite often an over enthusiastic
wangler would let go of his wellie too soon and cover the spectators
in custard,much to the delight of those fortunate ones who were not
in range, and famous for this tenancy was Wille Wilton who's slight
hunch back had given him the nick name Wonkie Willie!
Other than this slight
deformity he was perfectly normal and extremely intelligent, he had
at an early age realised that he could make quite a bit of pin money
by playing the village idiot at events like the fête and although
none of the villagers ever fell for his monkey trick strangers to the
village just come for the fair were to Willie fair game.
Willie had a difficulty
in throwing his wellie in a straight line and the local bookie would
take bets on which way the wellie would fly and which side of the
crowd would get the custard. Willie in on the whole thing always
managed to favour the bookie and drew his share of the winning at the
local pub in the evening.
On the day before the
fête word hit the village that a V.I.P was coming to the fête in
the person of a certain famous actress currently appearing at a
theatre in a nearby town and worshipped as a deity by Willie. The
added frisson caused by this news was tangible and the person most
affected was Willie.
Where would she
stand,he would not want to shower the Goddess with custard,it caused
him a very sleepless night. Next morning the festivities began with a
church service and a blessing of the village well,Willie was no where
to be seen. His confederate, the bookie became quite concerned and
asked tenderly after Willie's welfare all over the village.
The time appointed for
the wellie wangling contest arrived with out sight of Willie, wellies
and custard flew in all directions missing the crowd by inches. The
guest of honour was seated in the place of honour with the village
Illuminate,squire, doctor and local magistrate,and my heart went out
to the poor woman for a more boring trio could not be imagined.
At last Willie waddled
up the field and it was soon plain to all that he was roaring
drunk,the bookie had anaesthetised him with Rum and he was raring to
go.
H e dangled his custard
filled wellie and waved it provocatively at the crowd who shrunk back
in affected fear.
The times round the
head went the wellie before Willie let go, the wellie arced in to the
air spinning as it went. F or this throw the markers were redundant
for the wellie and the custard landed squarely in on the judges
table, it's sudden sharp stop causing the custard to splatter the
judges and the guest of honour.
Wille was
mortified....after he had sobered up, even though his cut of the
winnings was bigger than ever before. There was a third person who
took a cut of the winning that year, it was the visiting actress who
was, we later learned related to our bookie.
Willie, never got to
meet his idol and in fact he never wangled again. M y father taught
his to shoot and he spent the next fête winning all the prizes at
the riffle stall,in spite of the fact that the rifles all had bent
sights....but that’s another story.
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