Strawbear Festival 2017.
©Si Barber Moral rights asserted. Molly dancers at the Strawbear Festival 2017.
©Si Barber Moral rights asserted. Molly dancers at the Strawbear Festival 2017.
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Whittlesey Straw Bear, Cambridgeshire. Originally held on the first Monday in January, the event has celebrated the beginning of the agricultural year since the Middle Ages. Farm labourers, unemployed in the winter months would black up their faces to prevent identification and perform dances in the town in return for money or food.
Latterly considered begging and criminalised before making a comeback in the 1980s over the weekend of Epiphanytide, the StrawBear would inevitably involve a number of street fights and the occasional good natured stabbing. In the 2000s as property prices rose aspirational people who wanted to live in Cambridge but couldn't afford city prices came to Whittlesey and occupied the new builds. They disapproved of the application of blackface and eventually achieved in getting it banned. These were the same well intentioned, but naïve people who supported the smoking ban which did so damage to the culture of England, closing pubs like the Bricklayers Arms.
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A participant with their face black-up at the Strawbear Festival Whittlesey, Cambs
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The Crowning of Jenny Hawkes as Ickwell May Day Queen, 2015, Bedfordshire,UK.
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The Crowning of Jenny Hawkes as Ickwell May Day Queen, 2015, Bedfordshire,UK.
celebration community dance dancers dances dancing day eccentric eccentricity england english englishness folk gathering ickwell may morris rural tradition traditional
The Crowning of Jenny Hawkes as Ickwell May Day Queen, 2015, Bedfordshire,UK.
celebration community dance dancers dances dancing day eccentric eccentricity england english englishness folk gathering ickwell may morris rural tradition traditional
The Whitebread Meadown in Bourne is a 'running auction' to let the grazing rights of nearby field. Bidding takes place while two boys race toward the Queen's Bridge in Eastgate. The arrival of the race winner at the finish line signals the end of the bidding. The tradition dates back to the 1742 will of William Clay and in later years has attracted Morris dancers and musicians.
auction bourne dancers dancing field meadow morris tradition whitebread
The Whitebread Meadown in Bourne is a 'running auction' to let the grazing rights of nearby field. Bidding takes place while two boys race toward the Queen's Bridge in Eastgate. The arrival of the race winner at the finish line signals the end of the bidding. The tradition dates back to the 1742 will of William Clay and in later years has attracted Morris dancers and musicians.
auction bourne dancers dancing field meadow morris tradition whitebread
The Whitebread Meadown in Bourne is a 'running auction' to let the grazing rights of nearby field. Bidding takes place while two boys race toward the Queen's Bridge in Eastgate. The arrival of the race winner at the finish line signals the end of the bidding. The tradition dates back to the 1742 will of William Clay and in later years has attracted Morris dancers and musicians.
auction bourne dancers dancing field meadow morris tradition whitebread
The Whitebread Meadown in Bourne is a 'running auction' to let the grazing rights of nearby field. Bidding takes place while two boys race toward the Queen's Bridge in Eastgate. The arrival of the race winner at the finish line signals the end of the bidding. The tradition dates back to the 1742 will of William Clay and in later years has attracted Morris dancers and musicians.
auction bourne dancers dancing field meadow morris tradition whitebread
The Whitebread Meadown in Bourne is a 'running auction' to let the grazing rights of nearby field. Bidding takes place while two boys race toward the Queen's Bridge in Eastgate. The arrival of the race winner at the finish line signals the end of the bidding. The tradition dates back to the 1742 will of William Clay and in later years has attracted Morris dancers and musicians.
auction bourne dancers dancing field meadow morris tradition whitebread
Mandatory Credit: ? Si Barber/07739 472 922 Young dancers dancing.
Mandatory Credit: ? Si Barber/07739 472 922 Ouse Washes Molly dancers.
blackface dancers dancing folk molly ouse traditional washes
Mandatory Credit: ? Si Barber/07739 472 922 Ouse Washes Molly dancers.
blackface dancers dancing folk molly ouse traditional washes
Mandatory Credit: ? Si Barber/07739 472 922 Ouse Washes Molly dancers.
blackface dancers dancing folk molly ouse traditional washes
Mandatory Credit: ? Si Barber/07739 472 922 Ouse Washes Molly dancers.
blackface dancers dancing folk molly ouse traditional washes