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Content Published August 4, 2017

Strawbear Festival 2017.

©Si Barber Moral rights asserted. Molly dancers at the Strawbear Festival 2017.

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Content Published August 4, 2017

Strawbear Festival 2017.

©Si Barber Moral rights asserted. Molly dancers at the Strawbear Festival 2017.

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Content Published August 4, 2017

Strawbear Festival 2017.

©Si Barber Moral rights asserted. Molly dancers at the Strawbear Festival 2017.

blacked blackface costume dancers dancing england english folk glory molly morris old strawbear tradition up whittlesea whittlesey

Content Published January 19, 2017

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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Content Published January 19, 2017

Image by Si Barber

A participant with their face black-up at the Strawbear Festival Whittlesey, Cambs

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Content Published January 19, 2017

Image by Si Barber

A participant at the Strawbear Festival Whittlesey, Cambs

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Content Published February 26, 2016

©Si Barber. Moral rights asserted

Plough Monday celebrations 2016, Ramsey, Cambridgeshire

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Content Published January 21, 2016

©Si Barber. Moral rights asserted

Plough Monday celebrations 2016, Ramsey, Cambridgeshire

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Content Published January 21, 2016

©Si Barber. Moral rights asserted

Plough Monday celebrations 2016, Ramsey, Cambridgeshire

agircultural broom broom dance broom dancing cambridgeshire custom dance dancing epiphany folk huntingdonshire monday pagan plough ramsey strawbear tradition

Content Published May 8, 2015

©Barber_Ickwell_May_day

The Crowning of Jenny Hawkes as Ickwell May Day Queen, 2015, Bedfordshire,UK. IMage shows Maypole dancing.

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Content Published May 8, 2015

©Barber_Ickwell_May_day

The Crowning of Jenny Hawkes as Ickwell May Day Queen, 2015, Bedfordshire,UK. IMage shows Maypole dancing.

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Content Published May 8, 2015

©Barber_Ickwell_May_day

The Crowning of Jenny Hawkes as Ickwell May Day Queen, 2015, Bedfordshire,UK. IMage shows Maypole dancing.

celebration community dance dancing day eccentric eccentricity england english englishness folk gathering ickwell may maypole pole ribbons rural tradition traditional

Content Published May 8, 2015

©Barber_Ickwell_May_day

The Crowning of Jenny Hawkes as Ickwell May Day Queen, 2015, Bedfordshire,UK. IMage shows Maypole dancing.

celebration community dance dancing day eccentric eccentricity england english englishness folk gathering ickwell may maypole pole ribbons rural tradition traditional

Content Published May 8, 2015

©Barber_Ickwell_May_day

The Crowning of Jenny Hawkes as Ickwell May Day Queen, 2015, Bedfordshire,UK. IMage shows Maypole dancing.

celebration community dance dancing day eccentric eccentricity england english englishness folk gathering ickwell may maypole pole ribbons rural tradition traditional

Content Published May 8, 2015

©Barber_Ickwell_May_day

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

Content Published May 8, 2015

©Barber_Ickwell_May_day

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

Content Published May 8, 2015

©Barber_Ickwell_May_day

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

Content Published May 7, 2015

©Barber_Ickwell_May_day

The Crowning of Jenny Hawkes as Ickwell May Day Queen, 2015, Bedfordshire,UK. Image shows the village Maypole

celebration community dance dancing day eccentric eccentricity england english englishness folk gathering ickwell may maypole pole ribbons rural tradition traditional

Content Published January 15, 2015

©Si Barber. Moral rights asserted

Plough Monday in Ramsey Cambridgeshire, UK. 2015. The first Monday after Ephiphany marks the beginning of the agricultural year and traditionally is celebrated by a church service overseen by a 'straw bear' who represents nature. After the service the is led away by Mayor Ian Curtis for burning.

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Content Published January 14, 2015

©Si Barber. Moral rights asserted

Plough Monday in Ramsey Cambridgeshire, UK. 2015. The first Monday after Ephiphany marks the beginning of the agricultural year and traditionally is celebrated by a church service overseen by a 'straw bear' who represents nature. After the service the is led away by Mayor Ian Curtis for burning.

bear blessing broom broom dance broom dancing cambridgesire children crop dance dancing epiphany fertility folk monday plough ramsey straw strawbear tradition

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