Well a good day was had by one and all at the Pilton Festival/Green Man Day last weekend. As I said I started early and got in the Reform early in order to secure my place at the bar. I also got Esther to put by a few bottles of Natch for me and the boys in case some incomers fancied a drop. I was amazed as I walked down the street and came across crowds of people as it was only 10.30. I bumped into me sister in law and a few others so by the time I reached the bottom house I was in need of a pint. This was the pattern for the day, have a drink go out for a stroll and a fag meet someone who I only see once in a blue moon have a natter and then dive back inside for a pint. It was good to see some of the old Pilton faces, faces that I have known all me life. Old Ian Stokey rolled up as did Charlie Street and Charles Dart.
I have to say that although I tip me hat to the folk who organise it but it seems to me that they miss the point of the Green man festival and also they have taken it upon themselves to re-write history according to their own ideas as to what form a village festival should take. Being a woodsman meself, I'm a firm believer in the spirit of the Green Man and from my own readings about festivities associated in celebrating him it appears to me that a lot more fun would be had if the historical elements of such a celebration were more strictly followed. In the past such activities were licensed by the village authorities and the church in order to create social cohesion and allow release for the folk whose everyday life was lived under harsh and prohibitive control, basically a couple of times a year they were allowed to let off steam and this is exactly what they did. The green man is seen as an outlaw figure and it is indeed from these tales that the figure of Robin Hood evolved. He came from the woods to protect and look over the common people and was a figure whose qualities were the direct opposite of those embodied in the Churchmen, land owners and the State. On these days the folk would cock a snoop at the social norms of the day and undertake a process of inversion. World turned upside town as it became known. Last weekend I saw little of this. The parade should have been a ribald chaotic procession not with a bleddy samba band but an ensemble of people claterring pots and pans and making rude music. There would also be cross dressing, men dressed as women and vice versa. People would be crudely dressed as landowners, bishops, sheriffs also some lowly clergy would be press ganged into pulling carts and as often as not the vicar would be seized and dunked in a pond. As far as I could tell the Rev. Nigel Dilkes didn't really get into the spirit of things as I seem to recall seeing him late in the afternoon and he didn't look as if he had been thrown in the Yeo. Also as the ale and cider and wine flowed the crowd would tumble into the church and would listen to profane bawdy sermons delivered by the local lads, they would also dress up in the vestments. A couple of final points the king of the fayre was also a pig or hog, dressed up in finery and sat in cart not a rather dainty looking octogenarian potter, also the green man himself was often portrayed by the village idiot who would be pushed along at the head of the procession and force fed pies and ale not some fella throwing karate shapes and carrying a bottle of Evian.
Of course by the end of the day I had rather warmed to these thoughts and I put me ideas forward to a couple of chaps I know in the walking band, who I'm glad to say were satisfactory awful. However, I got short shrift. I also took a chap to task as he insisted on calling Pilton Street, the high street, Pilton the village. "how long have you lived in the village?', he asked me. He got an incoherent disgust laden response as you can imagine.
I have to say though that despite the historical inaccuracies, the cow towing to middle class incomers it was an bleddy good day. Next year at the committee maybe I'm going to suggest a greater adherence to the historical precedents that should liven thing up. I was also very pleased the bell that I bought for me bike from the Communists.
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