Whittlesey Straw Bear Festival
17 Jan 2010 1 Comment
in Old English Traditions Tags: 2010, farming, fenland, festivities, folk music, morris dancing, Old English Traditions, pig dyke molly, procession, rural, straw bear festival, whittlesea, whittlesey, winter, YouTube
In 2010 the Straw Bear Festival took place on the 15th, 16th and 17th of January.
According to The Straw Bear Organisation , from when no one quite knows, it was the custom on the Tuesday following Plough Monday (the 1st Monday after Twelfth Night) to dress one of the confraternity of the plough in straw and call him a ‘Straw Bear’. This custom was used to collect food for the impoverished indentured farming workers in the area, who had by January, begun to run low in their supplies of food and firewood.
A newspaper of 1882 reports that “… The Straw Bear was then taken around the town to entertain by his frantic and clumsy gestures the good folk who had on the previous day subscribed to the rustics, a spread of beer, tobacco and beef”.
English Defence League Protest in Nottingham on Saturday 5th December 2009
06 Dec 2009 7 Comments
in Political Events Tags: BNP, EDL, english defence league, frustration, immigration, Nottingham, politics, protest, recession, right wing, UAF, unemployment, YouTube
The following YouTube videos are silent documentaries. This means that they have no narration, (but still have all the background sound), as my main objective is to represent the event that happened in Nottingham, not tinge the footage with my own personal political views.
The following silent documentaries were recorded in Nottingham when the English Defence League (EDL) and Unite Against Facism (UAF) groups both held protests in the city centre. A large Police presence was required to keep the two groups apart.
Recent Comments