Post by sprockit on Apr 18, 2017 12:57:47 GMT
Easter is a time of many traditions in the Christian world to celebrate the death on the cross of Jesus Christ, with processions of witness, cross carrying and erecting, and all manner of other less religiously-orientated events with Easter eggs, and parades of Easter bonnets adorned with fluffy chicks and bunnies.
Another local Good Friday tradition is that of the Mummers performing the Pace Egg plays, once performed all over England, but now confined to a handful of locations between Manchester and Leeds. The plays were once performed annually at different locations around England, some performing the play at Christmas or New Year, some at the Festival of All Hallows (Halloween), but the local tradition hereabouts is Easter. The story and characters varied slightly from village to village, but Saint George was the central character, slaying opponents such as Hector and the Bold Slasher to the rejoicing of Toss Pot the fool. All are then revived by a quack doctor.
A couple of years ago whilst out on a ride I happened across another traditional Easter event, and this year rode over to get some pictures.
The Sprint has the lowest gear of my Viscounts and there’s a 3-mile climb on the way, but typically, after a ride on Thursday, the bike had a flat front tyre so, keen to get going, I opted instead for the International.
This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is what I went to see.
May I introduce, dah dah, the Britannia Coconut Dancers . . .
Typifying mill workers’ houses, David Street, Stacksteads, Bacup, Lancashire, is the location, and on Holy Saturday they do their Boundary Dance to the accompaniment of Stacksteads Brass Band, starting at 9 am sharp and visiting most of, if not all, the local hostelries on their way around the town. At each they perform a dance, then ‘partake of the waters’, and the day finishes when they reach the boundary at the other side of town - usually around 6 or 7 pm!
(Perhaps I ought to polish the other spokes 'cos the replacement I threaded into the back wheel, after breaking one last year, stands out like a sore thumb!)
They are not a Morris ’side’ in the strictest sense of the meaning - they are, uniquely, the Britannia Coconut Dancers. Their dress is that of Moorish pirates of North African origin who moved up through Spain and France, settled in Cornwall, England, working in the quarries and tin mines, and when the work ran out they moved up North and found similar work in the coal mines and quarries around Bacup. Some say the blackened faces represent miners emerging from underground after a shift down the pit, others say it’s a mill workers’ technique to avoid being recognised by mill bosses who would otherwise dock holiday pay.
Many mills would have their own performing troupe and the Coconut Dancers have their origins at the long-gone Britannia Mill. Mining and quarrying are represented in the ‘coconuts’ worn on the knees, wrists and waists of the dancers, and were a means of communication down the pit by banging on pipes or tram rails, and the garlands are a sign of Spring emerging from Winter. The traditional wooden-soled iron-clad clogs were near ubiquitous in the workplace, comfortable and very hard-wearing, and I used to wear them myself well into the 1980s.
The Easter Saturday Boundary Dance is a very long day for the Coconut Dancers and even more so for the members of Stacksteads Brass Band. I was once giving a gentle ribbing to a local band member about going in the pub after band practice or concerts, and he then gave me ‘both barrels’ with the remark “You’d be dry if you’d been spitting into a tube for two hours - we’re athletes!”, so well done to the musicians for their endurance.
Britannia and Stacksteads are areas of Bacup. Britannia summit was on the railway line between Rochdale and Bacup, and Stacksteads had a station on the Bacup to Bury line. Both closed over fifty years ago.
Quintessentially and eccentrically English they may seem, but the (now) quaint Morris and Folk dances passed down through the generations, were methods of passing on stories and morals from the past in a way that a largely illiterate population could understand and relate to, and these concepts of communication have now fallen largely into disuse with the advent of mass literacy and especially digital media.
. . . and talking of digital media - if you want sound and motion:
Another local Good Friday tradition is that of the Mummers performing the Pace Egg plays, once performed all over England, but now confined to a handful of locations between Manchester and Leeds. The plays were once performed annually at different locations around England, some performing the play at Christmas or New Year, some at the Festival of All Hallows (Halloween), but the local tradition hereabouts is Easter. The story and characters varied slightly from village to village, but Saint George was the central character, slaying opponents such as Hector and the Bold Slasher to the rejoicing of Toss Pot the fool. All are then revived by a quack doctor.
A couple of years ago whilst out on a ride I happened across another traditional Easter event, and this year rode over to get some pictures.
The Sprint has the lowest gear of my Viscounts and there’s a 3-mile climb on the way, but typically, after a ride on Thursday, the bike had a flat front tyre so, keen to get going, I opted instead for the International.
This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is what I went to see.
May I introduce, dah dah, the Britannia Coconut Dancers . . .
Typifying mill workers’ houses, David Street, Stacksteads, Bacup, Lancashire, is the location, and on Holy Saturday they do their Boundary Dance to the accompaniment of Stacksteads Brass Band, starting at 9 am sharp and visiting most of, if not all, the local hostelries on their way around the town. At each they perform a dance, then ‘partake of the waters’, and the day finishes when they reach the boundary at the other side of town - usually around 6 or 7 pm!
(Perhaps I ought to polish the other spokes 'cos the replacement I threaded into the back wheel, after breaking one last year, stands out like a sore thumb!)
They are not a Morris ’side’ in the strictest sense of the meaning - they are, uniquely, the Britannia Coconut Dancers. Their dress is that of Moorish pirates of North African origin who moved up through Spain and France, settled in Cornwall, England, working in the quarries and tin mines, and when the work ran out they moved up North and found similar work in the coal mines and quarries around Bacup. Some say the blackened faces represent miners emerging from underground after a shift down the pit, others say it’s a mill workers’ technique to avoid being recognised by mill bosses who would otherwise dock holiday pay.
Many mills would have their own performing troupe and the Coconut Dancers have their origins at the long-gone Britannia Mill. Mining and quarrying are represented in the ‘coconuts’ worn on the knees, wrists and waists of the dancers, and were a means of communication down the pit by banging on pipes or tram rails, and the garlands are a sign of Spring emerging from Winter. The traditional wooden-soled iron-clad clogs were near ubiquitous in the workplace, comfortable and very hard-wearing, and I used to wear them myself well into the 1980s.
The Easter Saturday Boundary Dance is a very long day for the Coconut Dancers and even more so for the members of Stacksteads Brass Band. I was once giving a gentle ribbing to a local band member about going in the pub after band practice or concerts, and he then gave me ‘both barrels’ with the remark “You’d be dry if you’d been spitting into a tube for two hours - we’re athletes!”, so well done to the musicians for their endurance.
Britannia and Stacksteads are areas of Bacup. Britannia summit was on the railway line between Rochdale and Bacup, and Stacksteads had a station on the Bacup to Bury line. Both closed over fifty years ago.
Quintessentially and eccentrically English they may seem, but the (now) quaint Morris and Folk dances passed down through the generations, were methods of passing on stories and morals from the past in a way that a largely illiterate population could understand and relate to, and these concepts of communication have now fallen largely into disuse with the advent of mass literacy and especially digital media.
. . . and talking of digital media - if you want sound and motion: