Bank Holiday madness: Worm charming or cheese rolling, anyone?
This is the first weekend of the season of silliness, when otherwise sane people put on daft clothes and do strange things. Why? And why are the English, in particular, so in love with being eccentric?
By Cole Moreton
Published: 06 May 2007
Get on your knees. Rub the earth. Sing a little song. Pour out a magical elixir of, say, stale beer and garlic. If worms start wriggling out of the ground then you're ready to take on the charmers of the West Country in the biggest event of their year, which happens today. But only if you're dressed as a tree, the back end of a horse or something equally silly.
Several hundred competitors will process through the village of Blackawton in fancy dress this lunchtime, following clog dancers, before attempting to charm up worms from a cow field. Thousands of people will crowd around - because what better entertainment could there be on a May Sunday than watching eccentrics make fools of themselves in the mud?
Madness strikes Britain this weekend, and the worm charming of Blackawton is a fine example. The first bank holiday in May is the start of the season of summer silliness, when worms are charmed, rolling pins thrown and bogs snorkelled. Tomorrow, for example, the villagers of Stilton in Cambridgeshire will roll wooden "cheeses" through the streets, for reasons unclear. Out comes the sun (if you're lucky) and out come props, games and contests seen nowhere else in the world. Some are ancient customs. Some pretend to be. Some don't even bother to pretend. They just happen. But why? What are people getting out of it? And what does it say about us as a nation?
"We are eccentric," says Dr Lesley Prince, social psychologist and lifelong participant in Civil War re-enactments. "It is part of the British national identity."
Yes, but why? And isn't this an English rather than British thing, really? Blackawton is a good place to look for answers. This small village near Dartmouth has a pub at each end of the 400-yard High Street. At noon today, doctors, lawyers, farm hands and labourers alike will march between the pubs, toast the worms with rum and gird themselves for battle in the "secret field" that hosts the event (it's always the same one, so there's no secret at all). When a whistle blows they will have 15 minutes to get worms out of a square yard of turf by doing anything but digging.
The judge, Big John Skuse, used to cheat so much (worms in his watering can, trouser legs and hat) that they put him in charge. He farms worms for a living - and sells bins in which they munch through household waste, turning it into rich fertiliser. "Being right next to Totnes [New Age capital of the West] we've got no shortage of crystal huggers and yoghurt weavers who think they'll win by giving the ground an Indian head massage," says Big John.
The record is 149 worms, but there are dark mutterings about the methods used. Most winners are lucky to get 30 or 40. And what do they win? "Er, nothing much," admits Big John. "A bottle of champagne or chocolates for the kids. That's it, really. Pride?"
Elsewhere it's all about tradition. The Cotswolds Olimpicks - main event shin-kicking, in which two people with straw down their trousers whack away at each other with steel-capped boots until one can't stand the pain any more - started in 1612.
At Tetbury in Gloucestershire, teams from rival pubs run up and down a cruel slope with 60lb sacks full of wool on their backs. This dates back to the 1600s, when drunken drovers in the wool boom town tried to impress the ladies.
Such events have seen a dramatic increase in participants and spectators over the past five years, according to the tourist board Visit Britain. Colin Irwin, who sampled many for his book In Search of Albion, says people are turning to them because English culture is in a state of flux. "It's not just here: it's happening in Africa and other parts of Europe. People are responding to globalisation by exploring and rediscovering their own particular local traditions."
But countries such as France or Spain don't see their own folklore as silly. Scotland and Wales have "never had a problem with singing out their nationality," says Mr Irwin. "The English have, essentially because of the mistakes of empire." But with American (and some claim immigrant) culture pressing in hard, attitudes are changing, he says. "People used to be embarrassed, saying, 'We're sophisticated and modern, these things mean nothing to us.' Now they are saying, 'Actually, this is part of who we are.'"
The crab apple fair in Egremont, Cumbria, dates back to 1267. The gurning competition held there is said to come from the faces people make when they eat sharp apples. They call it a "world championship" now - as do the snail racers of Norfolk and pea shooters of Cambridge - but if the Americans can have a World Series in baseball, then why not?
Tradition is not the answer in Blackawton, however. The competition there was dreamed up in 1986, when a local called Dave sat out a miserable day in the Normandy Arms speculating - as you do - about what happened to grass when you peed on it. One pint led to another and Dave and a friend went to test their theories in a field. Suddenly the ground was filled with writhing worms. A local legend was born.
It died again in 2001 when the foot and mouth crisis effectively closed the countryside to tourists. Blackawton, like many places, was hit hard. The Normandy Arms closed. Part of the rebirth of the village - leading to the reopening of the pub - was due to the reinvention of the worm-charming contest as a family-friendly festival, with performers, beer tent and a lamb roast.
After foot and mouth, other communities across the country also revived or invented wacky ways to attract visitors, as increasing numbers of holidaymakers stayed within the British Isles after 9/11. The unique selling point every time was eccentricity.
In literary terms the English idea of themselves as eccentric might be dated to the Brief Lives written by John Aubrey in the 1600s, salty profiles of heroically eccentric Englishmen such as Francis Bacon and Sir Walter Raleigh. By the Victorian age, eccentricity - as in wilfully, stubbornly and gleefully being different to the rest of the world - was a building block of empire.
The empire has gone, of course, but a sense remains - albeit deeply submerged - that if eccentricity is part of the national or local identity then it is almost a duty to comply. That sense comes to the surface among morris dancers, shin kickers and maypole dancers. At the very least, daftness is a way of defining yourself in contrast to invaders, strangers and tourists.
"There is a basic human need to be part of a group," says Dr Prince, psychologist and pretend soldier. In-jokes and private language play a big part - like the two tired ranks of opposing footsoldiers in a Civil War re-enactment who pushed each other around the battlefield in a lurching waltz, collectively humming the Blue Danube. The spectators could not hear. "There is a lot of irony and self-mockery in re-enactment or worm charming or whatever," says Dr Prince. "The dafter it looks from the outside, the better. This goes with a sense of sticking it to The Man - we have to pay taxes, dress in a certain way and turn up for work, but for one day we can say 'get lost' to all that and do something silly."
So it's about mild rebellion, loosening the stiff upper lip, embracing the national identity, preserving tradition or getting the tourists back. And having fun. We do this stuff because we like it. This is who we are.
"In 500 years' time," laughs worm charmer Nick Smith, voice fattening with pride, "the equivalent of Tony Robinson on Time Team will dig up the Blackawton worm-charming shield and say, 'What the bloody hell were they doing?'"
