Something Worth Celebrating

Bunting out.  Crowds gather.  Brollies at the ready.  Most importantly, brass bands are playing.

Whatever happens elsewhere this weekend regarding our unelected head of state, any true citizen of the republic of Saddleworth – and I regard myself as one, despite my extended and ongoing  exile – will be right here on this, the most important day of the year.  

It’s lovely to come home at any time.  The Christmas Messiah features friendly faces.   The Rushcart offers sozzled morrismen heaving a quickly-sobering mate atop a cart of reeds.  And the morneful factory horn breaking the Remembrance Sunday on Pots and Pans was always as poignant as any Last Post.

But this weekend is when all prodigal sons return come rain or just showers.  As local poet Ammon Wrigley explains:  It’s good to be in Saddleworth, o’er the green miles and the grey, There’s no better earth for roaming, and no better folks I say;  Up and o’er the top of Wharmton, in the keen life-giving air, For whoever tramps in Saddleworth, says good-bye to every care.

Whit Friday starts carefully enough.  By ten in the morning, crowds gather in the larger of the dozen or so Pennine villages.  For one blissful day the streets are reclaimed from brutalising cars.  Led by the band, churches and scouts brandish banners, and the village people tramp after them.  Everyone joins in:  from pram- to daisy-pushers; the lapsed to the happy clappers; residents and returnees.  The band marches past to Hail Smiling Morn; we all know this is where we belong.

After morning walks, children’s sports.  Previously run by churches, my local Village Association and Mountain Rescue now keep the afternoon races alive.  To those of you familiar with my own busy-body tendencies, it’s no surprise to find my parents at the thick of it, along with village stalwart Jill and expert marshals Janet and Morris (who called his first-ever false start!).  This year, the chaotic ‘wheelbarrows’ and three-legged melee were eased by Katja’s teutonic efficiency and my loudly hailed, rapidly-flattening vowels.  Stickers and lollies were presented, adult competitiveness contained, an important tradition sustained.

And so to the evening.  Anyone who knows the north understands the importance of brass bands, the very fabric of many post-industrial communities.  And if you’ve seen Brassed Off you’ll know that the Saddleworth Whit Friday contests are a highlight of the banding calendar.  Brighouse and Rastrick.  Black Dyke Mills.  Grimethorpe Colliery, of course.  Plus bands from as far away as Switzerland and Germany.  As we reach the top of Lark Hill wisps of Senator, Ravenswood  and Knight Templar reach us from three separate villages nestling below.  Nick turns to us and states, without exaggeration, “that experience will always be unique to Saddleworth”.

But not everything has stayed the same:  my brother reminds me of trying to hit the bass drum with black peas, but now there’s not a peashooter in sight.  Not that I’d risk it – on one famous occasion an enthusiastic joker got a little too close to the quickstep and the drummer swiped him out of the way with his stick on the upstroke, without even missing a beat! 

Gone too is the morning after’s Beer Walk – it was good for charity, but more than enough beer is consumed by the audience (and the bands) on the Friday.  These days the weekend proceeds with a more sedate ‘scarecrow trail’ (this year with a royal theme), and Sunday’s school duck race. 

But Whit Friday is the core of the celebrations.   

So pass on the pageant, snub your street-party, jilt the jubilee.

Rather, to almost quote our local bard:  Come out along the hilltops and stretch your legs with me; Where northern winds are longing to blow the dust off thee; Give me the gipsy moorland in ragged heather shawl, And you can keep your pageant and your fancy barge and all!