Monday, 25 August 2008

A fete worse then death?

Jackie and I today drove to the Essendon Great Fete. Essendon is the first village east of Welwyn Garden City (perhaps 3 miles away) but it took us half an hour to get there as everyone else had also decided to attend the Fete. The organisers were overwhelmed and the tailback stretched past Welwyn and half way back to Hertford. The car-parking attendants were ill-prepared and tried to micro-manage every individual vehicle resulting in yet further unnecessary delays.

I have many fond memories of Hertfordshire’s village fetes, but this was frantic: there were queues everywhere and for everything and there are few spectacles less edifying than upper middle-class English families determined to ensure that their children will have a good time.

As society becomes less cohesive and more manic, there is a mania for "traditional" events - which of course lose their relevance and become merely over-managed opportunities to raise money at all costs. It wasn't a fete worse than death, I am just too weak-willed to resist an obvious pun. But it wasn't pleasant: I don’t feel that I took part in a traditional relaxed rural celebration of cohesion and togetherness. Rather, I feel like I have had a glimpse of society on the edge.