A fete worse than death - sorry about that!

One of the nicer British traditions and one that highlighted village life, was the annual village fete. In the olden days when I was alive, this was a big thing and was months in the preparation. The traditional fete was a way of raising funds, for goodness knows what but i always suspected that it kept the vicar in booze for the year. It brought much of the village together and in our village it was always held on the Vicarage lawn. Visiting there even for the fete was always a nervy thing. The vicars garden also had a lot of hazel nut trees and each autumn, that was a target for us. We were often spotted by him but never caught and we always hoped not to be remembered when we turned up officially. Our fears were groundless but real at the time. Anyhow that is by the by and I was talking of the fete. It was always a busy and crowded affair with stalls ranging from bric-a-brac, home made produce, book stalls, jumble, and bottle stalls. There was bowling, a guess the weight of the pig competition and as the posters always said, much much more. It was a time when everyone gave away the things that they no longer wanted and came home with replacement rubbish, or if you were lucky a raffle prize or something alcoholic on the bottle store. I always wondered what happened to the pig though. Some fetes were much bigger and grander than ours and we'd visit these if we could cycle that far.

The reason i am writing about this is partly due to my mind being almost empty and partly because the fete is dying out. It is on it's last legs because of health and safety. These days there is little that one is allowed to do freely and organised gatherings like this are scrutinised by the H and S people to the extent that huge insurance is required in case little Freddie gets bitten by the pig and catches pig pox, or the vicar gets hit by stray bowls or the whole village dies from food poisoning because of Mrs Jones' home made cakes. I suppose riots could break out on the croquet lawn - it wouldn't be the first time after all. Health and safety is a concept devised by insurance companies, and they are dragging us all into a mire of mediocrity where no-one ever dares take a risk and that is one of the biggest tragedies of the modern world.