Fete worse than death?

Hastings Independent

Fete worse than death?

By Kent Barker

There is something singular about an English Village Fete.  I’m off to ours later today and I could have waited until afterwards before describing it.  But, really, why bother?  I know what it will be like.  I know what stalls there will be.  I know who will be running them.  I know what they will be selling.  I can even anticipate the activities and games that will be on offer – coconut shies, maypole dancing, tug-of-bungee rope and, best of all, wet sponge throwing at village dignitaries (a status I have, fortunately, yet to acquire).

So, you might reasonably ask, why bother to go then, if you know exactly what will be there?  Well that’s the point really, total familiarity.  The tradition of neighbours getting together one summer’s afternoon to do silly thinks and to buy stuff that they neither want nor need and which will, in all probability, be retuned as a donation next year.  It echoes down the years from Thomas Hardy and Laurie Lee, or Wordsworth and Keats, or Constable and Turner.  It’s a little bit of communitarianism that marks us out as sociable creatures.  Support for a concept of inclusivity.

Well, that’s the theory. The practice is, sadly, rather different. This afternoon there will be more than a few people who will avoid my eye and swiftly move away rather than offer me a greeting.  It’s extraordinary how quickly you make enemies when you involve yourself in public life – even at the lowest level.  You might have thought serving on the Parish Council would have garnered some small gratitude for the tedious hours spent discussing the village toilets or bus shelters.  But not a bit of it.  Parish councillors exist to be criticised and kicked.  And it’s generally done with something approaching anger.  Not so much of the “Well done and thank you for organising the bottle bank”, it’s more: “The recycling bins are full again.  It’s a disgrace. This parish council should be ashamed of itself.  And by the way the noise of bottles being recycled is unacceptable. You should find somewhere else to locate them”.

Still I will go to the fete.  Partly to support the tireless work of the organisers and partly to check through the bric-a-brac and second hand books just in case of a real bargain.  But also to greet those of my fellow villagers with whom I am still on speaking terms!