Most readers of Tradfolk will be able to reel off a host of folk customs, even if they have never been involved or witnessed them personally. Plough Monday. May Morning. Whitsun Ales. Cheese rolling. Wassailing.
But I would hazard a guess that far fewer of our readers have heard of the Duck Feast in Charlton St Peter, Wiltshire (which commemorates the poet Stephen Duck), or the Burning of the Ashen Faggot in at the Squirrel Inn in Laymore, Dorset, where a 15-foot long bundle of ash is ceremoniously burned for around five hours. The Hercules Clay Penny Loaf Day of Newark-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire is, let’s be honest, probably not top of any folk-tourist’s bucket list.
But these events, and hundreds more like them, are just as much part of the fabric, community, history and folklore of their towns and villages as the flashier events that have become, if not quite part of common knowledge, then at least worthy of an annual BBC article.
One man who does know about these things is photographer Homer Sykes. Homer has spent the last 15 years searching out and photographed an extraordinary range of traditional annual events and customs that are steeped in British local history and heritage. Most are unknown outside their immediate community, so you would be forgiven for not having heard of most of them.
Released last month, An Annual Affair is the conclusion of a career-long photographic documentation of traditional annual country customs and small town traditions. It follows on from Sykes’ highly successful book Once A Year, first published in 1977 and most recently republished in 2016. All photos and captions in this article are from An Annual Affair.
Hello Homer, great to speak to you. This is a monumentally impressive work that really adds to our documentation and understanding of British customs. When did you start photographing these traditions and what first drew you to start documenting them?
About 1968. I was at college and looking for an interesting subject to document. I had never been to the north of England and discovered the Bacup Coconut Dancers in a college library magazine and thought, “that sounds interesting”, so off I went that Easter. A few years later I happened upon a pub on a drive through Somerset. Looking at the framed old black and white photographs on the wall, one caught my eye – it was a group of men, one man standing at the head of the table wearing a strange looking tall hat. I asked the barman and was told “it’s the Duck Feast… it takes place once a year.”
Unfortunately, within five minutes of leaving I had completely forgotten what I had hoped to remember and over the years I often wondered where I was that night.
Thirty years later I was driving back from Somerset after a long day and, for reasons best known to itself, my satnav decided to take me off the main road and across country. I wanted a break and stopped at The Charlton Cat in Charlton St Peter. As I pulled into the car park I was sure I had been there before. Asking around about an annual event hosted locally, I discovered I was in the very pub I had come across in the early ‘70s. Two weeks later I may well have been the only photographer to make photographs of that annual celebration since the 1940s photograph I had noticed on the wall over thirty years previously.
That’s a tale that sounds somewhat folkloric itself! Perhaps you should visit again in 2030 and make it a tricennial tradition…
Speaking of returning to traditions, in some cases you’ve returned to events decades after first photographing them. How did revisiting these occasions feel, and what changes did you notice in the customs and communities?
When I first started photographing many of these events I thought I was creating a record of a way of life that would be forgotten and die out. I wanted to create a record for posterity. This was 1970-1975ish. Of course over the last 50 years a few ‘smaller’ very local events have died out. For example Farthing Bundles at the Fern Street Settlement, London; Caking Night in Dungworth, South Yorkshire; Yarnton Meadow Mowing Rights, Oxfordshire; Letting of the Market Tolls, in Chard, Somerset; Midsummer Tithes Key Auction, Wishford Magna.
But now, when I have been back to events I photographed in the 1970s, for example the Haxey Hood Game, there are now many people photographing and sometimes many hundreds of people who have no or little connection to the village visiting. When I documented these customs in the mid-1970s, I was probably one of maybe two or three people photographing, and I knew them all (although we didn’t speak or at least I didn’t!).
There seemed to be very few outsiders; you felt it was a village/ local affair. Whereas now, many of the better known events, for example Cheese Rolling at Birdlip, have been broadcast on the TV and hundreds of people turn up; it’s a day out and many take part.
That sounds like many of these traditions are already changing, just by the fact they are more widely attended and observed. Do you think they will continue to evolve?
Well the best (in my view) preserve the important elements of the past. But for sure these days many people want to dress up in period costume for example and be ‘modern’ and look different, dressing up I guess makes those people feel they are taking a fuller part. (I disapprove; personally I hate the idea of dressing up and face painting etc but I understand!)
I think that’s what I like about so many of your photos. These events are mostly just being done by regular people in their regular clothes because it’s what they’ve always done. Being a Morris dancer I do of course have plenty of time for ‘fancy dress’ and performative customs, but they also put a barrier between the performers and the observers.
You describe how some of these customs may never have been photographed professionally before. Do you feel a responsibility to document these traditions for future generations?
Well I hope these bodies of work will live on, for very many years. In book form this work has a better chance than just being ‘out there’. When I started out on this career defining project, I of course had no idea that I would still be talking about Once a Year, [my first work on this subject] 50 years after that book was published.
So do I feel a “responsibility”?: no. My responsibility is to myself, to tell the story as I see it on any particular day, to tell it truthfully without manipulation, albeit that the edit is subjective.
Many of the events you’ve photographed are deeply rooted in local history and community life, albeit sometimes very localised. What role do you think these traditions play in preserving local identity in the face of modern changes?
Well I think there is generally a move to preserve our British culture and when a village can lay claim to a unique event that is deeply rooted in the village, small town community, many local people want to “keep the tradition alive.” – well that’s what I have been told on numerous occasions. Also if it’s an annual affair it’s a chance for the community to come together in some small way.
Of course today it still needs keen local people to keep it going, putting in the time and effort but with better village community awareness, which social media and websites greatly help with. These sites can promote the events to locals who have forgotten about it and of course to newcomers. My guess is that very many small village communities feel their traditional way of life is changing too fast. These annual customs that take place once a year are a way of preserving something of the past, while bringing the events into the 21st century, albeit with some changes to reflect this modern era.
Would you describe yourself as a ‘folky’ or is your interest purely artistic or even academic? Have you ever crossed the line from being the recorder to being actively involved in any of the customs or events you’ve photographed?
No, never. I certainly don’t consider myself a ‘folky’ at all; I am a photographer that likes to get his teeth into a subject that others cant be bothered to document thoroughly, carefully and in a visually consistent manner over a long period of time (long period of time by necessity, as I have to work for a living and fund a family!).
I am not an academic, my interest is to document life as I see it in a visually consistent manner. Ultimately I want to create bodies of work that document life in Britain during the latter part of the 20th century and the early part of the 21st. So while my career has been as a magazine editorial photographer, along the way I have produced a number of other works on this theme. For example, I took a year to shoot Hunting with Hounds, when the ban was about to come in. I spent eight years on and off working on a book called A Storm is Passing Over: A look at Black Churches in Britain, which no one had ever before spent time documenting. More recently, I took a year to document the East London 2012 Olympic site in a book called Before the Blue Wall.
Was there a particular folklore event or custom that surprised or fascinated you the most while working on this project?
Yes, The Harting Old Club (Friendly Society) in West Sussex. When I phoned and made enquiries regarding dates and times etc, I asked but did anything else happen besides the members lunch and the parade around the village? When I was told they cut a green bough at dawn and drag it into the village I was amazed; this is happening not even 60 miles south of London.
Was this your favourite, or do you have others?
Generally speaking I liked the small events, where not a lot happens that have a very interesting origin and history. And it’s just me and them. However, visually I loved Harvest Home in East Brent in Somerset. Lovely people and I was looked after very well and lots of really interesting stuff happened. Just 500 ‘local’ people, no face painting, nobody dressing up, just stuff happening. I was the only photographer there that year.
What was your least favourite and why?
The ones that didn’t make it into this new book! I photographed about 120 events and edited it down to about 80 events.
Do you have a favourite photo you’ve taken?
In this book the Brigg Horse Fair.
I know you also used to do a lot of work in America – did you ever seek out similar customs elsewhere in the world?
I have, as a magazine and news feature photographer, worked on assignments all over the world. However, I only speak English. I have never been particularly interested in going to far flung out of the way places where I don’t know what’s really going on. Photographing these events has already been very very time consuming – I’m not sure I could have managed another country’s worth!
What message or feeling do you hope readers will take away from An Annual Affair about British folklore and its importance in the 21st century?
I just hope they enjoy the photography; if an event interests them, that they read the copy at the back of the book and they celebrate what an amazing country we live in.
An Annual Affair: Some Traditional British Calendar Customs is out now and available from Dewi Lewis Publishers.
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