Mead and Honey

All over England, many old towns and villages had annual fairs, fayres, festivals, or fétes, some such as the Rothwell, (pronounced Rowell or Roll by the locals) Trinity fair or Proclamation, as it is often called have traceable origins. The Rothwell Proclamation, has fairly recently celebrated 8 centuries,as has another olden hand me down, the vicious Atherstone Football match. Whereas others, such as the Straw Bear of Whittlesey festival, have lost their origins and violent nature to time as they have been reinvented in more recent times.

Most, if not all of these festivals have, aside from their central focus. an almost religious sacrament to the consumption of large amounts of alcohol, primarily beer or ale. Public drunkenness not just tolerated, but expected. The Clive and Dee festival is no exception, centred around a football like game played between the village of Emmingford and the small town of Emmingwell.

The annual Emmingford and Emmingwell Fayre shares another similarity with other old festivals, its original reason for existence has been lost and forgotten, perhaps some have had their existence fade into obscurity, others have survived, bolstered by one reason or another. Clive and Dee festival is one of the latter, it was resumed and reaffirmed in 1763.

The reason for its renewal is partly because of local arrogance and partly due to an otherwise unknown Welshman, a man some presume to be a scholar, others just a say he was a wanderer or traveller, but whatever his occupation, it matters not, but has much to do with the name of the flat topped hill the festival is held on, CLIVE AND DEE HILL.

Clive and Dee hill is not really a hill, just on the edge of a larger piece of land with greater elevation than the immediate area. The "hill", if the land were flooded would be a peninsula, only joined by a sliver of land to the next "hill" a sliver no more than thirty yards long and twenty feet wide at its narrowest point.

Opposite, across the flat grassy area is the "steep" side, to the right is the "slope" and to the left, the "woods" beyond which, is the girls dormitory of the Emming valley boarding school.

The reasons for the Welshman being anywhere near Emmingford or Emmingwell are not recorded, neither are the actual events. Only legend and rumour point to the truth.

Little is known of the travelling Welshman other than his name and the thing he said.

Daffydd Ewes had walked into the village of Emmingwell on the twelfth of November 1763. He took lodgings at the Inn for a couple of days. The local community, as was normal for the time were a very close-knit people and with English, not being his first language and his strong Welsh accent made for a difficult time for him.

One man, the local Priest took it upon himself to make the time and effort to get to know the outsider and together they began to make headway. Three days and three nights they talked, they talked without malice and some say the beginnings of trust or even friendship were developing. Until the traveller learned of the name of the hill, Clive and Dee hill. The Welshmen had been astounded with the knowledge and immediately began to insist that the welsh must have travelled there and that the hill was not Clive and Dee hill, insisting it was welsh for plateau, Llwyfandir, (Cloyfandee).

Legend says the clergyman tried to quieten him, but to no avail and within the hour, en masse, the villagers took him to the hill and hoisted his beaten and unconscious body by the neck from the solitary oak that stands in the centre of the hill.

Today, before the football match, an effigy of the hanged man is hung from the tree and beaten with sticks by children until the teams are almost ready to play.

The annual Emmingwell vs Emmingford "football" match is played between midday and five o'clock. The game has few rules.

1. Only men over the age of 15 may play

2. Only men born and bred from each village may play and only in their own village team.

3. Goals are scored by striking the tree with the "ball". The scorer must then drink 1 pint of ale before game restarts

4. No weapons allowed

5. Team with most goals wins

6. In the unknown to now event of a tie, the team with least injuries will be names winner.

7. *discrepancies between team player numbers to be a maximum of four.

*rule number 7 added after the 1897 massacre where Emmingwell fielded 38 players to Emmingfords 15.

The game is little more than a four hour brawl, the object is to gain possession of the wooden ball and knock it on the tree. The teams either protect, or try to gain possession from the ball holder. There are no fouls, although outright violence, especially intentional breaking of bones is discouraged. On the other hand, friendly drinks, before and after the match are encouraged while not obligatory are expected.

Modern, politically correct individuals are regularly trying to call a halt to the tradition, labelling it as barbaric, violent and dangerous. In 1976, concessions were made to mark off the playing area, for the safety of spectators and the growing number of side attractions and stalls. However, in the year 2000 the local (public) school recorded the reported injuries from the match and compared them to their own statistics for their women's rugby teams. The results were surprising, showing that although the Clive and Dee match revealed more injuries in total, Women's rugby had the greater number of serious injuries.

The study showed that minor injuries, scrapes, bruises, grazes and minor cuts were only slightly greater in the Clive and Dee match compared to the average injuries in women's injuries when balanced against five hours playing time. No serious injuries were recorded for that year for the C&D match but two serious concussions occurred in the rugby, although both from one match and one accidental head collision.

The hill itself is not a steep hill and the area around the old playing area is between twenty and forty feet with only a drop of five to ten feet. On the other side of the road passing the hill, a marquee to contain a bar and music. This however, is not the sole purveyor of alcoholic beverages, many of the stalls lining the road adjacent to the marquee, primarily selling food, local produce and crafts,although most sell homemade beer ciders or wine and one solely for honey and mead. Over recent years, attendance of non-locals has grown dramatically, resulting in the necessity of the attendance of medics from both St John's and the Red Cross. The irony of having to provide a medical presence for spectators and not the participants of the sometimes violent game has provided many hours of mirth and derision to many drunken gatherings.

Vendors and officials begin arriving at approximately 06:00 to set up and survey the field, the first patrons generally begin arriving about 10:00.

At 11:30 players report to the officials, At the final count, Emmingwell fields 32 entrants and Emmingford offers 26, meaning Emmingwell has to drop two players. No one volunteers to drop out, so straws are drawn. Peter Simmons a young lad of fifteen, and John Smith, a twenty nine year old that has played all but one year since his fifteenth birthday lose their places.

Peter's disappointment is obvious to all and with a long face and a half drunk beer he begins to make his way from the congregation, when one man speaks up.

Douglas Collin, calls out, "Hey, hang on boy, you take my place, I'll stand and watch for a change. After all, it will be better if I'm needed for an emergency."

He did not expect to have to leave, such emergencies are not unknown, but are rare. Although he has always enjoyed playing, the look of glee on the young lads face compensates for his own disappointment.

"Thanks Doug, I'll make sure I score a couple for you, I won't let you down."

Doug reaches out and tousles his hair, "Just do what you can boy, and if you're up to it you can buy me a beer after, alright?"

"Yeah, I will at that."

Doug leaves the gathering of players and officials and joins the waiting spectators, the players finish their beer and take position on the playing area in a ring around the tree.

The game is started by a man (the Arrer) that cannot be from either village. He throws the "ball" as high as he can into the tree. When it falls, it bounces off branches, giving some semblance of randomness for the first player taking possession of the ball.

The ball is caught, and the game begins. A five-hour brawl may be the games reputation, but a lot of skill is generally shown, running, passing and dodging for the most part, although hard body checks, barging and grappling take up much of the remaining action, punches and kicks are, for the most part only used defensively when someone is caught alone and held down.

Doug watches the game, slowly making his way around to the road and his wife's mead and honey stall.

Knowing that during the match business will be slow he finds her as he expects, sitting and relaxing chatting with women from the villages. Trade is always slow during the match for every stall, except one, the bar.

Expecting to play, Doug had given his phone to his wife, in case of any emergencies. There is one such call as he nears the mead stall, she just finishes speaking to the caller as he walks up and surprises her. She passes on the information, already knowing that he must leave to go and tend to a horse that has thrown a shoe.

Doug is the local Blacksmith and by extension, Farrier, he heads home to change vehicles and then out to the riding school.

He is not happy that he has to leave; the riding school in question is over twenty miles away, meaning he will probably be gone for two hours at least. Nevertheless, it is always a pleasure to go to the Portman School; Sylvia Portman is a pleasant woman, a divorcee in her mid forties, fit as a fiddle as all women that ride daily are and looking half her age because of it.

He pulls into the stable area and Sylvia comes running out. "Doug, thank god you're here, it's Honey, he's lost a shoe and he won't let me get near her to look."

"Where is he, inside?"

Doug asks nodding at the stables.

"No, he's out in the meadow still; he won't come to me and is hobbling away if I go to him."

That is unusual for Honey; Doug thinks and tells Sylvia to get in his Land Rover.

It is a short trek to the meadow; Doug cannot help but notice that the normally effervescent woman is distracted; he puts it down to her being worried about the horse.

Once at the meadow, between them they manage to catch the horse, Doug is shocked and angry as soon as he is able to get a look at the hoof. As expected the shoe is missing, what is not expected is the large chunk of hoof missing, or the crescent dents in the surrounding area.

"That has been done deliberately, some bastard has knocked her shoe off with a hammer," he spits angrily. "I'll need to get her sedated to repair that."

As he is speaking, he is pulling out his phone and calling for the vet, Arnold Willis. After explaining the situation the vet agrees to come immediately, the half hour waiting for his arrival is spent trying to placate the distressed horse and conducted with little conversation other than the big question, who is the sick bastard that has done this and why?"

Honey is sedated quickly once Arnold arrives, Arnold too is shocked by the deliberate injury, he inspects the wound and concludes that, not only the wound, but the surrounding area is bruised, the count twelve impact points and some chafing on the lower forelegs, surmising the horse was hobbled to enable the cruel defilement of the normally amiable creature.

"We should get the police in on this," Arnold states as he cleans the flesh under the hoof.

I was going to call them after we had finished sorting her out, I didn't want to have to wait for them to need to have a look before we started," Doug agrees, silently cursing himself for not making that call whilst waiting for the vet.

Well I'm glad you did wait, I'd hate to have to wait for them to get out of the way it would only prolonged her suffering.

Arnold finishes cleaning the wound and Doug repairs the hole with a plastic resin filler.

Arnold reports the crime, before saying his goodbyes and heading back to the festival.

When he returns, he finds as expected, a large portion of the attendees in varying states of good-natured intoxication and he arrives just in time to see Emmingford win 44 to 43, their first victory since the end of the Second World War.

As the crowd are congratulating the residents of Emmingford and commiserating their opponents, he makes his way to the honey and mead stall and to his wife.

As he approaches, he sees his wife deep in conversation with someone, a man that he had not seen before.

She sees him coming and giving him a welcoming smile, she says something to the man and he moves away before Doug gets close.

Sharon greets her husband with a kiss and then excitedly begins telling him about a business opportunity that has come up. She tells him that the man she has been speaking to owns several riding schools over Cambridgeshire, Essex and Huntingdonshire and has offered to sell her products at the schools.

Doug has always looked at her Bee keeping activities as more of a hobby than a business and is surprised, not only at the suggestion, but by the intensity of her conviction that it could be a viable possibility, dismissing it as a consequence of imbibing too much of the product she is selling.

Doug is hungry and thinking it may be a good idea to get something solid inside his wife to sop up the alcohol. He makes his way to, and joins the queue for the hog roast.

As he queues, he sees two men looking over a twelve years old Range Rover, recognising one of the men he is puzzled, but glancing over to his wife he again sees the stranger talking to his wife, he also notices they are leaning in toward one another in an intimate manner. This time, it is the man that spies Doug, this time he says something to her and once again, by the time Doug gets to the stall the man is gone.

Never, in their eighteen years together has he doubted her, never has he felt there was any reason to suspect anyone in their fairly closed rural community of trying to make a move on his wife. Now, by the closeness of the interaction he has just observed, and her "merry" state, gives him no doubt there is a fox trying to raid his hen house.

"What's Mike Brown up to over there?" he asks as he puts down the things he brought with him.

She shrugs dismissively, seemingly annoyed at his interruption of her interchange with Simon however, she is glad that he has brought food and coffee and readily agrees that she should slow down, if not stop consuming her fare.

Feigning interest in the "business offer", he quizzes her about the man without revealing his concerns, the things she tells him about does not fully allay his fears, but he cannot.

Nicholas Simon, a businessman, staying locally with the intent of buying into local businesses. Doug had been aware that Simon had met his wife at least twice before, but it had not seemed important, even though he had heard rumours about the man, enough to know he did not like him, even before Sharon reported the "coincidental" meetings and his attempts to flirt with her. She laughs as she tells her husband of the obvious attempts Simon has been making to see how far he can push things with her today.

Giggling, she tells Doug how Simon turned up at her stall minutes after Doug had had to leave and how he had stayed, chatting her up all the time Doug was gone. Without any shame she also tells him how, after several glasses of mead, Simon had repeatedly enquired that if he bought enough of her honey and mead if he could lick some mead from her naked body to seal the deal.

She laughs loudly telling Doug how he had seemed to get more interested in her after she told him that she never has sex without her husband being there, giving the implication that he was not wasting his time.

Doug grins sheepishly, wondering if she is genuinely tempted by the man. Seeing the concern in his eyes, she laughs again, causing his face to flush with embarrassment.

Throughout the conversation, she has to break off several times to sell to customers and Doug also has people coming to him to talk of things, or just indulge in friendly banter, several mention one way or another about the "City wide boy" sniffing around Sharon.

When they are alone, after a couple more shots of mead she then confesses that Simon wants to meet up with her later, on her own and he has suggested they abscond into the woods to get to know one another better today and they meet another time with the mead.

"Didn't you tell him it burns sensitive skin Hon?" Doug asks, causing her to laugh again and with a sadistic smile, she tells Doug details about what she intends doing with Simon later.

"Are you sure Hon', can't you insist that I am there?" He asks with concern in his voice.

"Oh, sweetie, don't worry, he's not dangerous, just shy." She goads him patting his cheek gently.

"Well I don't like it, just make sure I can follow you, so I can be there if he turns nasty."

"Don't worry your precious little head sweetie," she says pulling his head down for a kiss, he smiles as he tastes the sweet mead on her lips. Taking her in his arms, they find comfort in their shared bodily warmth in the cooling night time air. They spend the next couple of hours embracing each other only parting when she makes sales. However a couple of times when she pulls away, Doug notices Simon watching at a distance.

Eventually she closes up the stall, as she is putting things away, Doug nips off to relieve his bladder and fetch more beer, when he returns she is not there.

Feeling annoyed, he finishes taking down the stall and stows it on and in his land rover before he goes to look for her. He runs into many people he knows, those that can, point him in whichever direction they had seen Sharon and her companion.

By now, the only thing open is the marquee; a covers band is reeling off rock classics as he searches the bar and dancing area.

Eventually he sees them and chuckles, she is, as are most of the people dancing, head banging. He on the other hand is jiggling himself as if he is a Down's syndrome case at a disco. Doug also notices that he is not the only one finding Simon dancing amusing, as he sees a group of teenagers openly mocking and imitating his awkward attempts.

"'ere Doug, that prat dancing with your missis who is he?"

"Oh just some prick that's got no rhythm."

"That's for sure, hell if he's catholic and married he must have plenty of kids."

Both men laugh and Doug makes his way around to approach the couple. She sees him and waves, he grins and nods she smiles back and says something to Simon, he looks in Doug's direction before he replies and then they begin moving toward the entrance. Doug follows, looking around he sees several people are watching the interplay, some are pointing out the actions of the three to their own companions. To the point that even though normally, Doug would have no concern with his wife's actions, for the moment he is feeling the humiliation of what appears to be blatant disrespectful behaviour.

When he exits the marquee he cannot see them, but he is sure she will be taking him to one of the three small "lovers nests" within the woods and he is sure he knows which one. He is also sure they will not be taking the most direct route if only to give some pretence to the idea they are showing some discretion.

He on the other hand is alone and he walks directly to the narrow strip of wooded land and secrets himself in the shadow of the trees.

He watches Simon walk in to the woods, a smug lecherous grin pasted on his face, a short while later he sees his beloved wife walking toward the same spot he had seen Simon entering the woods. She appears to be looking around nervously, he wonders whether she is now doubting her intended actions and wondering if their plans are a big mistake.