The Green Parent
Raising kids with conscience
12 Aug 2009
Village Life
Regular contributor to The Green Parent magazine, Janet Ross embraces the tradition of the village fete, well dressing and the homemade cake stall with interesting results.
In summer, where we live, every village has a carnival week. In the larger villages this culminates in a procession with Carnival Queens and Rosebuds on spectacularly decorated floats, followed by other resplendent vehicles vying for the hotly contested prize of best-decorated float. And almost all the villages, even some very small ones like our own, enjoy a week of well dressing.
We do two, a children’s well, (which we parents supervise and contribute towards) and an adult one. A week of puddling, pricking out and petalling comes to a climax when the finished boards are hauled off on the back of tractors to be erected on the village green.
Blessing the well
The following day, the vicar comes to bless our wells and also to declare open the village fair, a collection of ramshackle stalls ranging from bric a brac and plant stalls to a home made hook a duck. But by far the most popular stall every year, is the homemade cake stall. Almost every household contributes something, whether it be rich fruit scones, half a dozen butterfly buns or a coffee or chocolate cake.
Making an impression
Now I’ve never been noted for my domestic prowess, but I did have a go at cake making once. We were new arrivals to our Derbyshire country village and apprehensive about whether we would fit in. I have always found meeting new people difficult and I found myself beset by doubts. Would our children find nice kids to play with we wondered and would two ‘townies’ like ourselves be accepted into the local community? So I was anxious to establish my reputation early on as a generous and useful villager.
Homemade chocolate cake
And so it was that I found myself uncharacteristically busy in the kitchen, beating eggs, mixing in cocoa powder and melting chocolate over boiling water (something I have always found a challenge!). I even began to enjoy myself. I put on a pinny and started fantasising about starting a little café or something with all my own home-
made cakes and teas.
I made five chocolate cakes, that day. I donated four and kept one, and I have to say that as I saw them sitting on the cake stand among the tombolas, bric a brac and plant stalls on the village green I felt proud. Their iced (I’d given up on melting the chocolate on the third attempt) and carefully decorated tops gleamed in the summer sunshine. They looked just as good as all the other generously donated offerings.
Magical decorations
Trade hadn’t begun yet. It was midday and we were all gathered around the Well Dressings singing hymns and listening to the vicar’s address. The Well Dressings looked marvellous. I was proud that my own three children had helped out with the Children’s Well, whose bright petals rustled slightly in the summer breeze. The bold cheerful design of orange red and yellow petals, made an excellent foil to the carefully crafted and subtly designed adults well, where crushed egg-shells gave contours to the faces of historic people and the wheat had actually grown a furry coating to mimic the ermine of their lined cloaks. It was magical!
The grand opening
Finally, the vicar announced the village stalls open. The brass band struck up and everybody charged – straight towards the cake stall. I couldn’t believe it! Everybody except the children (who were jostling over the tombola stall) had formed a not so orderly queue and were thrusting money at the people behind the cake stall who were struggling to cope. By the time I made it to the front of the queue there were just six cheese scones left (which, fortunately, I am very partial to). And yes – even my humble chocolate cakes had gone – somebody had actually paid money for them – cakes made by my very own hand – I have never felt so gratified in my whole life.
Making friends
Later that day while the children were out creating chaos with other village children, I settled down with a cup of tea. I felt a warm glow. It had been a great day – maybe I wasn’t such a domestic flop after all and maybe we’d quickly make friends here. During the afternoon’s festivities we had chatted with some really nice people – all warm and welcoming and interesting. The children had made friends while petalling the well – the ones they were out playing with now. I could get on with these people – it was all going to be OK.
“Something had gone horribly wrong – the whole thing was an unappetising looking white-blobbed mess.”
Proof of the pudding
I settled back, and half closed my eyes. It was the annual village barbecue tonight – a chance to meet more of our neighbours and I was actually looking forward to it. The remaining chocolate cake stood on the table in front of me – a testament to my new found domestic prowess. I took a knife and cut into the moist, rich sponge. I placed a slice on my plate, opened my mouth to savour the exquisite chocolate taste – and screamed! What should have been a smooth dark chocolate interior just wasn’t – it was holey – full of hundreds of small, smooth-edged holes, and in each of these holes was a small, bright white blob.
Something had gone horribly wrong – the flour hadn’t blended in properly and the whole thing was an unappetising looking white-blobbed mess. What had I done! All the cakes had come from the same mixture. People would complain – they would bring back the cakes and say: ‘Who has supplied these spotty white cakes, unfit for human consumption!’
I had ruined the village’s reputation as a supplier of the finest home made cakes in the Peak District. Did people know it was me? I wasn’t sure. The stall holder may well remember me handing them over – and possibly others too. As the vicar pointed out in his congenial address, not much goes unnoticed in a small village like ours. I didn’t go to the barbecue that night and I have never made a chocolate cake since!
Find out more
The practice of ‘dressing’ and ‘blessing’ wells in Peak District villages has been going on since the Celts, with a brief break during the reign of Henry VIII when Thomas Cromwell, was instructed to arrange the destruction of all the equipment used in well dressing and all forms of ‘water worship’.
Their construction is a skilful art, beginning with the spreading of the wet clay into the wooden backing boards (puddling), ‘pricking out’ a design through a paper pattern, then placing petals and other natural items in the areas laid out by the design. The secret is in laying them in a way that they won’t fall off, whatever the weather!
A succession of different villages dresses their wells between the end of May (Tissington) and the end of August (Eyam).
Jez Harris is the designer of The Green Parent magazine, dedicated father of two and plays a mean guitar riff.
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