Appleby is a small (2 500 inhabitants) town in Cumbria (north of England, just before it becomes Scotland for overseas visitors). Every year, in early summer, the town hosts a horse fair. For the Traveller community in Britain, this is their biggest event of the year. It always makes it on to the radio, by stint of the traffic delays caused as the horse drawn wagons make their way to and from Appleby. Over the long weekend this year, an estimated 200 000 people visited or stayed in the area.
Why would I be interested in this? Firstly, because Appleby is the town where my father was born, and I can remember visiting his family there. Secondly, because I have just come across a 47 minute film about the horse fair. This I came across looking for resources to help prepare some course materials on citizenship and religious education for Maryvale Institute's initial teacher training course. The film comes from a website called TeachersTV, which provides video materials for teacher's professional development and classroom use here in the UK.
The film is called "Gypsy Fair - Krush on the Drom", and can be downloaded or watched from here. It features gypsy teenagers investigating the background and importance of the Appleby Fair for their own lifestyles. Their explanations of their way of life are very articulate. There is a lovely section where we are shown round a traditional, horse drawn "living wagon" - many families still bring these out for their trip to Appleby, even though most Travellers now live either in houses or on fixed caravan sites. My favourite bit is at 31:50 minutes in, where a gypsy teenager showing the viewer round her caravan points out that, if you have an argument living in a caravan, you do not have the option of going out of the room and into another room to get away from it. You have to say sorry pretty quickly.
At this year's Appleby Horse Fair, Youth 2000 were asked to provide a Catholic presence, and so ran a weekend prayer festival there for the first time. Bishop O'Donoghue visited and, I think, celebrated Mass there.
1 comment:
Hi I went to Appleby Fair yesterday having travelled up from St Ann's in Lancashire. I must say when you come off the motorway the changing landscape was wonderful. At one point I though the sky was coming down to greet us as the clouds were so low. The amount of sheep was incredible. I did look to see if any provision for shelters was made for our lovely creatures both sheep and cows but I did not see any which is not easy from a travelling car. The weather that was threatening finally broke but not thank God until our journey home. The car in any case needed a wash especially after the "greeting deposits" of Thomas the Seagull. He is not the shy retiring type and wakes me up at 4 am by tapping on my window for food. The cats at our Sanctuary made a vain attempt to catch him but for their sake, I am glad they miss as he would make mince meat of them. To give you some idea if you ever saw a picture of an albatross? well that is Thomas. I went to ask my travelling friends was any spiritual provisions made this year for them and it warmed the cockles of my heart to hear from 10 beaming faces led by Winnie and Christy and their lovely extended family,not forgetting Kathleen that Mass Communion and the Rosary all took place on the Sunday. All were packing up on the Monday afternoon as the weather was about to break. I was made so very welcome that I felt right at home. I was genuinely sad to leave when we had shared so many stories, tales and jokes with such warm and friendly people. Please God I will be fortunate enough to meet them all again Next Year. Kind Regards.
Bishop Cornelius
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