Traditional July celebrations

Helpston’s traditional July celebrations

Helpston Feast was an annual celebration that was a July fixture in the calendar in John Clare’s time. The origin of the feast is unknown, but it continued well into the twentieth century.

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the feast took place on a Sunday in late June or early July. It appears to have been fixed as the first Sunday after the 29th June.¹

Clare describes what it was like as a child.

then came the feast when the cross was throngd round with stalls of toys and sweets horses on wheels with their flowing manes and lambs with their red necklaces box cuckoos and we looked on these fineries till the imagination almost coaxed our itching fingers to steal and seemd to upbraid our fears for not daring to do it.²

In “The Village Minstrel” he talks of villagers putting on brand new clothes and joining in dances on the green, with music by gypsy fiddlers from night to morning.

In the late 19th Century, after Clare’s time there was still an annual feast. It took place at the same time, but was certainly over two days, on a Feast Sunday and Feast Monday.³ There were sports on the Monday. In 1888 there was to be a cricket match between Helpston and Etton, but it was called off because it rained all day.⁴ Later in the 19th Century and early 20th Century it seems to have been a two or even three day event. In 1901 there is also reference to a Feast Tuesday.⁵

The feast became associated with local “clubs” that were friendly societies providing mutual support for working families. One of these was the Ancient Order of Foresters, which met sometimes at The Exeter Arms and sometimes at The Blue Bell. Another was The Society of Good Fellowship. Clare had referred to “Bradford’s Club”, presumably named for the landlord of The Blue Bell. This was probably a purely Helpston club, whereas the Foresters were a national organisation with a branch in Helpston

Since 1981 the annual John Clare Festival has taken place on the weekend adjacent to John Clare’s birthday. More recently there has been an annual gala, in May, which is perhaps the spiritual successor to The Feast.

Sources
1 John Clare by Himself (Robinson & Powell eds.) (1996) p.236 & note 255
2 John Clare by Himself (Robinson & Powell eds.) (1996) p.35
3 Diaries of John Quincey 1890, 1900, 1901
4 Peterborough Standard 7 July 1888 [With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive]
5 Diary of John Quincey 1901