Christianna Brand’s Death of Jezebel gave us a recent blogpost, and I was intrigued by its setting: 'it combines knights on horseback and a cod-mediaeval pageant with a weird post-war Ideal-Homes-type exhibition. This must make it unique.’
I loved Inspector Cockerill’s diatribe on pageants in the book:
The English and their pageants! Nobody enjoyed them, nobody ever knew what they were intended to represent but it was in the national character to produce and witness them: and if one was anybody it was expected of one that one should attend. In North Kent, Cockie assiduously attended all the local pageants, standing craning his neck in the crowd and always at a loss to know what in the world was going on. To come to London, where he was so pointedly nobody, and yet still have to go to see one seemed the very height of indignity.
Regular and long-time readers of the blog will know that I love a pageant. One of my favourite set of photos of all time comes from the National Library of Wales, and shows a pageant in Builth Wells in 1909. (So not English, and proof against the inspector’s criticisms). I have plundered this archive many times.
Years ago, I said in the entry for this book: ‘Maybe one day I will find the book that requires as illo the photo called ‘Miss Godby dancing to the dirge’, (subtitle: ‘Queen of the Fairies foretelling the death of Prince Llewellyn’) and then I will probably think the blog can close down.' That's the top picture, and I still don’t think that’s happening any time soon. Meanwhile, these photos are the Court Jester, played by Arthur Price, and some Norman and Welsh squires and soldiers.
And there is this wonderful Ancient Briton little boy - forever Stig of the Dump for me:
Miss Read’s Fairacre (village life in England 50+ years ago) of course featured a pageant, and was the excuse for this blogpost:
Summertime Special: The British Love of Pageants (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com)
Even Virginia Woolf was not immune to a pageant, in Between the Acts, and the blogpost features yet more on the topic, and the idea of costumes from curtains.
If anyone else knows of any good pageants in books (and excuses for me to get completely lost, yet again, in the range of photos of pageants archived online) then please put them in the comments.
I can see why you love pageants, Moira. They connect us with legends and history and culture. I think they put us in touch with certain sides of ourselves, if that makes any sense. And they're great backgrounds for plots, as you have all sorts of possibilities for bring disparate people together, or families, or...or....
ReplyDeleteYes indeed Margot, I think you are thinking that murder at a pageant would make a good plot! When you think about it, it's surprising there aren't more such plots...
DeleteThere's a pageant in Noel Streatfeild's Party Frock, which as far as I can see you haven't yet covered. And there's also one in Monica Edwards's The Midnight Horse; the main characters get to ride their ponies as part of it.
ReplyDeleteOh great additions to the list! And you are right, amongst all my Noel Streatfeild entries I have not done that one. The Monica Edwards I don't know at all, but am loving the idea of the ponies in the pageant!
DeleteGladys Mitchell has Pageant of Murder where two actors in a pageant are murdered. Somewhat confusing as usual, but I have enjoyed all of her books for the sheer fun of it.
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I hadn't read this one (along with others of her later list) but I love the idea of the pageant, so have ordered it! It wasn't cheap, but I think special interest will justify, so thank you. And yes, she is always fun.
DeleteYou're going to love Dressing Up by Verity Wilson which I have just reviewed for the Fortean Times. Shetland fishermen dressed as suffragettes and much, much more.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness you are so right, I love it already. Have ordered it.
DeleteAngela Thirkell's "August Folly" features something that seems to be more than a play if not less than a pageant.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great set of comments these are! I MUST have read this one but remember nothing (though I also can never distinguish them from their titles - most of them could be called August Folly from the contents). I will check it out.
DeleteVery interesting post Moira. In North America we often associate the word "pageant" with "beauty pageant". A few years ago I wrote a post on a young Saskatchewan woman defending the pageant experience. She caused me to reflect and recognize a personal prejudice with regard to pageant girls. Here is a link - https://mysteriesandmore.blogspot.com/2017/02/pageant-girls-are-law-students.html
ReplyDeleteThanks Bill, that was a very interesting post - and I was glad to see that I read it at the time and commented! It is always good to have our prejudices or stereotypes challenged, and the young woman concerned makes a very convincing case. I have also heard the point being made that pageant winners can win money to help with college tuition fees.
DeleteIt's not actually in the book, but in Autumn Term, Tim Keith tells the Marlow twins about Pomona's mother putting on pageants in which poor Pomona, who was quite the wrong shape for it, had to dance around as one of the Bacchae.
ReplyDeleteOh yes! And although it is not a pageant, that makes me think of the folk dancing competition in Falconer's Lure, with the very funny description of the Green Lady dancers, and Lawrie imagining the family doing a competition dance, and getting annoyed by the idea that someone refused to take part in this entirely theoretical event... the whole day of the local show is a great extended scene, and worthy of pageant attention too.
DeleteI remember reading The Pine Street Pageant as a child but can't remember anything much about the storyline. There were two series of children's books by Mabel Esther Allan: Pine Street and Wood Street, both about groups of working class kids in Liverpool in the 1970s/1980s. The Wood Street series had nice illustrations by Shirley Hughes.
ReplyDeletePine St rang no bells but Wood St did! I would never have known it was Mabel Esther Allan. But I remember the books, because I grew up in Liverpool and the setting was very real, and Wood St and surroundings was near where my mother grew up. Real street names in the books. Don't remember a pageant. I was recently asking my mother about her memories of there, and of for example the George V jubilee in 1935.
DeleteShirley Hughes always so wonderful. When we lived in America, I used to love the Alfie books, because his house was just like the one we had left behind to live in considerable luxury in US! The books made me so nostalgic for a messy house with iron railings and steps up to the front door and down to the basement.
Mabel Esther Allan was from Wallasey and Shirley Hughes from West Kirby, so I imagine they both knew Liverpool quite well.
DeleteThe Alfie books are so great, especially the design of Alfie Gets In First, with Mum and Annie Rose on the left-hand pages outside the house, and Alfie inside on the right. And I loved Mrs McNally's Maureen "a plumber was one of the things she wanted to be when she grew up".
Oh yes, such excellent books, her pictures so instantly identifiable, and real.
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