Enough of the ‘Staycation’ rubbish! If we’re lucky enough to get a bit of time off this summer, let’s resurrect the term that northerners always used for their week off. This was the time when the cotton and woollen mills closed en masse – when entire towns – like my home-town of Stalybridge – were deserted for their desperately needed down-time.
As a kid, I thoroughly enjoyed Wakes Week; it felt historic. It felt special. And it harked back to the dawn of the railways, when folks from Stalybridge crammed themselves onto the trains, heading for Blackpool, Southport, Scarborough and the like for a day or so. But back in the 70s, Dad forbade us from entering debauched Blackpool. We were however, permitted to a bit of time in Colwyn Bay, where we’d be less likely to see drunken hairy men sporting fake plastic tits and kids puking off the side of the pier.
So, it was beach for us, Babycham for Mum and Beer for Dad. Lose half your pocket money on the Penny Falls and spend half your time shopping for holiday gifts that invariably involved painted pebbles with crappily glued-on googly eyes. Waste even more on a dog lead with ‘an invisible dog’ at the end of it. My brother would usually break an ankle whilst crabbing, fall through a rotten jetty, or get stuck on a rock face.
The only trouble that I ever caused for my parents however, involved following around anyone with a moustache (must have been a 70s thing – and my crush only applied to men sporting them). Oh, and I got sunburned. Regularly, because no one had heard of Ambre Solaire until the 80s (which I ended up being allergic to.)
Victorian Stalybridge of yore certainly had some treats in store for those who were not part of the exodus to the seaside. The biggest buzz was to be found at the travelling circus and fair – usually set up in the markets area close to Holy Trinity church. At the end of July 1874, you could gorge yourself silly on black peas, gingerbread, ice-cream, mussels and oysters (no doubt the helter skelter on the photo above was colourfully decorated, after that little lot…)
The Stalybridge Reporter of 1874 tells us that you could try your hand at; rifle galleries, swing boats, hobby horses, models (probably not the Sam Fox sort of model), paintings, coconut shies, marionettes, a camera obscura, gymnastics, and you could delight in the presence of… er… goats. The performances included “Daniel in the Lions’ Den” and if the tragedy of having to gawp at “the wonderfullest dwarf alive” doesn’t make you cringe enough, then you may be even more dismayed by the Reporter’s next words, “Misses Jane and Margaret Smith – the Yorkshire Twins were exhibited to the admirers of fat women.” But let’s not start a bun-fight with the good ladies of Yorkshire, by telling the world about this one.
Anyway. I got to thinking what it’d be like to have a formal, socially distanced Wakes Week today. Yeah, sod the Staycation idea. I think that returning to the concept of the Wakes could be a great success. We could hold it on the moorland near us and we could set up a welcoming stall selling black peas (if you’ve not tried them, you ain’t lived).
In the interests of overcoming body dysmorphia, we could celebrate ourselves by having a Knobbly Knee contest – and someone could nick a car tyre, so we could all engage in a bit of gurning – encouraging people to laugh at us, rather than the usual mirror-love of the selfie generational stuff.
Arm-wrestling would come in very handy (with the council’s Bin Men versus The Ladies From Down My Lane – we’d cream the buggers as they can’t even lift the old-fashioned style bins anymore and have to use a big wussy mechanised truck). Instead of welly-throwing, I suggest Hand-Gel Distance Squirting.
Best of all though, would be the Coconut Shy. I’m thinking of asking Specsavers to sponsor this one as it’d be an excellent way for us all to test our vision, rather than driving to Barnard Castle. I’ve located the style of coconut for us to chuck things at – and I think it bears a striking resemblance to Mr Cummings.
