Straw Bear Festival 2012

If anyone ever says to you – as English people seem inclined to say – “what a shame we have no culture of our own at all.” Tell them they should have been at the Straw Bear Festival this year, but that it’s not too late to go to next year’s.

Or perhaps they were just ignoring what we do have because it’s not noble or serious enough. If so, tell them to come anyway and learn to embrace the riotous, ridiculous, vulgar and fun spirit of the morris – on the streets and unashamed.

As for us, we had a great day on Saturday. It was one of those winter days when the sunshine is the colour of champagne, there’s an icy mist over the fens, it’s almost warm in the sun, but stepping out of it is like running face first into a snowdrift. We set off in the procession with hoards of other morris, molly, rapper and clog dancers at half ten in the morning, dancing through streets that were packed with onlookers, and then we danced, on and off, until 3pm, when the lowering of the sun made us all feel like we were about to die of exposure.

Ely and Littleport Riot’s kit may be partly at fault here. It’s great in the summer to dance in a light blouse, skirt and waistcoat, but not even adding a pair of gloves and maybe a regulation red woolly hat really makes it suitable in the winter, no matter how many thermal vests and long johns you wear underneath.

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Mirrored from Alex Beecroft - Author of Gay Historical and Fantasy Fiction.