One way or another, we are all of us involved in Folk.
Do you retell the stories your grandparents told? Does your family like to do the same thing every Christmas Eve? Do you always share the same special brunch on high days and holidays? Maybe you used to give your siblings the birthday bumps! Have you ever been to a hen party, or a stag night? Did you give the bride something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue?
Do you enjoy Morris dancing, well-dressing or local music? Maybe you are a pagan, carrying out the observances of your religion and strengthening your connection to the cycles of time and nature.
All of the above can be described as folk practices. They form and grow in our families, our workplaces and our communities. They belong to us. We all need to mark our progress through life and through the year. Folk practices are ways of doing this. They may be hundreds of years old, or they may have arisen a few months ago. It really does not matter. They are ours: they grow and change with us.
One expert in this field is Chris Lewis-Jones, of Fleet Folk Forum; a group which has evolved over the past few years, giving rise to local events in which we can all take part. Chris kindly agreed to be interviewed for Fortean Belper. ‘Sometimes, people might be involved in one kind of folk activity,’ he said, ‘They might know a lot about Morris dancing, protest songs, or paganisms, for example. I am interested in joining up these different folk practices, and rooting them in the community.’
Do you retell the stories your grandparents told? Does your family like to do the same thing every Christmas Eve? Do you always share the same special brunch on high days and holidays? Maybe you used to give your siblings the birthday bumps! Have you ever been to a hen party, or a stag night? Did you give the bride something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue?
Do you enjoy Morris dancing, well-dressing or local music? Maybe you are a pagan, carrying out the observances of your religion and strengthening your connection to the cycles of time and nature.
All of the above can be described as folk practices. They form and grow in our families, our workplaces and our communities. They belong to us. We all need to mark our progress through life and through the year. Folk practices are ways of doing this. They may be hundreds of years old, or they may have arisen a few months ago. It really does not matter. They are ours: they grow and change with us.
One expert in this field is Chris Lewis-Jones, of Fleet Folk Forum; a group which has evolved over the past few years, giving rise to local events in which we can all take part. Chris kindly agreed to be interviewed for Fortean Belper. ‘Sometimes, people might be involved in one kind of folk activity,’ he said, ‘They might know a lot about Morris dancing, protest songs, or paganisms, for example. I am interested in joining up these different folk practices, and rooting them in the community.’
FB: How did Fleet Folk Forum start?
A decade ago, group of us, mainly from Nottingham, were looking for a plot of land for an eco-build housing association project. We chose land on Holbrook Road, but it did not work out. However, several of us moved to Belper regardless, and three households ended up moving to the Fleet. Alex was an arborealist, Ian was a community theatre specialist and I was an artist/folklorist. We had already enabled events to happen in Nottingham, including maypole dancing, wassailing, and community singing during lockdown (for which we were awarded The Kevin Ryan Community Hero Award 2021)!
Our first event in Belper was a Wassail in 2021. Fifteen people joined in. The year after, eighty people came. This year, there were more than a hundred! There has been a steady increase in members, with lots of Belperians joining in.
Some of our activities, like the wassail, are calendar events which happen at the same time every year. Others are generated by the group. Someone will have an idea, and we take it from there. Last year, Nickie organised a Krampus Parade in December, and now we are working towards a well-dressing event in the summer.
FB: How is FFF organised?
FFF is run along anarchistic lines. There is no formal structure. We take it in turns to chair meetings, take and circulate minutes, initiate and evaluate events. We meet once a month, but also run a monthly folk night (bARDIC bEATS), and we occasionally meet between monthly meetings in order to plan up-coming events
FB: What are your plans for the coming months?
Two events happen every month, at the Grapes pub in High Street. We gather in the darts room and we are keen to welcome anyone who would like to attend.
24th March, 2024: Beating the Bounds.
31st March, 2024: An Easter bonnet Dérive (a walk in which you disrupt your own habitual understandings of your surroundings).
4th May, 2024: ‘May Mares’ – an event with hobby-horses, maybe including some racing, dancing and singing.
We have a Facebook page, where you can find information about what is currently happening with the group. You are welcome join in the online conversation whether or not you attend the events.
How would you like to see FFF develop over the next few years?
We would like to see events taking place without the organisation. We want them to happen just because they need to happen and they become self-organised. The wassail is already feeling like that: it will go ahead because people will just do it. They do not need direction.
What would you most like people to understand about FFF?
Culture is a way of reminding ourselves who we are, where we were and where we want to go. It is important for us to recognise where we were, and to take time to appreciate that.
This is an inclusive group. You don’t have to be an expert! People just join in. They join for many reasons and have many different beliefs. Our membership is a broad collective, with lots of different kinds of people. We like that.
Maybe we are a bit left-field!
If anyone attends any of our events, they will find plenty of other members ready to help them understand what is happening. We always carry extra equipment in case newcomers need it. It is a welcoming group.
Everyone is free to contribute their own ideas. For example, one year at the wassail, someone who had had a bad year wrote down everything she wanted to forget and then burned it. Now, we all do that! Traditions evolve: the old and new co-exist.
Could you give us some details about any of your regular events?
Wassail: (From the Old English for ‘be well’) Traditionally this involves apple trees, but we have extended it to all fruit trees. We bless the trees with bread and cider, to make them fruitful and bang pans together to scare off evil spirits. Then we burn dead Christmas trees and make wishes for the coming year. (You do not have to believe in evil spirits to join in!)
Beating the Bounds: An ancient tradition from pre-literate times. This continued for centuries in Crich and Wirksworth; now it is back in Belper. It is about having a feeling for where your community is and what shape it takes. We concentrate on the area around the Fleet and Cowhill. We identify what we feel are our boundary markers (they might be signposts, stone markers or other structures). We carry thin sticks with us and walk around, blessing the markers with honey, ale and bread, so everyone will have a sweet, replete life. Then we tap the markers and sing.
Chris has shared the following deeper exploration of the subject of folk practices. It is an excellent, thought-provoking read:
Folkloric culture, what is it?
Chris Lewis-Jones
When researching folkloric/folk culture within academic (especially anthropological) circles, one frequently encounters definitions such as:
‘…folk culture refers to the products and practices of relatively homogeneous and isolated small-scale social groups living in rural locations.’
There is often an assumption, especially common within left/humanist circles, that folk culture is essentially ‘conservative’. Thus, folk culture is frequently associated with tradition and historical continuity, but seldom with the contemporary. I believe passionately that this reductive view needs to be challenged.
Whereas it may be true that folk culture is more easily recognisable in small scale, especially rural, communities, it is absurd to suggest that folkloric tradition, as it is practiced, is not actually widespread across and within all communities. Folk culture is the lived experience of real people. Often rooted in traditional practices, certainly, but also rooted within practices that have evolved recently, often from contemporary traditions, such as Hip Hop, or multicultural traditions, such as the merging of the North Indian Lhori and the English Wassail. What makes it ‘folk’ isn’t that it’s necessarily ancient or conservative. What makes it ‘folk’ is that it arises from the social needs and cultural aspirations of a community, and of the individuals within it. What Michel de Certeau calls ‘the practice of everyday life’.
Counter to its reputation, folk is actually the most permissive of discourses. Indeed, it is and always has been, dynamic. Tunes, rites, dances, costumes… all are adsorbed and amended freely, drawing on ancient, emerging and contemporary ideas, from fluorescent Molly costumes to Border baterias to Boss Morris performing with Wet Leg at the Brits.
Folkloric rites and rituals may be inspired by the passing of the seasons and our relationship/s with the Earth (and how important that is in a climate emergency!), but they are also informed by the ways in which we navigate our way through contemporary life, as evidenced by a diversity of social signifiers, from trainers on telegraph wires to hand fasting, and a diversity of discourses, from critical mass to the ways in which Black Lives Matter informed the debate around ‘blacking up’ within the Morris Federation.
Unlike popular culture, which is made for us, not by us, folk culture is essentially democratic. We are the consumers, we are the producers. Never have we been more compelled to work, to consume, to borrow, to get into debt… to be ‘on duty for capitalism’. No wonder we are experiencing a revival of interest in Folkloric tradition. Folk culture enables us to step away from the forces of production and distribution that only serve to hide us from the real meaning, the real beauty, of life.
Sources
https://revisesociology.com
Certeau, Michel de (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press
©Chris Lewis-Jones/Fleet Folkloric Forum, Belper, 2023
A decade ago, group of us, mainly from Nottingham, were looking for a plot of land for an eco-build housing association project. We chose land on Holbrook Road, but it did not work out. However, several of us moved to Belper regardless, and three households ended up moving to the Fleet. Alex was an arborealist, Ian was a community theatre specialist and I was an artist/folklorist. We had already enabled events to happen in Nottingham, including maypole dancing, wassailing, and community singing during lockdown (for which we were awarded The Kevin Ryan Community Hero Award 2021)!
Our first event in Belper was a Wassail in 2021. Fifteen people joined in. The year after, eighty people came. This year, there were more than a hundred! There has been a steady increase in members, with lots of Belperians joining in.
Some of our activities, like the wassail, are calendar events which happen at the same time every year. Others are generated by the group. Someone will have an idea, and we take it from there. Last year, Nickie organised a Krampus Parade in December, and now we are working towards a well-dressing event in the summer.
FB: How is FFF organised?
FFF is run along anarchistic lines. There is no formal structure. We take it in turns to chair meetings, take and circulate minutes, initiate and evaluate events. We meet once a month, but also run a monthly folk night (bARDIC bEATS), and we occasionally meet between monthly meetings in order to plan up-coming events
FB: What are your plans for the coming months?
Two events happen every month, at the Grapes pub in High Street. We gather in the darts room and we are keen to welcome anyone who would like to attend.
- The first Thursday of every month is our meeting, from 8.00 to 10.00.
- The second Tuesday of every month is our bARDIC bEATS session, where you can perform and/or be entertained by other people performing. That runs from 7.30 to 10.30.
24th March, 2024: Beating the Bounds.
31st March, 2024: An Easter bonnet Dérive (a walk in which you disrupt your own habitual understandings of your surroundings).
4th May, 2024: ‘May Mares’ – an event with hobby-horses, maybe including some racing, dancing and singing.
We have a Facebook page, where you can find information about what is currently happening with the group. You are welcome join in the online conversation whether or not you attend the events.
How would you like to see FFF develop over the next few years?
We would like to see events taking place without the organisation. We want them to happen just because they need to happen and they become self-organised. The wassail is already feeling like that: it will go ahead because people will just do it. They do not need direction.
What would you most like people to understand about FFF?
Culture is a way of reminding ourselves who we are, where we were and where we want to go. It is important for us to recognise where we were, and to take time to appreciate that.
This is an inclusive group. You don’t have to be an expert! People just join in. They join for many reasons and have many different beliefs. Our membership is a broad collective, with lots of different kinds of people. We like that.
Maybe we are a bit left-field!
If anyone attends any of our events, they will find plenty of other members ready to help them understand what is happening. We always carry extra equipment in case newcomers need it. It is a welcoming group.
Everyone is free to contribute their own ideas. For example, one year at the wassail, someone who had had a bad year wrote down everything she wanted to forget and then burned it. Now, we all do that! Traditions evolve: the old and new co-exist.
Could you give us some details about any of your regular events?
Wassail: (From the Old English for ‘be well’) Traditionally this involves apple trees, but we have extended it to all fruit trees. We bless the trees with bread and cider, to make them fruitful and bang pans together to scare off evil spirits. Then we burn dead Christmas trees and make wishes for the coming year. (You do not have to believe in evil spirits to join in!)
Beating the Bounds: An ancient tradition from pre-literate times. This continued for centuries in Crich and Wirksworth; now it is back in Belper. It is about having a feeling for where your community is and what shape it takes. We concentrate on the area around the Fleet and Cowhill. We identify what we feel are our boundary markers (they might be signposts, stone markers or other structures). We carry thin sticks with us and walk around, blessing the markers with honey, ale and bread, so everyone will have a sweet, replete life. Then we tap the markers and sing.
Chris has shared the following deeper exploration of the subject of folk practices. It is an excellent, thought-provoking read:
Folkloric culture, what is it?
Chris Lewis-Jones
When researching folkloric/folk culture within academic (especially anthropological) circles, one frequently encounters definitions such as:
‘…folk culture refers to the products and practices of relatively homogeneous and isolated small-scale social groups living in rural locations.’
There is often an assumption, especially common within left/humanist circles, that folk culture is essentially ‘conservative’. Thus, folk culture is frequently associated with tradition and historical continuity, but seldom with the contemporary. I believe passionately that this reductive view needs to be challenged.
Whereas it may be true that folk culture is more easily recognisable in small scale, especially rural, communities, it is absurd to suggest that folkloric tradition, as it is practiced, is not actually widespread across and within all communities. Folk culture is the lived experience of real people. Often rooted in traditional practices, certainly, but also rooted within practices that have evolved recently, often from contemporary traditions, such as Hip Hop, or multicultural traditions, such as the merging of the North Indian Lhori and the English Wassail. What makes it ‘folk’ isn’t that it’s necessarily ancient or conservative. What makes it ‘folk’ is that it arises from the social needs and cultural aspirations of a community, and of the individuals within it. What Michel de Certeau calls ‘the practice of everyday life’.
Counter to its reputation, folk is actually the most permissive of discourses. Indeed, it is and always has been, dynamic. Tunes, rites, dances, costumes… all are adsorbed and amended freely, drawing on ancient, emerging and contemporary ideas, from fluorescent Molly costumes to Border baterias to Boss Morris performing with Wet Leg at the Brits.
Folkloric rites and rituals may be inspired by the passing of the seasons and our relationship/s with the Earth (and how important that is in a climate emergency!), but they are also informed by the ways in which we navigate our way through contemporary life, as evidenced by a diversity of social signifiers, from trainers on telegraph wires to hand fasting, and a diversity of discourses, from critical mass to the ways in which Black Lives Matter informed the debate around ‘blacking up’ within the Morris Federation.
Unlike popular culture, which is made for us, not by us, folk culture is essentially democratic. We are the consumers, we are the producers. Never have we been more compelled to work, to consume, to borrow, to get into debt… to be ‘on duty for capitalism’. No wonder we are experiencing a revival of interest in Folkloric tradition. Folk culture enables us to step away from the forces of production and distribution that only serve to hide us from the real meaning, the real beauty, of life.
Sources
https://revisesociology.com
Certeau, Michel de (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press
©Chris Lewis-Jones/Fleet Folkloric Forum, Belper, 2023
