I have slightly mixed feelings about Pirates' Day. One of our neighbours, Andy Hemsley, a reporter on the Rye Observer, said he would be clearing out for the weekend. "It's phoney," he said. I know what he means. Not only is there no local tradition backing up the day, but pirates are not particularly nice people - think of the thugs operating off Somalia, for instance, or the cybernasties who are after your identity.
I suppose that pirates started getting a better reputation with Long John Silver and Captain Hook. The late Victorians have a lot to answer for when it comes to sentimentalising. Then of course there's Hollywood, which outdoes the nineteenth century when it comes to kitsch. Johnny Depp is merely the icing on the cake. So now we have infants prancing around on stage singing "Yo ho ho, a pirate's life for me" while their doting parents smile away at their offspring embarking on a life of crime. I wondered whether I was the only onlooker who had misgivings. 
The trouble is, though, that you can't stay curmudgeonly for very long on Pirates' Day in Hastings. If there's one thing the locals like doing, it's dressing up. When you combine dressing up with drinking they're in heaven. So a large proportion of the population enters fully into the spirit of the occasion: not just with a cardboard three-cornered hat or a plastic sword, but in full fig with make-up to match - and what goes for the parents goes for the children. Of course there're times when the result is a tad incongruous - I'm not sure that Long John Silver wore Raybans, for example, and one character enjoyed some rhyming slang with a carrot on his shoulder (carrot=parrot, geddit?). But you have to admire people for taking part. We were, I'm afraid, partypoopers on this occasion. We learnt from our neighbour Polo Piatti and his wife Martina that the secret is to keep a selection of costumes in the attic to cover the different occasions in the year. They were just strolling round as if in an urban fancy-dress party. Which is I suppose what it's about. Oh, and the drinking, of course.
Antony Mair
Polo and Martina
Lewes Bonfire has been infiltrated more and more in recent years by the 'pirate' brigade. I agree with the 'phoney' comment - in a event such as Bonfire it seems a shame to reduce history to a pantomime, but as one pirate said to me as we marched 'it's easy, innit?' Actually it's the Tarty St Trinians Pirates that really bring out the old bag in me -in outfits worn only by those young enough not to be shivering their timbers (and everything else) on a freezing November 5th!
ReplyDeleteI suppose there's more justification in dressing up for Bonfire Night in seventeenth century costume - it is, after all, a commemoration of a nationalist victory against fundamentalist Romans - a sort of Twin Towers attempt. My real problem with the dressing up is that it doesn't make people more interesting - once you've got over the "what a great costume" line you're stuck for something to say. As I've always maintained, dressing up is the last refuge of the bored.
Delete