Sunday 21 September 2008

Oyez, Oyez, Oyez!

If you didn't know, the above is the cry of the Town Crier - it's to get your attention before they start telling you of local news. Yes, they were the BBC news or CNN of the day!

As you might expect, there are very very few of them about these days. It is indeed a dying art, but my little village has it's own Crier and you can often see him dressed in full regalia in the High Street, particularly on festival days. Certain people in the village have also decided that it would be good for the village to host a Town Crier competition!

As you can see, that happened yesterday - the village was full of people in bright and fantastic regalia, and that's just the men! There were a few women Criers, but the majority were men and they were accompanied by their wives (I assume!) who were also in some of old fashioned dress.

And boy...have they got loud voices! That is the point I suppose, they are meant to be heard over the usual sounds of the market. There were about 19 Criers in total all with bells and scrolls containing about a hundred words for them to read out and be judged by. I didn't stay to listen to all of them, but I am sure that it will be in the local paper at some point!

Some (quite possibly all, I didn't check!) had this badge on their clothes labelling them members of the Ancient and Honourable Guild of Town Criers. I don't know how old the Guild is, but my village has had a Town Crier since 1720!

OYEZ! OYEZ! OYEZ!

9 comments:

Lollipop Goldstein said...

That is so damn cool! If only I had kept my old sign-in name :-)

Kristin said...

How incredibly cool!

Cara said...

Whoa...that's awesome. I wonder what other cool annual events your town holds dear!

Mrs. Spit said...

That's amazing. My town didn't even exist until 1795, when they built the Fort, as part of the Fur Trade.

AnotherDreamer said...

lol, that is so neat-o. I love it when a town has some character.

Alice said...

How very interesting! Love those costumes too.

Lori Lavender Luz said...

What a great reminder of low-tech times!

Kristin (kekis) said...

How cool and fun to watch that must have been!

Clever Trevor said...

It's great to see it still going on. My village is fighting to keep the annual parade and gala going, and we have a bonfire night celebration which we just can't get funds for as the public seem to be losing interest!