‘The most serious charge which can be brought against New England,’ declared the American critic Joseph Wood Krutch, ‘is not Puritanism but February.’ Much the same might be said of Old England or at least the not-so-old version I lived in for so long. As I recall, February didn’t have much going for it. For centuries it was popularly known as February Filldyke, for all too obvious reasons. It was the time when, in bad years, villages became snowed in and it was discovered once again that areas where snowfall was comparatively rare did not have enough snow-ploughs to keep the roads clear. Even in less bad years, it was a time when one pressed on in grim determination, sustained by a distant prospect of spring.
Actually, February did have the odd highlight. From mediaeval times, the week before Lent was a time for partying ahead of the grim self-imposed privations that would last until the relief of Easter. In more bloodthirsty days, Shrove Tuesday was the big occasion of the year – the equivalent of Derby Day perhaps – in the cock-fighting calendar. That has gone, along with any overt or widespread observance of Lent, although an Irishman of my acquaintance used each year to last the six weeks without alcohol – or nearly so, since he assured me that his nation had a special dispensation to suspend such self-denial over St Patrick’s Day, which falls conveniently about halfway through.All that seems to be left of Shrovetide is Pancake Day. Originally the pancakes were modest sustenance for those about to go to be shriven after pre-Lenten confession. More recently they have become more substantial in order to carry the entire weight of the seasonal celebration. Supermarket shelves packed high with instant pancake mix and squeezy lemon juice dispensers in special offer combination tell a distinctly secular story. In rural areas, Women’s Institutes used to run Shrove Tuesday pancake races, in which entrants had to toss the pancakes in their frying-pans a set number of times to qualify. A similar event, though on a grander scale, was run by waiters around Soho Square. Perhaps these activities still take place but, if so, they seem to have fallen beneath the media’s radar in recent times.
The flitch or side of bacon was awarded by the Essex village of Dunmow to faithful couples whose marriages were so happy and free of quarrels that neither party ever regretted their vows. These conditions were sufficiently demanding that between 1244 and 1772 only eight couples brought home the bacon. After a lapse, the contest was revived in the last century as a tourist attraction but seems to have died out yet again. Perhaps in an age of pre-nuptial financial contracts and impermanent relationships, there would not be many candidates – or the qualifications would have to be so relaxed as barely to justify a single rasher.
It seems strange that these rather lacklustre events are derived from the same occasion that has given rise to the carnivals that erupt at this time of year all along the coast of the Riviera, as well as to Mardi Gras, originally French but now more often associated with New Orleans in France’s one-time colony of Louisiana. Fat and Shrove Tuesday are cousins under the skin.
Along France's Mediterranean coast, February is a good time for festivals. Spring flowers are out, cultivated varieties are emerging from hiding in the miles of plastic tunnels a little inland from the beaches, and almond and mimosa trees are blossoming. The latter flowers give a particular slant to seaside resort carnivals in the stretch between Toulon and Nice. Climate change now often sees mimosa in bloom much earlier, but festival calendars can be inflexible. Places like Bormes-les-Mimosas and Mandelieu stand to see their carnivals upstaged by the free show of the Mimosa Forest alongside the A8 autoroute.
Flowers are an essential ingredient of carnival. They are the raw materials from which the fantastic designs of the floats are fashioned and the weaponry for the climactic battles of flowers. The efforts and ingenuity that go into creating the display floats is as great, and as secretively employed, as those devoted to the costumes and dance routines of that other great carnaval in Rio de Janeiro – which, of course, is yet another celebration of Mardi Gras.
Carnivals, traditionally, were much like one another.
The basic ingredients are common to most and competition tends to concentrate on the choice of themes and the degrees to which the imaginations of local float designers can respond to them.
One place that spotted the need for a distinctive angle quite early was Menton. Their carnival, prompted even then by tourism, was founded in 1895. In the early ‘30s an hotelier came up with the idea of associating it with a fruit and flower show. This proved so popular that in 1934 the Fête du Citron was established and each year its floats and exhibits made of nothing but citrus fruits have become more ambitious and more stunningly decorative. Menton too has seen the need to theme these shows and in recent years they have chosen one of the world’s countries to celebrate. Last year it was India, dominated by a gigantic citrus Indian deity and this year it is the world's islands.
Presumably this definition can cover anything from tiny Eel Pie Island in the Thames to the island continent of Australia. Given that climate change is threatening a large number of the world’s islands with disappearance beneath the seas, it is perhaps just as well that Australia has just had a change of government – from one that showed indifference to the fate of those who would fall victim to the results of its energy policies to one whose first act was to sign the Kyoto protocol.
So no sour faces at this year’s Lemon Festival.
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The article was first publish in The Connexion in February 2008.
