The custom is hundreds of years old

Above: very poor photograph but you can see the end of the adult race - the last few runners approaching the finishing line. It had been a bright day but towards the end of the races a big dark cloud covered the sky. I suppose it’s better than nothing.

Working from home today - I half-engineered this so that I could go out early afternoon and see a pancake race held in one of the villages.

Pancake races used to be held in every village on Shrove Tuesday (which is today). Now they are extremely rare. There is a famous one held in Buckinghamshire, and others throughout the country, but in the county I think this is the only one.

The races were held at a local secondary school. Until a few years ago they were held in the main High Street going through the village, but the police refused to stop the traffic one year, and so the event was moved to the school playing field. You would think the police would be more co-operative.

The village has recorded pancake races for fifty years, but the custom is hundreds of years old and represents an echo of one of the great medieval festivals. Shrove Tuesday is the last day before the start of Lent, and so a “carnival” (literally carne-vale which is Latin for “farewell to meat”) was held. Pancakes are eaten on Shrove Tuesday, supposedly using up eggs and sugar before the Lent fasting begins.

Six races were held - under fives (barely able to lift their frying pans), 5 to 7 years (several getting the rules wrong), 8 to 10 years (more competitive), 11 to 14 years (very competitive - one girl losing her shoe in the mud but continuing to run the race), 15 to 17 years (nearly cancelled because most of this age group were too “cool” to get involved), and the adults (I stood well clear when they were asking for volunteers). The pancake must be tossed once during the race. The pancake must still be in the pan when you arrive at the finishing line (a long blue ribbon held by two schoolgirls).

The races were organised by a young athletic woman with fluffy blonde hair. From the way she blew her whistle I suspected she was the Games Mistress (or would she have a different title - things have changed since I went to school). She ran in all the races herself to make sure the rules were followed, then told me “I have to teach a class this afternoon!”

Lent is a very serious period for the Anglican church. It is characterised by symbolic fasting, study, and meditation. Ash Wednesday (tomorrow) is the first day of Lent.

In the past a special curfew bell would be rung to announce the start of the Lenten period and bonfires lit on hill tops. Writing in The Golden Bough Sir James Frazer says that burning torches would be carried through the orchards (funnily enough, I once lit a small fire under an apple tree that seemed half-dead - and later in the year it produced blossom and then fruit for the first time that anyone could remember). Sir James Frazer also records that straw effigies of witches were burnt on the bonfires.