Even the most crusty of old Norfolk curmudgeons must occasionally scan the heavens and admit with a winsome smile: “Times do change!” Country life has lost much its spontaneity while demands for it to be revived are on the increase ...
possibly as a result of crafty moves on the part of estate agents who paint alluring pictures in words. New villagers, often drawn in the first instance by tales of rustic rituals designed to keep indigenous folk amused before satellite dishes, orienteering, paintballing and real ale, are digging up anniversaries by the barrow-load. Happenings that used to happen so easily no-one thought them unusual in a particular area now assume a mystique bordering on the supernatural.
Take the traditional Norfolk routine of dickey-dawdling where rival hamlets reflected virtues of a gentle, more sensitive age by pitting their slowest donkeys against each other on the last Saturday in July. The animal taking longest to complete the two-furlong course on neutral territory, while deemed not to have stopped or taken on board any form of sustenance at any stage of the journey, was crowned King Dickey in the first week of August - if the competition had ended. There are rumours of reviving this gentle delight in west of the county, manly in hope of making it an Olympic sport in time for the 2036 Games.
.. but using traffic wardens or old-fashioned bicycles in place of perambulating donkeys.
Arts Council backing is promised , but purists say it simply won’t b.