Midsummer’s eve, associated with summer solstice and the longest day, has been celebrated in various ways from ancient times, from worshipping the healing powers of the sun’s rays (a reaction, perhaps, to the bitterly cold winter months) to lighting bonfires through the night to keep evil spirits away. Superstition finds its natural home in midsummer, when any kind of madness is possible and, in the hands of Shakespeare, the queen of the fairies gets besotted with an ass-faced pleb, and young couples fall in and out of love at will (and sometimes against their will). The rituals have changed slightly down the years, but midsummer is often still considered licence for the laity to slip on fancy dress, blow trumpets, drink copiously and make merry.
The history of Chester goes back even further, to the times when Romans came, saw and conquered their way through Britain, leaving behind walls and wells for later-day tourists. History has it that all towns with “chester” in their name (the Roman castrum, meaning fortified city or camp, was corrupted to “chester” and “caster”, as in Colchester, Winchester and Doncaster) had been occupied by the Romans, though Chester itself was originally named Dewa (or Deva), after the spirit of the river Dee. Chester was ideally situated—on a high promontory, overlooking a fine harbour and a navigable river—for the conquest-minded; today the river is one of the most pleasant places in Chester, the perfect spot for a Sunday afternoon rendezvous.
When I reach the boat pier, the local deaf choir is performing on the banks of the river, the eyes of the participants moving in time to the swaying hands of the conductor. Couples and families are walking about with their ice-cream cones as we touristy-types noisily queue up for the boat ride. I spot several familiar faces, co-cheerers from the watch parade. In some ways, this scene is as colourful as the parade itself: buskers playing their guitars, street artists offering to sketch you or trying to sell their works of art, boisterous merrymakers waving their hands from the passing boats.
On the large boat, the discomfort of the hard wooden seats is soon forgotten as the countryside unfurls, and we pass picturesque little houses, each of which has a boat and tiny landing pier, and each of which I desperately want to own. The ride itself is a bit like being inside a poem; I mean, do you really ever expect to see daffodils fluttering and dancing in the breeze?
Perhaps, to emphasize those literary connections, the city hosts the Chester Mystery Plays this summer (28 June-19 July). Performed once in five years on the streets of Chester, the plays are dramatizations of biblical stories that portray the role of God in man’s life and are not—as I imagined—suspense dramas of The Mousetrap school. These plays, which date back to the 10th century, were banned by the English church in the 16th century, to be revived only in 1951 for the Festival of Britain, a feel-good event organized for the war-battered populace.
But for all that, it is the Midsummer Watch Parade that is the key attraction of Chester (21-22 June this year). And, not surprisingly, the local government takes it very seriously, going by the ads that have been up on their website (www.chester.gov.uk/tourism_and_leisure-1/festivals_and_events/midsummer_watch.aspx) for a few months now. “Wanted... Angels, devils, fiery goblins, green men...to take part in Chester’s spectacular Midsummer Watch Parade.”
If you have it in you to be a green man, or a goblin, you know where to apply.
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