Monday

Part 6: From Darkie Day to Mummers' Day

Two weeks after its "scoop", The Sunday Independent reported that the National Front was planning to fight an election in Cornwall for the first time in 19 years under the banner of "Keep Cornwall White".

"NF supporters believe they can pull in a large slice of the votes—especially following the Darkie Day race row," it said, quoting an NF spokesman as saying: "We fully support the rights of white people in Padstow to celebrate Darkie Day. As for Bernie Grant and his ilk, they would be far from these shores, back in the Caribbean and Africa, under the National Front's humane repatriation and resettlement programme and no longer able to interfere in our country's internal affairs."

Padstow's Darkies were horrified.

"Whatever the National Front are saying is not what the people of Padstow believe. They are not welcome," one declared.

Nevertheless, many observers predicted that Padstow's Darkie Day would soon come to an end. "And we can only hope it's not a violent one," lamented The Western Morning News.

The only other Cornish village known to have a similar tradition quickly whitewashed its Darkies to avoid a similar controversy.

Calstock, an hour from Padstow, had revived its "ancient" blackface tradition in 1983. Locals claimed that singing Cornish Christmas carols and collecting money had nothing to do with blacks or slavery; its roots were in the medieval traditions of "guising" and mumming, when people would darken their faces and entertain the crowds for food and money.

In a canny move, the Calstock Darkies officially rebranded themselves the Calstock Guisers (pronounced "geezers") and painted white crosses over their black faces, forming the Cornish flag of St. Piran.

An artsy take on the flag of St. Piran, courtesy of ArtCornwall.org
Padstow's Darkies also agreed to some alterations after meeting with the police and the local branch of the Commission for Racial Equality in the run-up to Christmas.

"But we refused, point-blank, not to go out," one local said. "The police didn't want us to dark our faces up or anything—I mean, that would've made a mockery of it."

So they compromised.

The Padstow Darkies became the Padstow Mummers, with black faces but no minstrel-style white make-up around their eyes or mouths. Most importantly, they agreed to substitute "mummers" for the word "niggers" in their songs.

Even so, a national broadsheet revived the controversy the following year with an article threatening that the National Front might march in Padstow.

Throughout the furore, though, few (if any) of the journalists, politicians or other outsiders who commented on Darkie Day ever actually saw it.

After all, who in their right mind would want to spend Christmas or New Year's with a bunch of "racist rednecks" in Cornwall?

* * *
©J.R. Daeschner

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Saturday

Part 5: Crackers and Coconutters

The debate soon turned into a Town vs. Country clash with a Cornish twist, pitting critics from 'up-country' against the salt-of-the-earth 'Westcountry'… "politically correct zealots in the big cities" vs. "two or three dozen Padstow people"… and the "London media" vs. local papers that were "Flying the Flag for Cornwall" (the motto of The Sunday Independent).

Most importantly, the uproar seemed to reflect the ancient conflict between the English, the offspring of Anglo-Saxon invaders, and the Cornish, who regarded themselves as the country's true natives.

Whereas callers to a radio chat show in London loudly condemned Darkie Day, most letters to newspapers in Cornwall supported the tradition. For natives, Darkie Day became a symbol of their dying culture.

"Some people will always try to put us Cornish people down," wrote a man from St. Columb. "If there are people out there not liking 'Darkie Days', they can always cross the Tamar Bridge and leave us Cornish people in peace."

What's more, the controversy came at a time when many traditional aspects of British life were being denounced as "politically incorrect".

A couple of years earlier, Granada TV reportedly imposed a "blackout" on the Britannia Coconutters of Bacup, Lancashire, because they darkened their faces with boot polish as part of their Easter dance routine.

The Bacup Coconutters
The "Nutters" argued that it had nothing to do with race—in fact, the blackface routine may have been imported in the 19th century by Cornish miners who were mocking morris dancers (though one theory holds that the word "morris" comes from "Moorish", which may explain why morris teams such as the Flag Crackers of Yorkshire still wear black makeup).

In their defence of Darkie Day, the Cornish kept coming out with statements of shock and dismay that were just too innocent to be believed—at least from an urban perspective.

"It is an old Cornish custom, and they are not taking the mickey out of coloured people," a woman from Plymouth said.

"They just go round singing and dancing dressed up with their faces darkened," shrugged Padstow's mayor.

"Although the word nigger in several songs could be seen as inflammatory nowadays, it is not meant in that way," another Padstonian explained.

One local admitted that as a girl, she didn't know the day after Christmas was called Boxing Day; she knew it only as "Darkie Day".

The Western Morning News blamed the uproar on "an increasingly censorious urban attitude": "To brand the people of a small Westcountry fishing port redneck racists who deserve to have their town turned into a minefield is a disgraceful slur and entirely counterproductive to genuine racial harmony."

By the end of the article, the paper turned things around, somehow arguing that the condemnation had been "so offensive and bigoted" that it was effectively a "racist attack" in its own right—against the Cornish!

Against this "racist attack", Padstow found an unlikely defender in a big-city black journalist. "You can make yourself see racism anywhere, if you look hard enough—even in a Cornish town on the day they celebrate the abolition of slavery," wrote Darcus Howe in The New Statesman.

The pundit and broadcaster had first visited Cornwall back in the 1960s and returned many times since. Chiding Grant, who was the MP for Tottenham—"not exactly a Cornish constituency"—he added: "May I offer a little local history lesson for our metropolitan radicals?"

Then Howe regurgitated an unlikely tale about the event's origins: "Slave ships used to anchor in Padstow to avoid storms. The slaves would disembark and entertain themselves and the local people in a song and dance routine," he said.

Citing a "local expert", Howe concluded that Darkie Day was really an anti-slavery celebration: "The critics maintain that Darkie Day is some time-warped throwback to the bad old days of The Black and White Minstrel Show. The reality is the opposite; but the politically correct brigade never stopped for long enough to find that out."

Britain's Black and White Minstrel Show
©J.R. Daeschner

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Part 4: A Dark Day for Tradition

WOULD YOU BAN IT? shrieked the front page of The Sunday Independent a couple of weeks later.

The Plymouth tabloid—no relation to its highbrow national namesake—specialised in shouty headlines, announcing everything in bold-faced capitals that made even the most innocuous news look alarming: ASSEMBLY 'YES' the paper would cry, or SCHEME WILL DO A LOAD OF GOOD.

But for Padstonians, nothing good could come from the paper's "exclusive" about Darkie Day, with its front-page photo of local men, women and children in blackface.

Posing with their drums and accordions, the whole dark-faced gang was cheesing for the camera, blissfully unaware of the national controversy about to be set in motion.


"To a West Country community it's a bit of harmless fun," the article began. "But to race watchdogs it's evil—and they want it banned NOW."

"I'm not black and it offends me," huffed Eileen Bortey, the 'chairperson' of Cornwall's new Race Equality Council.

"Padstow is a beautiful place. It's a great pity it is being defiled in this way. If we need to kick up a stink, we will. It has to be condemned."

Compared with the offended white woman, Britain's best-known black politico, who sometimes wore African robes to Parliament (even though he was Caribbean), was initially a model of restraint.

"I thought the days when white people dressed up as black people were well behind us," London MP Bernie Grant was quoted as saying.

After a token defence from "Ziggy", Padstow's lone black resident—he called Darkie Day "great fun" (but then, he would say that, wouldn't he?)—the report ended with locals vowing to continue the tradition, while the police warned that it could be banned if it stirred up trouble.

"What do YOU think?" the paper enquired, sensing it was on to a sure thing. "Write to Race Row, Sunday Independent…"And so, in just 16 paragraphs, a local tabloid took an obscure tradition—so back-of-beyond, in fact, that hardly anyone in Cornwall had ever heard of it—and transformed it into a national scandal.

Within days, follow-ups appeared in national papers ranging from The Guardian and The Daily Mail. "A dark day for tradition as the race police sail into port," rued the Mail, alongside a photo of Ziggy posing on the pier.

On national radio, a shock jock branded Padstonians "racist rednecks" and urged listeners to boycott the town. Rumours circulated that previously obscure groups like the Cornwall Race Equality Council were threatening to bus black protesters into Padstow with 'lighted up' faces.

And soon enough, Bernie Grant cranked up the rhetoric with a veiled warning to Padstonians: "If they want their nice idyllic little town to turn into a minefield, that's up to them."
©J.R. Daeschner

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Part 3: Maybe It's Nothing

As Anita was mulling this over, and wondering whether she should buy a card—or anything at all—she couldn't help but overhear the attendant chattering on the phone.

"Are you coming down tomorrow?" the nice lady asked her friend on the other end of the line. "Yeah, of course, it's Darkie Day, isn't it?"

"And immediately, it was like someone had jerked my head on a string," Anita recalls. "I snapped my head to look at her, and it was so fast, I—I almost cricked my neck."

Red-faced, the woman spluttered into the phone, "Oh, uh, okay, Jean, I'll call ya back, I'll call ya back."

But Anita was already gone. As she stormed outside to take the sea air, she kept asking herself: What the hell is Darkie Day?

Unfortunately, she was bound to find out: they had reservations at Rick Stein's on New Year's Day. The celebrity fish freak owned four eateries in town, as well as a hotel and a Seafood School. Foodies travelled from around the country to eat at his flagship restaurant in "Padstein". So they couldn't just cancel their reservations.

In the car on the way back to their cottage, Anita began to worry. "Oh my God, did you hear what she said?" she asked her future in-laws.

"Oh, what was that, dear?"

They had never heard of Darkie Day—and they'd been visiting Cornwall for 30 years.

They were educated, highly progressive people; in fact, they were so colourblind—in the well-meaning sense of the word—that they didn't seem to understand why she might be concerned.

"It's probably nothing," they said.

But that didn't make her feel better.

Usually, when she went to Cornwall, she was the only dark face around—you didn't see many Asians, and certainly in the winter, you didn't see any outsiders. When you walked into the locals' pub—their pub—everyone would stop, and they'd register you; you were a curiosity. And God only knew what the Cornish did when everyone went away and they were left to their own devices. Who knew what happens in the depths of Britain? Darkie Day didn't sound exactly positive for black people, did it? It was like "Coon Day" or "Racial Slur Day" or something.

From the woman's reaction, Anita couldn't tell if it was something innocuous or sinister. It was like some sort of secret ritual they were planning, that outsiders weren't meant to know about. Was it some sort of local Ku Klux Klan?

"Irony: It strikes at the best of times"
 At the very least, it was probably going to be very uncomfortable and embarrassing; at the very most—well, who knew? Possibly a white-sheet job. If she got a sniff that it was even remotely Ku Klux Klanny, she would be out of there like a bat out of hell.

By the time they returned on Darkie Day—that was the other weird thing, they didn't call it "New Year's Day"—Anita had just about rationalised away her fears. Maybe it's just an expression… maybe it's nothing… maybe I'm overreacting.

Even so, she couldn't help but feel apprehensive.

Just before lunch, it started pouring down rain, so they took shelter in a pub next to the harbour. And when Anita walked in, all the regulars stopped to look. Maybe it was because they didn't expect someone with a dark face—or maybe it was because they knew what was coming.

Suddenly, the doors were flung open, and there was a flurry of noise and music. Two-dozen people rushed in, all blacked up, dressed in rags, with big white circles drawn around their eyes and rouge lips to make them look big and fat, and these dreadful Negro wigs on. And they were singing in thick Cornish accents, bursting into laughter, cheering and stomping—it was obviously the big event of the day.

The cavalcade continued around the pub, and… everyone thought it was completely normal.

But for Anita, it was really horrific.

There she was, on New Year's Day, hoping to have a quiet drink, and suddenly there was this assault on her senses—and sensibilities. It wasn't threatening; it was shocking.

This is modern, multicultural Britain—and people are running around dressed up like 'niggers'!

* * *
©J.R. Daeschner

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Part 2: Some People Would Find These Offensive...

What the hell is Darkie Day?!?

"Anita" had no idea what she was in for. Her parents were Indian, but Britain was her home, and she'd been to Cornwall several times with her boyfriend, who hailed from the West Country (albeit genteel Somerset).

She and Ian liked the Duchy so much they decided to spend New Year's there, relishing the chance to see one of Britain's top tourist destinations in the raw, without too many daytrippers around to spoil the atmosphere.

Off-season, Padstow felt like a close-knit fishing community; by comparison, St. Ives seemed positively cosmopolitan.

Although Cornwall was one of the whitest counties in England (which is saying something), Anita and Ian never had any problems there—unlike parts of south London, where you risked assault simply for passing through the neighbourhood on the train.

Occasionally the Cornish would stare, but more out of curiosity than anything else: mixed-race couples were a rarity, and Anita's dark skin and black hair contrasted sharply with Ian's very English lack of pigment.

The day before New Year's, the two of them visited Padstow with Ian's parents, strolling along the small harbour and dipping into the shops in the Old Town, which was little more than a knot of streets next to the waterfront.

While browsing among the watercolours, Cornishware and alabaster tiles decorated with crabs, Anita happened to notice something else in the corner—a small collection of golliwogs.

Let it go, she thought.

One time she and her sister had been shopping in York, and they'd spotted some of the googly-eyed ragdolls on display.

"Excuse me," her sister told the attendant, "some people would find these offensive—black people, for example."

"Well, black people don't have to buy them, do they?" snapped the Yorkshirewoman behind the counter.

And it turned into a massive row.

As a journalist and self-professed member of north London's chattering classes, Anita's natural instinct would have been to jump on her high horse and get all Guardianish about it: "This is outrageous!"

But she wasn't the kind to make a scene, especially not in front of her future in-laws. I'm with Ian's parents, let's not start a massive row.

And anyway, people in Cornwall would have no idea what she was talking about, and they wouldn't really care.

You could moan all you liked, and they would think, 'Well, you're the first dark face that I've seen in God knows how long, so if I'm selling golliwogs, and they're selling like hotcakes, then to hell with political niceties."
©J.R. Daeschner

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Part 1: Of "Coloureds" and Cornishmen: Blacking Up in Padstow

Now, don't get the wrong idea—most people in Padstow will tell you they're not racist, at least no more than anyone else in this once-great country.

"Coloureds" are welcome to stroll along the harbour or dine in Rick Stein's restaurant or stay in the Metropole overlooking the Caribbean-blue waters and golden beaches where the rich and royal come to play. The Cornish wouldn't treat them any differently to any other outsiders.

And anyway, how can you be racist if there aren't any blacks around to be racist against?

Except for one, of course—good ole Ziggy, a West Indian who's lived here for years (or did he move away?).

At any rate, it never bothered him. And the former mayor, why, she used to march in London to Free Mandela, and she never thought twice about the pot calling the kettle black, so to speak.

All of which goes to show why on Boxing Day and New Year's Day—when there aren't too many emmets about—Old Padstonians see nothing wrong in dressing up like blackface minstrels, parading through town and belting out songs about "niggers".

At first, they seem to come out of nowhere, like the tradition itself. The drums, accordions and voices pulse through "Padsta" like a heartbeat, permeating the air as they make their way down the hill from the social club.

The rough music—an infectious noise—resonates through the winding lanes, but it's hard to tell where it's coming from. Just when you think you're close to the source, it seems to fade away.

Then you turn the corner, and—there they are! Two dozen men, women and children done up as surreal stereotypes: Cornish approximations of Aunt Jemimas, Jim Crows, Uncle Toms, Sambos, Mammies, Pickaninnies and Rastafarians, all with burnt cork or greasepaint smudged onto their ruddy white faces.

The men sport bow ties and sequined vests, plus top hats and bowlers festooned with tinsel and flowers.
A couple of jokers wear black crazy-curl wigs, the kind you see at football matches, while an elderly woman is sporting sunglasses and a Rasta Novelty Tam, her fake dreadlocks decorated with blue and gold Christmas balls.

The rest of the women favour the Mammy chimneysweep look, as typified by a little girl with a smudged face, headscarf, gaudy earrings, long skirt and red apron hanging down to her knees.

No fewer than eight accordions lead the group, followed by a handful of drums, rattling collection boxes, bone castanets and a couple of "lagerphones"—long staffs studded with bottlecaps, so that when they beat the ground, they ching-ching in time to the music.
The movable hootenanny struts through town singing snatches of "Polly Wolly Doodle", "Oh Susanna" and "Uncle Ned", shocking outsiders and serenading friends and relatives before getting down to the serious business of drinking.

At each of Padstow's half a dozen pubs, the merrymakers burst in singing and hollering, fill their boxes for charity, and then stop for a pint (or three).

Whenever a pale-faced local walks in unawares, the women will kiss him and smear burnt cork all over his face. More laughter and singing, and then it's off to another pub along the crescent-shaped quay.

As they roll out into the blinding winter sunshine, chatting and singing, the music swells to a climax.

One drummer, his double chin as pink as his face is black, throws back his head to belt out the end of "Uncle Ned", the bit where Al Jolson would have dropped to one knee and brayed:

There's no more work for the poor old maaaaaaaan
Heeeeeee's gone where the good niggerrrs go, aye oh
He's gone where the good niggerrrs go.

* * *
©J.R. Daeschner

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