Greetings,
I have just read my copy of “the Journal” for August and was a tad disappointed with it, front page was all about Dave Russell dressed as a scarecrow which was classed as “brilliant” inside it afforded him a whole half page as well! yet not a mention of all the residence that took the time and effort to get involved by making and displaying their scarecrows, not a single picture of any of them sat around the village. The event after the Pevensey village partnership got involved was moved to Sharnfold why? Last year it was a great event everybody got in the spirit of things which culminated with the burning of them on the beach, the bars were full, the choir sang and balloons were released everyone had a great day but this year Nothing!!! Scarecrows lay abandoned at some addresses no community spirit the whole thing went by with a whimper all thanks to the Pevensey Village partnership. I wish the Pevensey Bay Journal would focus on the residence of the BAY and promote the community spirit that thrives here rather than self promoting theirs and the PVP interests.
I don’t expect this letter to make your paper for the same reason my comments were not allowed on the facebook page, I am a local resident and have an actual opinion that maybe doesn’t conform to what the editor is trying to promote.
Kind Regards
Mr Lee
EDITOR RESPONSE: We are happy to publish your letter both online and in the newspaper.
We covered the scarecrow festival from the point of view of residents as our front page story in July, which we felt gave ample perspective from the point of view of the Pevensey Villages Partnership and residents.
We have never (to my knowledge) removed a post on our Facebook page, the only reason that we would make such a decision would be for legal reasons. Anyone is free to comment on what has been said on Bay LIfe, and they often do, I can not speak for any other local Facebook page.
In our view, your account of community life here and perceptions of the Scarecrow Festival this year, based on other comments that we have received, are shared by other people.
The Scarecrow Festival is a fabulous annual additional to village life, and of such value to both residents and the regeneration of our small but vital visitor market.
Perhaps next year there will be an opportunity for the Pevensey Villages Partnership to fully evaluate their role. Might there be a role for a community forum of some description? Might such a body be welcomed into the Pevensey Villages Partnership to see that these kinds of view are expressed. In that way might some positive outcomes emerge that benefit everyone?
LIke you, we are puzzled that the final ‘burning of the scarecrows’, the elemental last stage of the festival, that ended the festivities last year on such high note, did not even take place within the community this year.
As you suggest, this is a residents festival, as you identify, without the support of the community, the lifeblood not just of the superlative efforts of residents to craft such creative fun (as we saw last year and to a certain extent this year), then the props fall down.
The celebration, unbottled, fails to fizz, which appears, in part to have happened this year.
Some of the questions that you raise are for the organisers. Working together with a community forum inside the Pevensey Village Partnership, might next year take into account what you have said and what a number of other people have said? Might that not benefit everyone and see the third iteration in 2017 a blockbuster success again?
Bay The Journal is the first hyperlocal newspaper for any small network of villages in Sussex, clearly, we have a local hit of some description. The newspaper is being purchased and browsed locally. We also have a digital download of the newspaper available on subscription which is also being utilised by people.
We are a commercial newspaper, the value of the newspaper is in the content. The paper is being built by this local content, the content is from local writers, that includes local letter writers.
Seeing that voices in the community are seen and heard in a way that contributes to the success of the social and economic wellbeing of the communities that we serve is the purpose of the newspaper. We also see a campaigning role in the newspaper in relation to the preservation of precious community assets and the development of aspects of the profiling of Pevensey and the Bay to the visitor market.
This platform is here both online and in print for diverse views, and views also that do not support what we are doing, but represent a different point of view. Some people argue that they can see the character of a newspaper by going first to the letters page.
Your letter is direct and is well argued and in our view makes some key points. The Scarecrow Festival is now a vital element in local village life, thanks to the Pevensey Villages Partnership. But perhaps the community input, drive, wit and collective celebration was somewhat absent this year.
Perhaps it is worth noting that there are something like 12 of these community Scarecrow festivals that have emerged since the mid nineteen nineties across the country. The grand-daddy of them all appears to be Kettleworth Scarecow Festival which raises upwards of £25,000 a year that goes back into the coffers of local community based organisations to help fund their activities. The festival attracts upwards of 20,000 people a year.
These festivals are worthy causes and full of wit. There may be an opportunity here for the local villages to benefit from the phenomenon in a sustainable and interesting way that could add funds to local organisations.
Sussex and this corner of Sussex is a natural breeding ground for such festivals. There is myth. legend, creativity, individuality and a longevity of purpose in the soil and landscape. These vernacular values date back to times before the Romans here. The Eastern Gate at Pevensey Castle, was, for Kipling, England’s Gate, a gateway into the Albion, a mythical past England.
In The Narnia Chronicles, that started with the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S Lewis buries the name of the family, only to be revealed in the second book, the name he gives the family is Pevensie (the High Norman spelling of the area).
There is such rich pickings here for the individual imagination. Together with the 2,000 year history with Pevensey Castle and our neat bit of product placement as a village on the Bayeux Tapestry, add the smuggling tradition, the roads named after nationally important pre-Raphaelite painters, the Pevensey Whale and the Goon Show, and it makes you wonder what took the scarecrow festival so long to arrive.
Of course there are rich pickings everywhere in the country, but with scarecrow festivals they appear to take root in the rural soil where people have a very strong sense of the vernacular values in the local landscape.
Does this partly explain why the creations last year (and to a certain extent this year) were so creative and rooted in the wit of local residents? Is our unique history here acting like a blank page from a rich storybook ready to write the next chapter each year?
Maybe the Scarecrow Festival does not need a theme. Maybe Pevensey and Pevensey Bay is the theme.
Perhaps the subliminally simple, cross like, Contemporary Colin Scarecrow, could not have worked anywhere else in the country apart from at the end of Rossetti Road in Pevensey Bay, opposite an art deco house on the other side of the road, but he certainly worked here. He made everyone smile that walked past him every day for two weeks this year.
There are something like 10 different colloquial words for scarecrows that are identifiable in the country. Sussex is one of the places that can trace such a word. SInce at least the 17th century, in Sussex, scarecrows have been known as Mawkins.
There is an Indian expression that it takes a village to raise a child. It could equally be said that it also takes a village to raise a scarecrow festival.
You are clearly speaking for a constituent element of the local community. Our view is that what you have said makes a lot of sense.
The local scarecrow festival built from inside, one backbone stick at a time by individual residents, supported by a community forum, could have long term benefits. As you have suggested, the events related to the first festival were great.
These benefits, related to social wellbeing and economic benefits for local community based organisations, could have some long term significance.
The success of the festival, as you have said, is about everybody getting into the spirit of things.
We hope that what you have said and what other people are saying will inform the debate about the Scarecrow Festival next year and what might be planned.
