Heptonstall Pace Egg 2024. A Good Friday tradition of outdoor plays.
The King Of Egypt eagerly awaits 'allsorts' of tribute, especially of the licorice variety.
This year's collection was for PFA of Heptonstall School and the UNICEF Ukraine Children's Aid Appeal.
The King Of Egypt eagerly awaits 'allsorts' of tribute, especially of the licorice variety.
This year's collection was for PFA of Heptonstall School and the UNICEF Ukraine Children's Aid Appeal.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 My name is David Burnham and I run and organise the Exeter Paysage. I think this is the 45th
00:11 year since I revived it. It was a play I did as a child at the village school but it died
00:17 out. In '79 the school had a centenary year and asked me if I would get some old boys
00:24 together and do a paysage. So we did it as a one-off and then we said we should keep
00:28 it going, it's village tradition. So here we are 45 years later still doing the Paysage
00:35 play. Paysage, there are many theories on it, from Pache for French for Easter possibly,
00:45 but Paysage varies. In Preston in Lancashire they roll decorated eggs down a hill and raise
00:53 them. They also do that on Easter Monday in Middleton in Manchester but they do the play
00:57 as well. They play slightly different characters. These plays were passed down by word of mouth
01:04 so they're all going to vary a bit. When I revived it I would ask old men who'd done
01:09 it when they were boys because up until between the wars boys just went round farms and streets
01:15 doing it for pennies and eggs to raise some money to take them to Tom Odin Fair. Because
01:22 it's like Chinese whispers, it's been passed down orally, it will change. So there are
01:28 many different versions. But basically you could say, nobody has any proof, but the theory
01:36 is it's an earlier pagan rebirth ceremony. I as a doctor would have possibly, I might
01:44 be dressed as a Victorian quack but may have originally been like a medicine man. Characters
01:52 like St George obviously came in later because when the church tried to make pagan things
01:56 more acceptable they put on the Crusades. So that sort of religion not being able to
02:04 get rid of things but adapting them for its purposes. It has become very, very popular,
02:12 we can't explain why but people come. Maybe because we stay in the same place where others,
02:23 the Midgley payseggers who are out now, they'll be doing Mythomroy, Londonfoot, Tom Odin etc
02:30 are out there touring around the valley. They will be here at three o'clock hopefully to
02:34 give their version which is very similar but slightly different. We do make a collection
02:39 for charity, that's a spin off really, but that's just to keep an old village tradition
02:45 going. And it's become for a lot of people a coming together because people know that
02:50 if they come back to Hectorstall, especially people from the village who have gone off
02:54 to uni and gone off around the world with their careers, they come back on Good Friday,
02:58 they meet old friends. So for some it's become that. We have Tosspot who is our fertility
03:04 symbol for Easter. One year all the ladies he gave eggs to all had child within the next
03:11 year so he's become, those will be in the teens by now with those kids, so who knows,
03:20 some may come for a kiss and an egg from Tosspot.
03:26 I'll pierce thee body full of oils and make thee bums fly.
03:32 Those are yer last year. Pull out thy purse and pay, draw out thy sword and slay, for
03:47 I shall have a recompense before I go away. Ah ha, world war.
03:53 He's embarrassed.
04:11 Right, I'm dead now.
04:21 (audience laughing)