Ghosts

It can take many years to make sense of things from your childhood.

This process has been made considerably easier by the release of archive material, initially only paper based and requiring a personal visit to a public library or University Reading room which is now widely available through the internet and gives an opportunity to re-visit, review and re-evaluate what may be, over many decades, a blurred or distorted memory or faint recollection.

I have a series of strong images in my long term memory bank about an open air drama that my parents took me to when we lived in the Suffolk town of Bury St Edmunds in 1970.

It was, I seem to recall, during a pleasant summer evening, in the grounds of the newly enlarged St Edmundsbury Cathedral on the banks of the River Linnet.

The performance was, I now realise, to commemorate the 1100th anniversary of the death and martyrdom of King Edmund of East Anglia at the hands of the piratical, raiding Danes with whom the occupants of that part of England had been troubled for decades.

It was a very involved drama with a large cast in authentic period costumes, typically doublet and hose, dodgy wigs, with the menfolk portraying the principal Royal Court characters carrying wooden swords and other miscellaneous weapons and the women in long dresses and I think they were called wiffles or headgear.

I have just come across a film of the event in the on-line back catalogue of the East Anglian Film Archive.

Given that it was in 1970, when I was only 7 years old (I am now 53) the colours are a bit faded and the action stilted and slow but I have, upon seeing the images, been transported back to the exact same time and the sensations are reproduced in my consciousness as much as they were live and real all of those years ago.

There are two acts in the play about King Edmund that are most memorable.

The first was the sight of a replica longship, scaled down a lot, making its way precariously along the river carrying a motley bunch of warriors intent on making battle with the East Anglians. At the time it was a most convincing rendition of marauding Danes and I was suitably enthralled as a very impressionable and excitable youngster. The ensuing battle scene was pretty noisy and realistic for a group of amateur actors whose day jobs will have most likely been office, factory or farm based in the Suffolk market town and surrounding rural areas.

This bit of action was however trumped by the retrieval of a severed head, headhog-like with protruding arrows, by a very well behaved German Shepherd dog from a loose brush thicket formed just to the side of the platform stage and clever backdrop of a castle courtyard. The prop head was carefully gathered up by robed monks and accompanied by a large congregation with heads bowed in reverence to an impromptu shrine.

I have scoured the archived film coverage of the grandstand seated crowd for any glimpses of myself and my family but there are only very brief and fleeting passages by the camera. There may have been a few performances over the commemorative week or so.

The full archive film is only about 30 minutes long which must be a heavily edited version as I remember being a bit bored following the high points of the overcrowded ,wobbling boat and gruesome beheading.

I may even have wandered off, dozed off or got distracted by other things that evening but the film is really quite a classic example of the hard work taken on by a good proportion of the folk of Bury St Edmunds in putting on the spectacle.

The discovery of the film has re-ignited my interest in history and the tale of the martyrdom of Edmund is fascinating, made more so by the very conflicting accounts of what happened to the King.

One written version tells of Edmund being captured by the bloodthirsty Danes, tied to a tree, tortured, beaten and stabbed multiple times by spears before being beheaded. The telling has themes of Christ's own treatment leading up to the crucifixion. It appears that in reality Edmund is likely to have been felled in battle by Danish archers of the army of Ivor the Boneless and that is it.

Nevertheless his show of resistance and sacrifice in the face of heathen invaders saw him revered and his relics, after moving about the country for safekeeping were eventually returned to Bury St Edmunds where a shrine became one of the most visited by pilgrims in the Medieval Period.

It was a good evening out as far as I remember and, best of all, on a school day as well.