Jack In The Green

“Peck? PECK!?! Peck, is a lightweight sir! He is balsa wood!” shrieks the Morris Dancer to one of his companions who'd all just gathered by the medieval sandal repair stall. Each swaying like Hogwoort in the breeze, clearly copious amounts of old Beltchfungus had been consumed throughout the morning and the conversation was becoming heated.

“Enough, Leopold, you old curmudgeon, it’s your round anyway, so quell your linseed boots and get to the bar. Four pints of Beltchfungus Ale and a Lager top for Wortley.”
“Lager Top? LAGER TOP?!! Lager top is the liquor for boys! A man would be drowned by it before it made him drunk sir! Ale! Ale! ALE sir, in my tankard discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage and bashfulness for confidence. Ale sir!”

“But what of the bar Leopold and our ales? What of them?”
“The bar? The bar? Worth seeing, but not worth going to see sir! In fact, feast your eyes over yonder and hark The Kent Mad Peeps Morris Men with their gimlety eyes and their MDF cudgels. Let’s go and teach them a thing or two about bell maintenance. I’ve heard tales that those knaves now dance to Kaiser Chiefs! Damn them and their intricate XTC inspired floorshow. Damn them to Colchester!”
Welcome to Jack In The Green. A reverential celebration of the coming of summer and an observation of the traditional fertility rites of pre-Christian Britain or just an excuse for a load of pagans to get battered? Hmmm?

A man with a green metal tree bolted into his nostril – not too dissimilar to those air fresheners that hang in cars – staggers around swabbing innocent bystanders with a mixture of green paint and ale (ALE Sir!) soaked in a sponge. People run in terror from the sponge and the wasps. Pallid Goth children with pentagram satchels hobble about on comedy Dave Hill platforms whilst trying to carry off the air of a borough surveyor. Failing miserably. Or should that be failing cheerfully?
A Wagnarian Geoff-Capes-a-like with a dead stag complete with antlers on his head bellows at a pack of timid Japanese tourists perched up on the castle battlements,
“OI GET OFF THE WALL!! GET OFF THE ‘FIRCONE’ WAAAAALLL!!!”
They politely wave back, assuming it to be a greeting of, “Hello and welcome to our quaint little festival, please do try one of the Quail vol-a-vents before you go. Most delicious”

A day when Jesters, harlequins, medieval lepers, the lowliest of cow herders, and hell, even Marillion fans can feel special and wanted. All crawl out of their haemorrhagic bedsits and join in the dance. Nice middle-class families picnic in amongst the marauding Mongol warlords, the dead seamen, the mummers and the pappers, the drummers, frightful bearded Mad Jacks, pixies, wikkas, goblins, orcs, welks, flagellants and stilted doomlords. There are more beards per square meter than at a Greek Easy Fisherman convention in Stellios and yes, that includes the women as well.

Down below the castle battlements it’s a completely different story. It’s the Isle Of Man TT meets Monsters Of Rock, with thousands upon thousands of motor bikes descending on the town in a plume of acrid black ozone bashing carbon. The old Mod and Rocker days are clearly over because I see not a single Lambretta, only row upon row of parked up Suzukis, Nortons, Harleys, Kawasakis, Hondas, Ducatis and Gileras. They thunder through the town preventing any possibility of pedestrian road crossing at all.

This total domination of the greasy biker over the sharp dressed Mod depressed me so much so that I decided to act. I photocopy a life size photograph of Quadrophenia era Phil Daniel’s face and sellotape it underneath my pork pie hat. I purchase a pair of grey shoes from Hush Puppies in honor of the ace face Sting (???). I ‘borrow’ a child’s pushbike and weld two hairdryers to either side of the chassis. I smash up a mirror ball and superglue the pieces to a bit of chicken wire before welding the whole structure to the handlebars. Finally I purchase a green souwester from Millets and spray a stick of candyfloss brown and attach it to my Ariel.

I’m ready! I spin into town and park up outside The Carlisle, the renown and notorious greasy biker’s pub on the sea front. I sit for a moment collecting my thoughts and then at the top of my lungs I shout, “Oi you bunch of unwashed Neanderthals, Margate was only just the beginning! We Are The Mods! We Are The Mods!”

A huge Biker orc walks over to me and grabs my souwester.
“Oi, don’t touch the cloth, moth” I say defiantly.

He looks at me and then beckons his mates over with a claw (He was eating crabs: probably the night before as well!?) In a split second I’m on my Lambretta-wish-it-was and off down the sea front. It doesn’t take long before the bunch of inbreds have saddled up and are after me at speed. I make out at least thirty of them in my rear view mirror disco ball. I peddle even faster. A jazz fan waves at me, “Go on son! Just like in the old days!”

They are almost approaching me so I take a detour. ‘Welcome to Eastbourne’ the sign reads. We continue for a few more miles until I’m exhausted and they’ve nearly caught me. I’m thinking it wasn’t such a good idea after all. Then I see it.

I peddle for all my life my squirrel-tail-candy-floss-type-thing swaying maniacally on the end of my Ariel. “Welcome To Beachy Head. For Samaritans See Yellow Pages (Super Samaritans - X Directory)” reads the sign. We are neck and neck. One of the biker orcs reaches out. He grabs at me. Just at the last minute I swerve to the left. The bikers thunder past me and into oblivion. Like unwashed lemmings they tip over the edge of the vast cliff one by one. Thankfully the tide is high and I’m moving on, I want to be your ‘Everything I Do I Do It For You. They angrily shake their fists at me from the water.

“We Are The Mods” I reply and eat my pork pie hat.