Tis the season of the summer fête. Everywhere, signs are popping up in the grassy verges announcing dog shows and flower shows, cakes and bunting. These days, not everyone goes to communion in the church, but to miss the fête… Well, you don’t, do you?
Fêtes are communities at their best. They’re society behaving without the constraints of government decrees (although the health-and-safety brigade would love to get their hands on them). In towns, paid officials are required to organise almost anything; in the countryside, a coffee morning and a clipboard held by the lady with the loudest voice is all that’s required to get things going. Everyone is given a part to play, and if you haven’t the time, you spend the money although fêtes remain the last place in Britain where things cost pennies.
At ours, children can buy one of Mrs Grassy’s famed brownies, enter the lucky dip, and get their face painted by the vicar for less than £1. As the Government lurches from one crisis to another, and imposes ever more restrictions on what we can and cannot do, it’s all rather charming to be reminded of what we can achieve when left to our own devices. Three cheers for fêtes!
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Chelsea Flower Show 2025: What else to do in SW3 if you're coming to the world's greatest flower showThere's more to Chelsea than just the Flower Show so we've rounded up some of the best places to eat, stay and shop.
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Uniquely unique? The Yorkshire grain silos transformed into a home that's a symphony in glass, steel and curvesAmid the beautiful countryside of North Yorkshire, on the edge of the Castle Howard Estate, The Silos is a property for which the word 'house' simply doesn't cut it. And that's not the only way in which it's made us throw out the dictionary.
