|
The drought-ridden Summer of 1976 was one of the most extraordinary of my life.
Things happened to me which I am only now beginning to understand. There was
Barsham Faire the last one, but my first, and the challenge it provided me as a
performer, blended with other experiences of that strange Summer, threw me into
the midst of what I should have been doing for years before, all my life maybe.
That field, that place, that fair: the experience was colossal - a jolt into
another reality, the one I was supposed to be in.
Albion manifested. There were so many people we already knew, and so many
others who we met then. An Albion fair seemed the place to be, the people to be
with and the thing we should be doing. During that first year of Albion fairs
in 1978, I suppose my absolute memory of what it was all about was at Wildream
Fair at Bramfield. Sitting around a fire one night, looking at the dome which
squatted like a giant mushroom or a faerie mound; listening to the sound of a
ceilidh coming from it; watching the sparks from a fire within fly through the
open roof into the dark night like spores from the mushroom, faerie dust from
the mound. There was magic in those moments.
All this made us want to come and live in East Anglia. We did so, and it was
strangely disturbing, not as we expected. The strange inexplicable quality, the
subtle magic that I had felt at the last Barsham and the Albion Fairs did not
seem to be all over East Anglia. I did not find it at Wymondham, but I've found
it since coming to the Waveney Valley. It's there on the air sometimes, in
certain qualities of light, at different times of the day and the year, as you
walk along a lane, by a river, a lone tree or a church. It goes through you
like a strange shiver, oddly chilling at times. And it's also in certain
people, who are a part of this quality, this energy and this place which all
came together to make the fairs.
It goes on in the place as it always has and it is in those people still, even
if some of them have left, or are involved in other things. Everything changes
and yet nothing changes - the fairs are different now. There are new people and
I think this subtle relating of people, place and fair has gone, but it is not
something to be nostalgic about, to regret or strive to re achieve. That was
then. Now is now. Perhaps something will emerge that isn't fairs, another
moment with a new purpose, and maybe a new awareness. The reality is - we are
sitting in the hot-seat here.
The fairs were a chance for me: an opportunity to develop things within myself
- a mode of performing that quickly became more real and less performance as I
became a part of the place. I re-found something in myself that I had lost
during years in London. It has meant a lot of personal upheaval, but it had to
be faced sometime. Everyone has their own fair - nobody has the same
experiences of a fair. Fairs can be catalysts, focuses for other things, or
just some fun - all things to all people. To me, they have been extremes of
experience monumental, reaching incredible levels of communication with people,
places and energies but that's just my feeling. Don't try to recapture
something passed. Move on and explore new possibilities. If you want the old
experience, you only have to watch the sun rise over a frosty field on a winter
morning, watch the flight of a bird, or sit by a wood fire. It's all still
here. Breathe it in and be it.
Jill Bruce. January 1983.
|
