New face of village life set to cause flap

One Yorkshire village will be home to all manner of scarecrows next weekend, as Chris Berry discovered.
Bob & Melanie Moss with Mary Mary Quite Contrary outside the Village HallBob & Melanie Moss with Mary Mary Quite Contrary outside the Village Hall
Bob & Melanie Moss with Mary Mary Quite Contrary outside the Village Hall

Beer, gardens and scarecrows have become the new annual events in villages throughout Yorkshire in the past three decades. Village shows and galas have not lost their place but this new trio of festivals has succeeded in bringing extra and much-needed funds to rural communities.

Wetwang gets the scarecrow festival season under way next weekend. It may not quite have the chocolate box look of the Godfather of all scarecrow festivals at Kettlewell – renowned as the longest running of the genre in Yorkshire; nor the seaside pulling power potential of Muston near Filey, but it more than makes up for that in community spirit.

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Husband and wife Bob and Melanie Moss weren’t here when the first Wetwang Scarecrow Festival burst on to the countryside calendar eleven years ago, but they are fully aware of its history and why it is so important to the East Riding village six miles west of Driffield.

They are both on the festival committee, Bob is a parish councillor and Melanie is chairman of the village hall.

In the year 2000 the community was awarded the whole of the funds required to build a new village hall through a grant from the National Lottery. The funding came not just for Wetwang’s residents but for the surrounding villages too, and the building is impressive, tucked away behind St Nicholas’ Church.

“Getting full funding for the building to be erected was brilliant but with utility bills and maintenance to pay there is an annual bill of between £10,000 - £15,000,” says Melanie.

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“The scarecrow festival was started as just one of many activities and events that would help keep the doors open.

“What is really great is that everyone gets involved. You see people at this time of year that you don’t see at any other time. I think everyone realises just how important it is.

“We average around £6,000 a year from the nine days and that’s about half of what we need to keep things ticking over.

“We have bumper years 
and worse years and it is like many other summer events, very much weather-dependent, although last year even though it rained every day we still attracted the numbers.”

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Most of the money comes from the visits to The Scarecrow Café, which is the village hall’s assumed name for the period that covers two weekends.

“I’m sure some people just come every year to sample the wonderful home-baking from the ladies and some of the men in the village. It’s nine days of lovely home made cakes, buns, scones, quiches, flans, sandwiches and tea and coffee.

“We have regulars who now make a point of taking a holiday in the area so that they can come along and enjoy it for more than a day, but we also have many visitors. There was a footfall estimate of 6,000 visitors last year.”

The village has also embraced social media in making sure that everyone knows what’s going on.

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“Wetwang Scarecrow has his own Twitter account and Facebook page. We find that you can be a little bit more cheeky as a scarecrow, that you maybe can’t be as a normal person, so we get people going a bit to encourage them to enjoy and be involved.”

This year’s theme is Nursery Rhymes, although you can also come up with any type of scarecrow if you don’t fancy that, and both Bob and Melanie were taking Mary Mary Quite Contrary down to the village hall earlier this week, getting her prepared for her starring role just outside the Scarecrow Café.

“She’s not finished yet and we won’t know quite how many scarecrows we will have until Monday because that’s the deadline day for entries.

“We don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors but we do know that the Three Blind Mice will be here. Even once the deadline has gone there could be more because some don’t bother entering the competition and just put theirs out anyway.

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“Everyone puts them in their gardens and the outlying farms put theirs at the ends of their lanes.

“The scarecrows that come from other villages tend to be the ones that go down the main street that everyone sees as they pass through.

“We have classes for adults, children, local businesses and visitors – and there’s a £50 prize for the one judged 
most popular through a public vote.

“The village schoolchildren always make about four scarecrows themselves and they also decorate the village hall with flowers and write scarecrow poems and stories. The whole event is very scarecrow-centric.

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“We had just over 70 scarecrows last year and it looks like we might get to 80 this year as our out of village entries have already shown an increase. We charge a very small fee to enter a scarecrow in the festival and there are prizes for each of the classes.’

BBC TV weatherman Paul Hudson famously took over 
as Mayor of Wetwang following the late Richard Whiteley and he makes an appearance at the annual village show.

Rewards of taking part

Melanie started her own Wolds Cottage Kitchen business two years ago and produces jams, preserves, chutneys and marmalade some of which no doubt finds its way into the produce sold at the Scarecrow Café.

“Getting involved in this fantastic event is one of the best things we’ve ever done,” says Bob. “This is a great village with a wonderful community spirit where everyone knows everyone. We hope many more will come this year.”