It's enough to make you cry

Oh Neigh! Oh Neigh! – Britain’s town criers are under starter’s orders to spread the word about a North Yorkshire market town’s literary festival and celebrate the community’s links with horse racing.

As part of its first Literature Festival, Malton is holding its first Town Crier Competition, open to all Criers in the UK, on Saturday October 23.

Although the event features a junior contest, the main competition involves members of the Loyal Company of Town Criers and is run to the organisations strict rules.

Contestants will start out in Norton with a 75-125 word proclamation about the virtues of their own home towns. In Malton in the afternoon they will make a similar cry, this time on the theme of Yorkshire racecourses and Yorkshire racehorses.

Businesses will also benefit because each crier can cry the praises of a local firm in return for a 10 donation to the We Love Malton event campaign coffers.

Ten LCTC contestants have signed up from all around the country, including two women Criers, Eliza Mowe, representing Barnoldswick, and Carole Williams, from Bishop’s Stortford. Other criers hail from communities as diverse as Alnwick and Walsall.

David Jackson, Town Crier for Malton and Norton and organiser of the event, said: “There are 91 members of the LCTC in the UK, so to get over 10 per cent is thrilling for our first contest.” He will be performing a “Host Cry” before each round in which the criers will be marked for confidence and bearing, volume and clarity, diction and inflection, accuracy and regalia by the judging panel.