Nestling in deep valleys with its stone buildings and winding streets, Luddenden looks like a place where traditions survive and indeed on the second Saturday in September crowds assemble to see a wide range of weird and wonderful events from bale, maggot and duck racing – not together of course culminating in a making of a local mayor – a mock mayor, although they are never called that, of Luddenden!
The Mayor making day certainly brought the village alive with a range of events and stalls around the village’s pub and spilling through the churchyard. The bale race was exciting to watch as they raced around the town carrying straw bales on their shoulders. Indeed, there are a lot of races going on – a maggot, duck, bale and pint. The pint race was particularly enjoyable watching a rather fast and then slow race of people carrying a pint in each hand around the outside of the pub. I did wonder why I had not seen this before. And don’t worry there was a tee-totalers one with water.
By half past four crowd had formed around the Lord Nelson Inn in Luddenden to see the 157th Mayor elected (although not strictly true as the event as we shall see when through a bit of a hiatus ). Then the main event the inauguration of a new Mayor. Standing in front of a large St George’s flag and an equally large Yorkshire flag on the raised area of the war memorial, the outgoing Mayor wearing the red coat, tricorn hat, frilly shirt, chain and ermine gave an leaving speech and then it was over to the new Mayor to be announced by the master of ceremonies in morning suit and top hat. The crowd cheered and laughed as the new Mayor gave their incoming speech full of local in jokes.
May or May not
Like other Mock Mayors the custom begun as a slight at the growth of local towns such as Halifax and a self-acknowledgement of the settlement’s own growth. The town resented Halifax’s growth encompassing the town and thus having a Mayor who would govern over the settlement. So if one town could have one why could we not? So in 1861, the customs of the local Lord Nelson Inn elected their first Mayor. To make it official they bought a chain of office to match that of Halifax in its elaborate nature and set about giving the Mayor a suitable location. However, Luddenden could not claim to have a Town Hall like Halifax and so the snug of the Nelson became the ‘Mayor’s Parlour’ with a bench known as the Mayor’s chair.
To be elected Mayor one had to sit in the chair. Whether this was by design or accident is unclear. For the person who sat in the chair would become by custom Mayor for a month. However, they were also invited to pay for drinks for everyone in the bar. It seems likely these two aspects might well have arisen after the decline of the custom and that the Mayor role might have been for a year at least! Then after years in abeyance in 1996 the local community decided to revive the custom. Today local people are invited to become the Mayor back in June when adverts appear in the village.
Now though the Mayor is treated a real bone fide entity, especially by the local press. Like a real Mayor Christmas lights are turned on and social events such as Burn’s Night attended.
It is evident that part of this view that the role is a real Mayor is due to the role the Mayor has in the community. As Committee member and licensee of the Lord Nelson pub, Debbie Collinge in the 2005 Halifax Courier:
“It brings the community together and it is all fun and games. The money from the fund-raising keeps things alive in the village.”
In essence she said it ‘keeps the area strong. This is due in no small part to those fund raising activities. The Mayor has a Mayor’s fund with a committee elected at the same time. Fund raising over the years have included money raised for local swings
Each year the Mayor picks a challenge. These have ranged from cycling the equivalent distance between Paris to the village and raising £1600 for Breast Cancer charities to climbing Yorkshire’s Three Peaks for the Atrial Fibrillation Association. The former being on static bikes and I assume they will be climbing real peaks though!
Luddenden’s Mayor – a mock mayor in principle but one that does not make a mockery of their responsibilities.
In search of traditional customs and ceremonies 