Every year our village has an event entitled Bygones and Organs, a miscellany of stuff scattered about the village hall. In the yard are tractors, cars, motorcycles and bicycles, some are immaculate shiney examples of their marque and others clearly having seen better days cling to life in a near fatal state of collapse. Owners tenderly care for their much cherished vehicles, making information boards for passers by to read, details of past owners, restoration work, paint colours and miles travelled, some show photos of the vehicles perched in far away places, Hardknot Pass, the Dales and the rugged peaks of Scotland, some up-market vehicles having extended their travels to places as exotic as The Alps and the South of France, but not this year, possibly the credit crunch as stretched its evil greasey fingers into the wallets that finance the adventures of vintage tourers.

The continually chirpy organ music eventually drove me into the hall and to the displays of local Bygone collectors. Corgi cars, type blocks, tins, dolls, toby jugs, oil cans, jigsaws and a curious array of stupifyingly awful domestic flotsam. In the midst of this odd but undeniably attractive Ripelyesk madness was a stand with a collection of Fen skates, some dating from the mid-19th century and others from the turn of the 20th, wooden and metal, for adults and children, fine modern blades offset against the thicker Victorian blades. The eldery man on the stand, excited to talk, explained to me the reasons why some farmers were driven to skate. In the Mid-Winter, in this desolate frozen landscape the families on small holdings survived on a basic diet of potatoes, potatoes and more potatoes. Like the drawing of the The Potato Eaters by Van Gogh, these people existed on a meager diet, isolated and scraping a life out of the black soil. Rich locals would present meat prizes to the best skaters, people would battle in speed skating races on frozen flooded fields in order to feed their families. 

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). The Potato Eaters, 1885, Oil on canvas, 32-5/16 x 44-7/8″, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation).