| The White Company, a group which recreates army camp life in the
Fifteenth Century held a three day event at Dirleton Castle this summer.
We attended it and took part as their guests. They insist on everyone involved in an event having approved costumes, but this wasn't a problem as they had vast amounts of spare clothes to loan to people who didn't have their own. There was supposed to be a fee of £5 for non members to take part in the show, but since we got fed for three days it would have been pretty good value, even if they hadn't been kind enough to let us off paying it. A bus runs from St Andrews Square in the town centre to just outside the castle every half an hour, so it was an easy event to reach without a car. There were two main displays set up. The first of these was a group of tents with some clothes making and wood working taking place around them near to the flower borders. The second was a cooking area with a large campfire and covered food preparation area by the castle walls. All the meals for everyone who was taking part in the show were cooked on the fires, so there was work going on almost constantly in the cooking area. John Elliot took over the chopping of wood and keeping the fire going for the cooks, while myself, Ann and Little Mary prepared vegetables and made griddle cakes. I was a little nervous about talking to the public at first, in case my knowledge of medieval cooking processes wasn't detailed enough, but the White Company members were very friendly and encouraging, so once I got started it was easy. Cooking over an open fire is something I always enjoy. With the proper equipment it's very easy to regulate the heat of cooking so that you can do anything which you could do on a modern stove, with the added benefit of being able to bake things by burying them in the embers. On the second day I took time out to have a go at archery using a borrowed long bow. The bows were quite heavy to pull, but I managed to hit the target dummy about half the time, which didn't seem too bad to me. They use sharp arrows for target shooting, and rubber tipped ones in the combat demonstrations. There was one nervous moment just as I was about to fire when a member of the public who had ducked under the safety ropes and sneaked around the archery area concealed behind the shrubs popped up behind the target! There were two combat displays each day. John took part in these, and recommends them highly for their realism. He particularly liked the peasantry tripping the armoured knights up and sitting on them until they gave in. Unlike many of the bigger re-enactment societies in Britain, the White Company doesn't allow women to take part in the military displays. I found this rather frustrating, and when I discussed it with the members of the White Company there, some of them seemed to feel the same. They seemed to believe that there was sufficient evidence of women defending towns under siege, and of independent business women ("femmes soles") having the same obligations to attend military training as men did. We were visited by Live TV, complete with News Bunny, who did a series of reports from the site. Everyone was rather dreading their arrival, but the reporter did actually ask intelligent questions and allow people to answer them properly, rather than trying to turn us into a joke item, as sometimes happens. Of course, the presence of a person in a giant rabbit suit didn't really enhance the medieval atmosphere of the site, and the reporter did get a little flustered because none of us had watches, so we couldn't have turned up for the cameras at specific times even if we'd wanted to, but on the whole it seemed to be good publicity for the Society and for Historic Scotland who run the castle. The event may be running again next year, and we certainly hope to attend again. There was a good atmosphere on the site, and everyone in the White Company was very welcoming to us. |