Among Lee’s vivid memories is a picnic by the sea, a grand event sponsored by the Slad church choir. It was a trek of fifty-one miles to Weston-Super-Mare that most of the townsfolk stuffed themselves into hired five charabancs [SHarəˌbaNG, -ˌbaNGk]. Lined up, the five omnibuses must have looked like some giant caterpillar chugging through the town and over the low rolling hills.
Lee’s mother was always late, and while other “mothers with pig-buckets stuffed with picnics” nervously bided their time, Annie Lee dawdled. At last, when “everyone clambered aboard, fighting for seats. We abandoned our mother and climbed aboard, too, feeling guilty and miserable. The charabancs were high broad open seats with folded tarpaulins at the rear, upon which, as choirboys, we were privileged to perch and fall off and break our necks. We all took our places, people wrapped themselves in blankets, horns sounded, and we were ready.”
Charles Beeson. Cider with Rosie (1998)
See Laurie Lee. “Outings and Festivals.” Cider with Rosie. London: The Hogarth Press 1959; Charles Beeson. Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie (1998). The screenplay by John Mortimer is based on Rosie Laurie Lee’s fictional memoir (1959). Carlton International Media. The Vicar (Rex Holdsworth) blesses the departing picnickers.
Featured Image: The Village of Slad
See Laurie Lee. “Outings and Festivals.” Cider with Rosie. London: The Hogarth Press 1959; Charles Beeson’s Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie (1998). The screenplay by John Mortimer is based on Rosie Laurie Lee’s fictional memoir (1959). Carlton International Media. The Vicar (Rex Holdsworth) blesses the departing picnickers.
*Dylan Thomas’ The Outing (1953) is also a daylong pub-crawl-binge in which the men of a Welsh village pile themselves, cases of beer, and hampers of bangers and mash into a hired charabanc.