This looks like a scene from a horror film but it is taken in Willingham around 1935. At that time a group performed a “pantomime” as part of feast week each year. As you can see this involved costumes and grotesque masks. The performance was staged on the back of a flat cart in the middle of the road outside Haynes (Coop today) in front of a large crowd. The origin of this event or when it died out is not known. The previous year they had a wedding and this picture shows the result: a “christening”.
October 2020
