Long - English Eccentrics and Their Bizarre Behaviour

Did you know that each spring, ignoring modernising dictats from the Eurocrats and standing at makeshift pulpit aboard a lifeboat, the vicar of Hastings traditionally blesses the sea which divides us? Or that along the coast at Rye the locals celebrate May Day by throwing hot pennies into the drink?

The most elaborate spring ritual is that held at Dunmow, namely the famous Flitch Trials which have been held in the pretty little Essex town for the last 900 years. In these mock-judicial proceedings, complete with wigs and gowns and with a flitch or side of bacon for the winners, married couples in the parish try to convince a jury of six maids and six bachelors that they have neither been unfaithful nor exchanged a single cross word.

Unsurprisingly the historic City of London is rich with such quirky behaviour too for example the annual Swan-Upping Ceremony on the Thames which sees liveried members of the Vintners Company nicking the birds beaks to show whether they belong to the Queen or to the Company. Then there is the Doggetts Coats and Badge Race in which, every August since 1721, newly-qualified Thames Watermen race from London Bridge to Chelsea in the hope of winning the princely sum of a fiver, a scarlet coat, some breeches, a pair of shoes and an enormous silver badge.

Similarly on Christmas Day in Hyde Park, swimmers compete on the chilly Serpentine for the Peter Pan Cup, inaugurated by Sir J.M. Barrie in 1864 and which sometimes requires the competitors to break the ice first.

The High Almoner, traditionally a senior bishop, still wears a towel at his waist as a reminder to Christian kings to follow the example of Christ and to echo His humility in washing the feet of others at the Last Supper. (Elizabeth I was a great fan of this, but concerns over the generally low standard of hygiene displayed by the masses meant that actual foot-washing came to an end with a more fastidious King George I in 1730.)

Barges no longer provide the quickest way to travel from the palace at Hampton Court to Westminster or to Greenwich although the way things are going with traffic in London that could change but when the Crown Jewels travel by carriage they traditionally do so in the company of the Queens Barge Master and her Royal Watermen.

Among eccentrics, builders such as Fuller and Berners are perhaps the best known, probably because they leave behind such concrete evidence of their exploits. But eccentricity can take many other forms as well although these days most observers recognise that to be a real eccentric requires more than just a single isolated act, however loony the act appears; Gordon East and Julie Fillipeto marrying each other in a lions cage, for example, or Chris and Sue Glazier from Kent who spent their wedding night driving round the M25 in a luxury coach equipped with a suitably well-appointed honeymoon suite.