Annually, on 30th May the new Lord Mayor of Berwick-upon-Tweed and his civic party officially open the May Fair at noon with the ancient custom of “walking the Fair”. The Berwick Fair dates back to the medieval period and was first mentioned in a Charter of 1302 granted by Edward I to the burgesses and heirs of the town. Primarily a trading fair, its popularity ebbed and flowed. At one time, Guild members were “encouraged” to walk the fair with the Mayor using threats of “a penalty of 5...

Annually, on 30th May the new Lord Mayor of Berwick-upon-Tweed and his civic party officially open the May Fair at noon with the ancient custom of “walking the Fair”. The Berwick Fair dates back to the medieval period and was first mentioned in a Charter of 1302 granted by Edward I to the burgesses and heirs of the town. Primarily a trading fair, its popularity ebbed and flowed. At one time, Guild members were “encouraged” to walk the fair with the Mayor using threats of “a penalty of 5 groats” if they did not turn up, and a “Forfett to the Gylde of 8 shillings without Redemyson” if they didn’t wear professional dress.

In 1896 a newspaper report described Berwick’s Marygate during May Fair week as “alive with itinerant merchants in hardware, with the usual accompaniments of less important dealers”. Hundreds browsed the stalls that stretched up Marygate through to Scott’s Place, selling everything from quack medicines to linoleum. In 1890 the Berwick Horse Show and a cattle sale were introduced, along with a popular fun fair on the Parade “where Wilmot’s galloping horses, brilliantly lighted by electricity were the principal attraction to old and young” as well as “Tommy Miller’s well known acrobatic performances”.

By the end of the 1800s, the procession down Marygate from the Town Hall was headed by the Borough Police, followed by the halbert bearers, the Mayor, Sheriff and members of the Corporation, a tradition which continued into the 20th century, as illustrated in a film of the May Fair taken from a beautiful “local topical” called Snapshots in Berwick, filmed in 1928. This actuality footage was probably commissioned by a local cinema or fairground showman who could lure in audiences with the promise of familiar sights, events and, most importantly, local faces in the crowds, who received far more time on screen than the stars. “See yourselves as others see you” was one of the phrases used on advertising placards. 

Snapshots in Berwick captures both the magic of cinema and modern life in its flickering images, and draws on the cine-stroll in the city that were a feature of early cinema. Pioneer cinematographers such as brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière, American inventor Thomas Alva Edison, and Robert W. Paul initiated important non-fiction film genres such as the actuality, a realistic slice of everyday life originally captured in one shot, which, for the Lumières, consisted of a uniform 50-second length film strip.

The fascination and thrill of movement for early cinema-goers was heightened by the invention of the ‘travelling actuality’, also known as the ‘phantom ride’, a dynamic new way of film making in which the camera was placed on a moving vehicle, such as a tram, bus and often the buffer of a speeding train.   Contemporary artists and filmmakers such as Mark Lewis have re-imagined modern urban space and the process of cinema through evoking the actuality film of the Lumières and other early film experimenters, and the ghost of this genre has also re-surfaced in amateur video within the digital era.

Although the actuality and its off-shoot, the phantom ride, began to decline in popularity from around 1902, the genre was still practiced by the Mitchell and Kenyon Film Company and Pathé, and survives in the magnificent Snapshots in Berwick, vividly animating the street culture and people of the city during May Fair celebrations. It’s an absolute delight that a medium first regarded as entertainment for the working classes, an added attraction at the fairground or music hall, here takes a languid stroll down working-class Walkergate Lane, well away from the official pomp and ceremony.

The film of the Berwick Infirmary Cup Final was due to be screened the same week as the match at the Berwick Playhouse, in the same year The Jazz Singer played there - but it was shown only as a silent film as it was not yet equipped for the 'talkies'. (The Playhouse survived in business until 2005, but the building was demolished in November 2010 after 91 years in business.) As a late form of the 'local topical', this film is typical of the genre in capturing a great many crowd scenes, as well as the group portraits of the football teams.

The Berwick Infirmary Cup started back in 1922, one of the oldest charity football competitions, and the first games were played on the Stanks. Teams from south and north of the border participated, with all proceeds then going to local hospitals. With the foundation of the National Health Service, the name was changed to the Berwick Charities Cup and funds raised and sponsorships were distributed across worthy causes within the town. In addition, many old-age pensioners also received chickens at Christmas time. The Cup has attracted teams from as far south as Ashington, Wallington and Tyneside, as far north as West Barns and Dunbar and as far west as Kelso and Greenlaw. The Charities Cup faced a crisis in 1967, but was rebuilt into a major competition. Interest dwindled in the 2000s, and the competition limps on (in 2018) with help from crowd funding.

References:

http://www.berwickfriends.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/BERWICK-CINEMA-text.pdf

Thanks to Linda Bankier, Archivist at Berwick-upon-Tweed Record Office, for contributing contextual information about Berwick’s “Walking the Fair” tradition.