Traditions
North Somercotes was famous throughout the county of Lincolnshire for its village carnival in which brightly decorated floats with both children and adults dressing up wound the streets of the village once a year, usually in mid July. A young teenage village beauty was traditionally chosen to be the Rose Princess and a much younger girl was chosen to be the Princess's attendant. The Princess was crowned during the event. The last of these carnivals took place in 2000. All events were banned the following year, due the efforts by Lincolnshire County Council to keep the 2001 UK foot and mouth crisis out of the county and the event has not taken place since.
However, one surviving tradition for which North Somercotes is well known is that of its Pancake Races, which take place annually on Shrove Tuesday at the Birkbeck School and Community Arts College. Originally the race was run along Keeling Street which is the main street of the village and part of the A1031 There are races for different age groups and the winner of the adult race has their name inscribed on the trophy. Each person receives a frying pan and has to race from one end of a field to the other, tossing their pancake at least once every few seconds on the way. The winner is the first to cross the line, having tossed their pancake several times and with the pancake still intact.
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Famous quotes containing the word traditions:
“Napoleon never wished to be justified. He killed his enemy according to Corsican traditions [le droit corse] and if he sometimes regretted his mistake, he never understood that it had been a crime.”
—Guillaume-Prosper, Baron De Barante (1782–1866)
“But generally speaking philistinism presupposes a certain advanced state of civilization where throughout the ages certain traditions have accumulated in a heap and have started to stink.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“I think a Person who is thus terrifyed [sic] with the Imagination of Ghosts and Spectres much more reasonable, than one who contrary to the Reports of all Historians sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the Traditions of all Nations, thinks the Appearance of Spirits fabulous and groundless.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)