Festivities
"Old Clem’s Night" started literally with a bang and showers of sparks during the ritual "firing of the anvil." The smith packed gunpowder into a small hole in an anvil, and then struck it soundly with a hammer, causing a small explosion. Anvil firing was also a test of the anvil’s durability: weak anvils would break under pressure, and had to be melted down and recast. The smith, or apprentice, dressed up in wig, mask and cloak to represent ‘Old Clem’ led a procession of smiths through the streets, stopping at taverns along the way. Boisterous singing was followed by demands for free beer or money for the ‘Clem feast’. Traditional toasts included ‘True hearts and sound bottoms, check shirts and leather aprons’; and ‘Here's to old Vulcan, as bold as a lion, A large shop and no iron, A big hearth and no coal, And a large pair of bellowses full of holes.’
In the nineteenth century at Bramber in West Sussex an effigy of Old Clem was propped up in the public bar while the smiths enjoyed their dinner. This was rounded off with the blacksmith's anthem, 'Twanky Dillo':
| “ | Health to the jolly blacksmith, the best of all fellows
Who works at his anvil while the boy blows the bellows! |
” |
Read more about this topic: St Clement's Day