The fiery New Year’s Eve tradition that won’t be cancelled by health and safety killjoys
It calls itself a town but sports a village hall; it has a Dalek outside a Georgian townhouse; its two pubs are slap-bang next door to each other; and its Co-operative store, tricked out in cream and green, is fiercely independent. So perhaps it’s no surprise that this former lead-mining town, high in Northumberland’s north Pennines, goes its own way when celebrating New Year’s Eve. Forget fireworks and light-shows; Allendale’s end-of-year party is part breath-taking spectacle and part breath-taking insanity.
Why would any rational man (and it is only men; more on which later) willingly place a wooden barrel, filled with a paraffin-fuelled fire, on his head and parade around the streets? “Well, it’s tradition,” observes John Litster mildly of the event that sees 45 costumed and face-painted men (“guysers”, as in “disguise”) – plus a brass band and torch-bearers – process around the village’s streets carrying the flaming barrels. Their goal is a vast bonfire in the market place which is lit by said barrels on the stroke of midnight.
Litster has been doing it for around 60 years (he’s now 78). “To be honest, I don’t think anyone knows [how it began] any more,” he chuckles. “It goes so far back, no-one can remember.” (Records suggest it dates to at least the middle of the 19th century, when old tar barrels, used in road repairs, provided a ready flammable material; hence why it’s called Allendale Tar Barrels – or “bar’ls”, in local speak.) “Basically the idea is to burn out the old year and welcome in the new.”
But the joy of it – apart from the fact the entire village turns out for the event, plus several thousand visitors from elsewhere, as far as Australia – is that it just happens without any fancy pre-planning, spreadsheets, sub-committees and red-tape bureaucracy. A committee meets twice a year and decides on the carriers. To be eligible, you have to be born in the village or the valley. And male. And once you have a barrel, you tend to hang on to the privilege. “Then you can come from all areas,” explains Litster. “One carrier comes up from London.”
Hopefuls have to wait until someone retires (it’s a shoo-in if it’s their dad) and then the only practice they get is brief, usually when the bonfire is built on the Sunday before New Year’s Eve. “I thought it can’t be that hard carrying a barrel for 20 minutes,” recalls Les Elliott, manager of the Lion House, one of the two pubs overlooking the market place. He hadn’t intended to apply (he was born in Hexham, 11 miles away), but when a committee member asked Elliott how long he’d lived in Allendale – 39 years – he was challenged with a little-known rule. “After 30 years, he told me, you’re eligible. So I couldn’t back down!”
Elliott quickly realised two things. If it’s a windy night, the embers from the barrel in front fly into your face. Secondly, holding the barrel with two hands up above your head for the 20 minutes it takes to process around the village is extremely painful on the arms. “Those that have done it for years know to swap arms.”
Down at an anonymous-looking wooden shed behind the public loos, where the barrels are stored (each a top or bottom portion, about 10 inches deep), Litster – somewhat uncertainly – lets me have a go. The barrel is about the weight of a well-packed week’s suitcase. On my head it feels like balancing a large tray carrying a full dinner service. And that’s without worrying that there’s a small fire (from sawdust, sticks and a dash of paraffin) an inch above my skull.
There may be other reasons why women don’t take part, but the need for strength seems fairly obvious. None of the women I speak to considers it in any way sexist. “I’m not bothered by it,” shrugs Ruby Robson, a young waitress in the Forge Studios café. “It’s tradition.” Sue Cockburn, who, together with her husband, Neil, runs Panoramic Pods glamping just outside the village, agrees: “I think it should stay like that. In this crazy world we live in, you’ve got to honour tradition.”
From their vantage point above Allendale – with breathtaking views north to Hadrian’s Wall and the Cheviot Hills – the Cockburns can see the steady stream of car lights coming up the valley to the village from the early evening of the 31st. Not there early enough and you’ll have to park a good mile outside. (And if you want to spend the night, you’ll need to book a year ahead; many come in campervans which are allowed to pitch in the school yard.)
There are other reasons to visit Allendale: walks with sweeping views, relics from the lead-mining past, and peace and quiet (I met not a soul on a five-mile walk over moors and pastures). There’s also the Museum of Classic Sci-Fi (hence the Dalek), an astonishing collection of costumes and props, painstakingly restored by the irrepressibly enthusiastic former art teacher, Neil Cole, in the basement of his Georgian townhouse, and the Allendale Forge Studios with gallery and gift shop. I’m given a cheery smile and greeting by everyone from the assistants in the Co-op to the manager of the quaint Tea Rooms.
Like most of the town’s handful of businesses, the Tea Rooms are independent, a streak that underpins the New Year’s Eve event. Despite the very real spectacle of the evening, it’s resolutely uncommercialised. “There’s always a good atmosphere,” says Joan Strain, a craft artist who helps run the Forge Studios. “It’s so community-based.” Daughter, Emma, also an artist at the studios, agrees: “The market square is jumping, the pubs heaving. Just make sure you’re not downwind of the bonfire; the embers fly.”
Ah, yes, health and safety. Another chuckle from Litster. “The council said something about insurance…” A compromise was reached: barriers around the bonfire “and a loudhailer to use if someone’s in trouble. My daughter is one of the marshals and carries the loudhailer.” Four marshals carry fire extinguishers, and it’s probably reassuring that several of the carriers are firemen.
“There’s a pride in the village that they still do it,” says Neil Thomas, manager of the Allendale Brewery. “It would be vigorously defended if there was any suggestion that it should be made safer, or in any way dumbed down. Even if you’re not carrying a barrel, you feel involved. Just wear something warm – and not flammable!”
Helen Pickles was a guest of Panoramic Pods (07460 538407; panoramicpods; doubles from £130 per night).