The history of Winstontin-over-Nethergate is not an extraordinary one, and yet it bears repetition, if only for its brevity; whereas most village’s history is an ongoing concern, and hence extremely frustrating to document, the history of Winstontin-over-Nethergate handily stops some time in 2004.
Inconveniently located between Hopskipjumpon and Tiddlers-Frome, although more than fifty miles away from either, it occupies a spot bordering six counties, in a place so quiet that if you were ever to pass through it you can pretty much guarantee you’ve gone the wrong way, wherever you were heading. The traffic through the village increased almost tenfold in August 1987 when a rumour spread across Britain that the village was a handy shortcut between Doncaster and Wolverhampton. This later turned out to be false, with the detour adding hours, and occasionally days to the journey.
The first records of Winstontin date back to Roman times, where a settlement was built there for the Roman centurions to practice the art of ‘Syphiliy’, which many historians believe to be an ancient sport, vastly popular at the time, of which the specifics of has been lost to the ages. Some scholars reject this theory, believing instead the area was intended as some sort of sick bay where weary soldiers could recuperate. The Latin translation, ‘Whin Stone tun’ or ‘Where Things Are’, unfortunately gives little clue either way.
In 869 the residents of Winstontin got their first neighbours, as the village of Nethergate sprung up quickly only two miles from the town’s eastern gates. The Nethergate settlers were a gang of loyal lute players, forced to flee the major English cities when King Ethelred banned the instrument, describing it as ‘shit’. Aware of the Winstontiads anger at their presence there, the Nethergats attempted to appease the residents by bringing them a gift of three thousand free lute lessons, two for every person in the town. Such thriftiness angered the Lord Mayor, who that night ordered the townspeople to march on Nethergate and, while the villagers slept, bury their entire settlement under a mound of dirt. After the Nethergats were all buried alive, the Winstontiads rebuilt the entire town on top of the mound, as a sign to any other villages thinking of relocating to the area, and hence the name Winstontin-over-Nethergate was born. This day is still celebrated on November 12th to this day in Winchester by a ritualised burial, changing only slightly in 1965, when the village elected to start burying straw dolls rather than the youngest girl in the village.
Winstontin-over-Nethergate’s standing in England remained strong through most of medieval times, and during the Dark Ages seemed pretty pleasant in comparison to many other towns and cities. In the 11th Century the Lord Major of the time, a Sir Reginald Moodler, was even confident enough to enter it into the running to be the new capital of England (it lost out to Darlington in the second round of voting). Somewhere around the 17th century though, the town of Winstontin’s-over-Nethergate’s increased isolation, which initially a lot of other towns had thought to be really cool, had the effect of leaving the area far behind the rest of the ever-changing country. The Winstontin-over-Nethergate of the late 19th century must still have been a sight though. Village records state that there was once a cathedral in the centre that stood only a few feet below St. Paul’s, which tragically fell into the sea before any photos could be taken. Then there was the famous St. Sweedham’s Music Hall, a grand structure first opened by Prince Albert that could seat 10000 and paid host to all the biggest acts of the day, from Dickery Fumthorp to the Calm Down Bland Top Players. It is truly tragic that this magnificent structure also collapsed into the sea, along with apparently all photographic evidence that it existed. Pride of Victorian Winstontin-over-Nethergate though, was a solid gold statue of William IV said to be a gift from the Prussian Consulate. Judging by the description in village records, it would truly be regarded one of the finest works of early 19th century sculpturing if it were still around today. Alas, though, records state a strong wind in 1872 caught hold of the statue and toppled it into the sea. When you learn that the village is more than 100 miles from the nearest coast, you begin to grasp in your mind of what tragic disasters the loss of these apparently great works are However, by the time the town belatedly attempted to enter the Industrial Revolution in 1884 by building a tailcoat factory it was too late, the town’s population had tumbled to a few hundred, and Queen Victoria finally visited in 1887 to tell the residents that Winstontin-over-Nethergate’s status had been officially downgraded to village.
The twentieth century was on the whole uneventful for this now quiet and sparsely populated corner of the world, in the 1980s it was briefly invaded by a mostly drunk Russian squadron, who had somehow managed to get lost on the way to Afghanistan, and in 1999 the village briefly changed its name to Kit-Kat Chunky in an attempt to drum up a tourism trade, but by and large the village gently wafted from the nation’s conscious.
Not that the residents cared of course, though they now numbered barely two hundred, the villagers were still proud of their history, celebrating not only the Flattening of Nethergate, but also Grubbily Tuesday on the third Tuesday after the summer equinox, where all the villagers play a curious game that’s a sort of mix between cheese-rolling and gymnastics, with a bit of Russian roulette thrown in, before retiring in the evenings to drink nettle cider and eat rabbit ears (the origins of this particular practice are, at best, sketchy). They were mostly shut off from the world, save the three TV channels (a Channel 4 representative told me plans are in place to launch the channel there late 2012), a truck that delivers plentiful supplies to the village’s only shop and the number 3 bus that does the six hour round trip to Kettering and back four times a day. In the early twenty first century, they were all well aware of all the most thrilling meats of their nation’s cultural stew, whether it be Eastenders now on four times a week, or the occasional hit single from Will Young, and they each looked upon these eclectic delights and, though grateful, were sure that world was not for them.
That is until someone in the village wondered if they were all racists.
Inconveniently located between Hopskipjumpon and Tiddlers-Frome, although more than fifty miles away from either, it occupies a spot bordering six counties, in a place so quiet that if you were ever to pass through it you can pretty much guarantee you’ve gone the wrong way, wherever you were heading. The traffic through the village increased almost tenfold in August 1987 when a rumour spread across Britain that the village was a handy shortcut between Doncaster and Wolverhampton. This later turned out to be false, with the detour adding hours, and occasionally days to the journey.
The first records of Winstontin date back to Roman times, where a settlement was built there for the Roman centurions to practice the art of ‘Syphiliy’, which many historians believe to be an ancient sport, vastly popular at the time, of which the specifics of has been lost to the ages. Some scholars reject this theory, believing instead the area was intended as some sort of sick bay where weary soldiers could recuperate. The Latin translation, ‘Whin Stone tun’ or ‘Where Things Are’, unfortunately gives little clue either way.
In 869 the residents of Winstontin got their first neighbours, as the village of Nethergate sprung up quickly only two miles from the town’s eastern gates. The Nethergate settlers were a gang of loyal lute players, forced to flee the major English cities when King Ethelred banned the instrument, describing it as ‘shit’. Aware of the Winstontiads anger at their presence there, the Nethergats attempted to appease the residents by bringing them a gift of three thousand free lute lessons, two for every person in the town. Such thriftiness angered the Lord Mayor, who that night ordered the townspeople to march on Nethergate and, while the villagers slept, bury their entire settlement under a mound of dirt. After the Nethergats were all buried alive, the Winstontiads rebuilt the entire town on top of the mound, as a sign to any other villages thinking of relocating to the area, and hence the name Winstontin-over-Nethergate was born. This day is still celebrated on November 12th to this day in Winchester by a ritualised burial, changing only slightly in 1965, when the village elected to start burying straw dolls rather than the youngest girl in the village.
Winstontin-over-Nethergate’s standing in England remained strong through most of medieval times, and during the Dark Ages seemed pretty pleasant in comparison to many other towns and cities. In the 11th Century the Lord Major of the time, a Sir Reginald Moodler, was even confident enough to enter it into the running to be the new capital of England (it lost out to Darlington in the second round of voting). Somewhere around the 17th century though, the town of Winstontin’s-over-Nethergate’s increased isolation, which initially a lot of other towns had thought to be really cool, had the effect of leaving the area far behind the rest of the ever-changing country. The Winstontin-over-Nethergate of the late 19th century must still have been a sight though. Village records state that there was once a cathedral in the centre that stood only a few feet below St. Paul’s, which tragically fell into the sea before any photos could be taken. Then there was the famous St. Sweedham’s Music Hall, a grand structure first opened by Prince Albert that could seat 10000 and paid host to all the biggest acts of the day, from Dickery Fumthorp to the Calm Down Bland Top Players. It is truly tragic that this magnificent structure also collapsed into the sea, along with apparently all photographic evidence that it existed. Pride of Victorian Winstontin-over-Nethergate though, was a solid gold statue of William IV said to be a gift from the Prussian Consulate. Judging by the description in village records, it would truly be regarded one of the finest works of early 19th century sculpturing if it were still around today. Alas, though, records state a strong wind in 1872 caught hold of the statue and toppled it into the sea. When you learn that the village is more than 100 miles from the nearest coast, you begin to grasp in your mind of what tragic disasters the loss of these apparently great works are However, by the time the town belatedly attempted to enter the Industrial Revolution in 1884 by building a tailcoat factory it was too late, the town’s population had tumbled to a few hundred, and Queen Victoria finally visited in 1887 to tell the residents that Winstontin-over-Nethergate’s status had been officially downgraded to village.
The twentieth century was on the whole uneventful for this now quiet and sparsely populated corner of the world, in the 1980s it was briefly invaded by a mostly drunk Russian squadron, who had somehow managed to get lost on the way to Afghanistan, and in 1999 the village briefly changed its name to Kit-Kat Chunky in an attempt to drum up a tourism trade, but by and large the village gently wafted from the nation’s conscious.
Not that the residents cared of course, though they now numbered barely two hundred, the villagers were still proud of their history, celebrating not only the Flattening of Nethergate, but also Grubbily Tuesday on the third Tuesday after the summer equinox, where all the villagers play a curious game that’s a sort of mix between cheese-rolling and gymnastics, with a bit of Russian roulette thrown in, before retiring in the evenings to drink nettle cider and eat rabbit ears (the origins of this particular practice are, at best, sketchy). They were mostly shut off from the world, save the three TV channels (a Channel 4 representative told me plans are in place to launch the channel there late 2012), a truck that delivers plentiful supplies to the village’s only shop and the number 3 bus that does the six hour round trip to Kettering and back four times a day. In the early twenty first century, they were all well aware of all the most thrilling meats of their nation’s cultural stew, whether it be Eastenders now on four times a week, or the occasional hit single from Will Young, and they each looked upon these eclectic delights and, though grateful, were sure that world was not for them.
That is until someone in the village wondered if they were all racists.
It worried Sarah Foulston, who manned a psychic chat-line by day under the pseudonym Shaman Sharon, so much that she brought that week’s village meeting forward two days in a state of emergency. This notion of ingrained prejudice hadn’t occurred to any of them before, not to William Faulks (shop-owner and proprietor), not to Graham Grahams (school teacher and part-time whittler), not to Barbara Bunk (raids peoples bins for scrap iron), not to Fauntleroy Grimms-Tyncer-Framminthorpe (vagrant) and not to any of the dozens of Winstontin-over-Nethergate citizens who filled the Community Centre that day. The more they thought about though, the more they realised that never once, as long as records had began, been anyone of any other colour, creed or nationality than white, Christian and British stepped foot inside the village, or even drove through looking for a shortcut to Doncaster. Farmer Johnson (postman and massage therapist) observed loudly that he had once shared a drink with a ‘dark looking-fellow with black curly hair’, but was silenced when a friend pointed out that the man he was thinking of was Welsh, perhaps had a bit of a tan, was called David and lives four doors down from him. Jennifer Sodden (landlady and occasional village entertainment) opined that perhaps there were once dozens of black people in the village, but they all tragically fell into the sea, a theory which was debated for a short while longer, but eventually dismissed.
After a debate that raged long into the late afternoon, stopping only for two fifteen minute potato salad breaks, it became clear that the only reason that Winstontin-over-Nethergate didn’t have thriving Caribbean, Muslim, Hindi, Eastern European and Sikh communities living side-by-side in multi-cultural bliss was that they were all, to a man, unintentionally, unknowingly racist, and that their community had inadvertently set itself apart as a cauldron of seething institutionalised racism that they were the resentful child pulling at Britain’s hemlocks as the country attempts to enter the 21st century. They realised that they were the ‘middle-England’ The Guardian was always talking about, and they all suddenly felt sick. No wonder, mused Celina Cinder (expressive dance instructor), that people generally prefer to go to London.
After a half hour interlude with entertainment, which consisted of Fauntleroy Grimms-Tyncer-Framminthorpe slapping the backs of his calves rhythmically to ‘Baby I Love Your Way’ by Big Mountain, it was eventually decided that a decision should be made, and after another hour of deciding what that decision should be, they decided that the decision that they decided to decide upon should be some sort of solution. Pastor Grubblethwicke (Pastor and Grubblethwicke) was the first to speak up, although his suggestion that they should get a boat to Africa, put a few black people on their, and bring them over here, was pretty much universally declined on the grounds it was ‘a little off’. Instead, after a quick break for vegetable samosas, they all eventually agreed that the only way they could encourage a more multicultural society in Winstontin-over-Nethergate for their children to grow old and prosper in, would be if they were to make the village a more welcoming place for our brothers and sisters of the World to call their home. How many times, wondered Sarah Foulston, have families of Caribbean descent or of Indian descent considered placing their hat in our village, only to be intimidated by our middle-England, antiquated, one-track way of living? The rest of the Community Centre looked on with admiration, wondering if a more cutting and rousing rhetoric question had ever been uttered. As Sarah continued her speech, animatedly imploring the congregation to stop being scared, and embrace modern British society, a lot of the people listening thought of Martin Luther King and, in thinking that, were immediately pleased with the progress they were already making. Jennifer Sodden thought about Clive Anderson, but she couldn’t work out why, so never told anyone.
In a matter of days Winstontin-over-Nethergate had turned itself into a multicultural dream worthy of a Benetton commercial, ensuring that not one of the village’s non-existent ethnic-minorities would ever feel intimidated or discriminated against. A synagogue was swiftly cobbled together using spare tires and the foil from the inside of packets of fruit Polos to satisfy the Jewish community, Jeremy Jiggles constructed a rudimentary minaret out of a collapsed fence post and a Tupperware tub, and by affixing it to his shed and adding a tin of gold paint, he had created Winstontin-over-Nethergate’s first ever Mosque, sure to appease Muslim immigrants. No one in the village was entirely sure where it was that Sikhs and Hindus worshipped, despite an extensive Wikipedia search, so it was decided that the best idea would be to hang a sign reading ‘Sikhs and Hindus welcome’ onto the empty house on Rosemary Road, and just hope that the Sikhs and Hindus themselves would do it up as they saw fit.
A quick Google search on ‘black culture’ inspired William Faulks to add pristine vinyl copies of ‘Straight out the Jungle’ by Jungle Brothers, ‘Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em’ by MC Hammer and a second hand copy of Roland Rat’s ‘Rat Rapping’ single to the music section in his shop. He was assured that the village’s hypothetical black population would find the titles more becoming than the others on offer, namely ‘Bat Out of Hell II’, four copies of ‘Brothers in Arms’ and the first three Chicago albums. In another choreographed blow to monoculturalism, William Faulks heroically ditched many of his store’s parochial English foodstuffs and replaced it with more exotic and well-travelled goods, so that no person should ever feel out of place there. Out went the chicken tikkas, the pizzas and the wasabi sauces; in came gulab jamon, jerk chicken and a strange Slovakian dish that looked like a large turnip on a unicycle.
In lieu of a cinema in which to screen Bollywood films to make the village’s Indian population feel right at home, they instead set up a 24” screen television in Jennifer Sodden’s open plan shed, and started screening a VHS of East is East up to six times a day. They had hoped to appeal to the village’s Jamaican society with a screening of Jimmy Cliff’s The Harder They Come but, realising that no one in the village had a copy, thought that the crab in The Little Mermaid that sounded a bit Rastafarian would be a fair substitute.
Then, a good eight days into Winstontin-over-Nethergate’s 21st century revolution, Graham Grahams woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. My God, he thought, what about the gays?!
An emergency village meeting was swiftly arranged first thing the next morning, and The Winstontin-over-Nethergate Gay Society was formed, before, after a show of hands, being renamed The Winstontin-over-Nethergate Gay and Lesbian Society and then swiftly, after a challenge from the floor, being rethought out and recreated as The Winstontin-over-Nethergate Gay and Lesbian and Bisexual Society, before finally, after countless votes, two fifteen minute and one half hour break (the entertainment this time being Barbara Bunk’s son Barry impressing the hall with his belly dancing), the meeting finally settled on The Winstontin-over-Nethergate Gay and Lesbian and Bisexual and Transsexual and Transgender and Hermaphrodite Society. Or WONGALABATATAHS for short. The village Post Office was thereby pronounced ‘camp’, Jennifer Sodden announced Thursday nights at the Craggy Queen’s Knee would now be named G*A*Y and that the babbling brook at the bottom of the cow field would probably be the best area for cruising.
And then they waited…
After a debate that raged long into the late afternoon, stopping only for two fifteen minute potato salad breaks, it became clear that the only reason that Winstontin-over-Nethergate didn’t have thriving Caribbean, Muslim, Hindi, Eastern European and Sikh communities living side-by-side in multi-cultural bliss was that they were all, to a man, unintentionally, unknowingly racist, and that their community had inadvertently set itself apart as a cauldron of seething institutionalised racism that they were the resentful child pulling at Britain’s hemlocks as the country attempts to enter the 21st century. They realised that they were the ‘middle-England’ The Guardian was always talking about, and they all suddenly felt sick. No wonder, mused Celina Cinder (expressive dance instructor), that people generally prefer to go to London.
After a half hour interlude with entertainment, which consisted of Fauntleroy Grimms-Tyncer-Framminthorpe slapping the backs of his calves rhythmically to ‘Baby I Love Your Way’ by Big Mountain, it was eventually decided that a decision should be made, and after another hour of deciding what that decision should be, they decided that the decision that they decided to decide upon should be some sort of solution. Pastor Grubblethwicke (Pastor and Grubblethwicke) was the first to speak up, although his suggestion that they should get a boat to Africa, put a few black people on their, and bring them over here, was pretty much universally declined on the grounds it was ‘a little off’. Instead, after a quick break for vegetable samosas, they all eventually agreed that the only way they could encourage a more multicultural society in Winstontin-over-Nethergate for their children to grow old and prosper in, would be if they were to make the village a more welcoming place for our brothers and sisters of the World to call their home. How many times, wondered Sarah Foulston, have families of Caribbean descent or of Indian descent considered placing their hat in our village, only to be intimidated by our middle-England, antiquated, one-track way of living? The rest of the Community Centre looked on with admiration, wondering if a more cutting and rousing rhetoric question had ever been uttered. As Sarah continued her speech, animatedly imploring the congregation to stop being scared, and embrace modern British society, a lot of the people listening thought of Martin Luther King and, in thinking that, were immediately pleased with the progress they were already making. Jennifer Sodden thought about Clive Anderson, but she couldn’t work out why, so never told anyone.
In a matter of days Winstontin-over-Nethergate had turned itself into a multicultural dream worthy of a Benetton commercial, ensuring that not one of the village’s non-existent ethnic-minorities would ever feel intimidated or discriminated against. A synagogue was swiftly cobbled together using spare tires and the foil from the inside of packets of fruit Polos to satisfy the Jewish community, Jeremy Jiggles constructed a rudimentary minaret out of a collapsed fence post and a Tupperware tub, and by affixing it to his shed and adding a tin of gold paint, he had created Winstontin-over-Nethergate’s first ever Mosque, sure to appease Muslim immigrants. No one in the village was entirely sure where it was that Sikhs and Hindus worshipped, despite an extensive Wikipedia search, so it was decided that the best idea would be to hang a sign reading ‘Sikhs and Hindus welcome’ onto the empty house on Rosemary Road, and just hope that the Sikhs and Hindus themselves would do it up as they saw fit.
A quick Google search on ‘black culture’ inspired William Faulks to add pristine vinyl copies of ‘Straight out the Jungle’ by Jungle Brothers, ‘Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em’ by MC Hammer and a second hand copy of Roland Rat’s ‘Rat Rapping’ single to the music section in his shop. He was assured that the village’s hypothetical black population would find the titles more becoming than the others on offer, namely ‘Bat Out of Hell II’, four copies of ‘Brothers in Arms’ and the first three Chicago albums. In another choreographed blow to monoculturalism, William Faulks heroically ditched many of his store’s parochial English foodstuffs and replaced it with more exotic and well-travelled goods, so that no person should ever feel out of place there. Out went the chicken tikkas, the pizzas and the wasabi sauces; in came gulab jamon, jerk chicken and a strange Slovakian dish that looked like a large turnip on a unicycle.
In lieu of a cinema in which to screen Bollywood films to make the village’s Indian population feel right at home, they instead set up a 24” screen television in Jennifer Sodden’s open plan shed, and started screening a VHS of East is East up to six times a day. They had hoped to appeal to the village’s Jamaican society with a screening of Jimmy Cliff’s The Harder They Come but, realising that no one in the village had a copy, thought that the crab in The Little Mermaid that sounded a bit Rastafarian would be a fair substitute.
Then, a good eight days into Winstontin-over-Nethergate’s 21st century revolution, Graham Grahams woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. My God, he thought, what about the gays?!
An emergency village meeting was swiftly arranged first thing the next morning, and The Winstontin-over-Nethergate Gay Society was formed, before, after a show of hands, being renamed The Winstontin-over-Nethergate Gay and Lesbian Society and then swiftly, after a challenge from the floor, being rethought out and recreated as The Winstontin-over-Nethergate Gay and Lesbian and Bisexual Society, before finally, after countless votes, two fifteen minute and one half hour break (the entertainment this time being Barbara Bunk’s son Barry impressing the hall with his belly dancing), the meeting finally settled on The Winstontin-over-Nethergate Gay and Lesbian and Bisexual and Transsexual and Transgender and Hermaphrodite Society. Or WONGALABATATAHS for short. The village Post Office was thereby pronounced ‘camp’, Jennifer Sodden announced Thursday nights at the Craggy Queen’s Knee would now be named G*A*Y and that the babbling brook at the bottom of the cow field would probably be the best area for cruising.
And then they waited…
