Public Story
Tricolore and tartan
Deep in rural Aberdeenshire, Scotland lies the village of Monymusk (pop. 700).
Every spring the villagers clear the main square of cars, lay timber frames and gravel on the tarmac and hold a tournament of petanque. In costume. French themed team names and costumes prevail.
It’s a community day, a party where everyone’s invited and where the Presbyterian norms are inverted and camp frivolity rules. It’s also an expression of an outward-looking community. Scotland overwhelmingly voted to remain part of the EU. The Alliance between Scotland and France goes back centuries.
On this day in May, people could have been at home, watching a royal wedding on TV. Instead they were closer to Paris than to London revelling in a curious Tricolore / tartan carnival.
Spot the fakes.
I’m often drawn to subjects which display a subtle subversion or non-conformism. This petanque tournament was in it’s way a grass-roots expression of ‘bollocks’ to the distant authorities and their idiocies
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