Posted on 12/01/2008 2:13:42 PM PST by yankeedame
A market town's 400-year-old Christmas custom of firing muskets into the sky has been banned because of fears the noise will scare children.
Wimborne's militia will no longer be able to re-enact the traditionof firing
over the Christmas tree Photo: BNPS
Wimborne council in Dorset has told the town's Militia, which re-enacts traditions dating back to the 17th century, that it can no longer fire muskets over the Christmas tree.
The council said the noise of the blank shots would be too loud for children and would keep families away from the annual event to mark the switching on of the lights.
But members of the Militia said the council was "mollycoddling" children.
The town crier, Chris Brown, a member of the Militia, which performs in 17th century dress, said the ritual of scaring spirits from the town's Christmas tree "added a bit of pomp, colour and history to the ceremony and makes us special and almost unique from any other town in the country".
He added: "Being told we cannot do it because it might scare children is very sad and almost a bit daft....
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
He added: "Being told we cannot do it because it might scare children is very sad and almost a bit daft....
almost a bit -> completely bloody
I’m just impressed they could get a 400 year old gun to fire in the first place. Is is ok to fire younger guns?
Want to really scare the children. Take them to the Muslim part of your country. You know the place where the police do not even go.
Sounds like a case for 400 years worth of reparations to traumatized children to me...
I agree with you & if this custom has been done for 400 yrs & the past children have be fine with it, why the ban now?
I’d be even more impressed with a 400 year old tradition of turning on the lights. Keeping it up for the first 270 years without electricity and pointlessly flipping a switch goes beyond persistence to pigheadedness.
Wrong as he may be on many things, King was dead on on with his musings in this area.
File under "stopped clock" or "blind pig."
I wonder what the children thought when the Germans launched V-1 and V-2 bombs at London during WWII. Those things made a great big boom.
Over the 400 years and countless generations, how many were truly scared when the little guns went pop?
“Keeping it up for the first 270 years without electricity and pointlessly flipping a switch goes beyond persistence to pigheadedness.”
They probably needed those 270 years to get the children prepared so they wouldn’t be startled.
This is clearly not the generation of council members who were "coast listeners"those who listened for the sounds of Luftwaffe bombers approaching Britain.
That sound would be far more fearful than blanks at a prescribed time.
wussification of western civilization ping
The U.S. does not have the exclusive on stupidity.
IEDs were going off for decades in the UK. Something, sadly, that the UK populace is very well aware of. Certain mis-guided elements of the U.S. populace provided money to finance those terrorists.
My British expat wife is gonna love this :-)
Oh Lord....
What has happened to that once great country? Why do they want to continue to relinquish their tradition?
The children better get used to clitorectomies.
City council to milita - Today’s children are retarded compared to children 400 years ago.
Morons
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