Re-enactment and Me

Hannah Branfoot

Arion House L6th Form Dolphin Editorial Team

In the summer of 2019, I was boarding on the weekend when I got a text from my Housemistress saying that I should go to Sexey’s Hospital, as she believed that I would enjoy what was going on there. So I went down and saw that there was a Civil War reenactment going on.

I watched one of their displays and I thought the drums they used were interesting and the rhythms they played were deliberately memorable, and so when they all went back to their camp I went around and talked to the musicians while my friend (Grace) went and tried on the Armour. The reenactors enthusiastically let me play the drum, and when they found out that I was a flute player they asked if I could play their fife as it is the instrument that seems to stump almost every musician they have. When they saw that I could play it, whilst not knowing any tunes (yet), I was asked what I was doing next weekend, which just so happened to be the half-term and I was invited to be part of the re-enactment team. I agreed to do this, and the next week I was given clothes and instructions on how to play the drum and a business card so that I would know when the next events were coming up.

Since then, I have attended 3 other events, as Covid stopped last season, and some of my highlights have been enjoying the food of the era. The worse the food looks the tastier it will end up being. My favourites have been syllabub, a sherry based cream dessert usually reserved for Officers, and apple and cream stew, which we commonly refer to as cement, due it having the exact same texture and colour as wet cement but tasting of heaven. It is generally considered a good idea to hang around the kitchens throughout the day and helping where you can, thus getting first dibs on any food and also getting priority of the leftover Officers food.

I was given a beautiful green doublet (formal coat usually used at banquets) by my mentor (a man generally considered the head drummer of all regiments) on my 3rd event, as I was the only musician it fit and just so happened to be taking a nap when he brought it over. To go alongside this, spending multiple hours learning drum calls and tunes in big groups and learning that if you can count to 4, understand when to do a ‘dee dum’ and silly ditties to learn it better, sitting in tents learning one fife line at a time, and they are supportive despite you getting two tunes mixed up ten times over.

On my 4th event due to an abnormal overabundance of drummers, I joined the artillery squad on the end of season event, and I had the pleasure to fire a canon. I learnt the different historical methods and reasoning for certain things, and managed to get out of the initiation ritual, which usually involves sending a unsuspecting newbie to stand at the back of the canon as it being cleaned out at the end of the day and covering them in soot, gunpowder and water.

Overall, it has been a great experience both in camp when everyone has left and we are all sat around half in modern clothes half not, singing folk tunes and chatting, but also being a part of skirmishes, helping to command the troops, shouting historically accurate insults, and being a part of a big chorus of people shouting at the top their lungs ‘God Save The King!’