In last week’s opinion column (You can’t eat tradition), Guy Harris put forward an eloquent argument that the proposed expenditure on new robes for the town councillors would be better spent on relieving hardship or operating toilets, and suggesting that the cost of maintaining our town’s traditions was unjustified during a cost of living crisis.
As Rye’s town crier and town sergeant, it is part of my role to defend and preserve the town’s traditions, history and civic ceremony; naturally I believe Guy to be mistaken in his viewpoint.
For a start, the notion that the money could be spent on hardship relief rather than robes is incorrect. The robes are proposed to be purchased from the town council’s capital reserves – funds set aside specifically for the purchase of capital assets. These funds cannot be used for revenue account items, such as donations to foodbanks or cleaning toilets.
Therefore it is not an either / or situation: if the robes are not purchased, those funds will simply be left unspent for now. The purchase of robes would not be taking money that could be better used for other purposes.
So should we purchase the robes now? After all, there will always be something better to spend the money on. The day will never come when need is completely eliminated from Rye, and the town council can sit back and think “What shall we spend all this lovely, excess money on? How about new robes?”
However, that does not mean that we should abolish our traditions and ceremonies and devote all funds to poor relief instead. By that argument, why should we waste pennies by throwing them out of a window, when we could put them in a charity pot?
The fact is, if we don’t replace the robes now, before they fall apart completely, the robe-wearing tradition is unlikely to ever be revived here.
The life of a town cannot be reduced to just the needs of its poorest inhabitants. Rye town council is already involved in many projects to relieve need in this town, and all councillors and staff work hard to that end.
Tradition is important – it is the heartbeat of our community, the thing which draws us together as a town, links us to our past and distinguishes us from neighbouring towns.
Guy will have noticed a difference between last Monday’s meeting, at which he spoke, and the April meeting in which he first raised the issue. April’s meeting was robed – the councillors all wore their robes and the mayor was preceded by the mace. Last Monday’s meeting was not robed – the councillors wore normal clothing and the mace was not paraded.
This is because, protocol-wise, the robes are important – they distinguish between standard administrative council meetings and more important meetings. The maces indicate that the council’s authority to make decisions for Rye comes from the crown; the robes likewise. Guy himself has previously commented that the robed meetings are “a splendid piece of theatre.”
Guy claims that the robes have no tourist value – but the events in which they are worn (Mayor-making, Remembrance Sunday, St George’s Day etc) do have tourist value, and the robes add to this. Without the train of robed councillors, the civic processions would be far less impressive or photogenic; they would just be a line of people in normal clothing.
I often take tourists up to the town hall attic, where the robes are kept, and they always express a keen interest in them (the councillors would be surprised, and possibly horrified, if they knew how many tourists had tried on their tricorns!).
The current robes – which are worn roughly 13 times a year – are looking very fragile and shabby, having been made a century ago, and long overdue for replacement. They could be placed in a museum or exhibition and used to raise money, once the councillors have replacements. Hastings Borough Council (despite that town’s poverty and the council’s reputation for ‘progressive politics’) replaced their councillors’ robes in recent years, even though their robes are worn far less frequently than in Rye; their new robes are a very splendid burgundy and blue colour. Rye’s robes are extremely shabby by comparison.
The cost may seem excessive, but as Richard, our town clerk, commented, these are not academic gowns, they are councillors’ robes, which need to be of a certain design, be waterproof and be durable enough to last another hundred years.
Relief of hardship and the maintenance of our traditions are not mutually exclusive. Rye town council does both, and by maintaining our traditions it ensures that our town is a bonded community with a heart rather than just a collection of people who happen to live here.
