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''The Cloggies, an Everyday Saga in the Life of Clog Dancing Folk'', was a long-running cartoon by
Bill Tidy that ran in the satirical magazine ''
Private Eye'' from 1967 to 1981, and later in ''
The Listener'' from 1985 to 1986. It gently satirised northern English male culture, and introduced a shocked nation to the scurrilous delights of
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly.
The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...
clog-dancing. This particular variation of the art involved two teams dancing towards each other in formation, followed by each attempting to cripple their opponents with gracefully executed knee and foot moves. Thus the ''Forward Sir Percy'', a synchronized low-level knee attack, the ''Double Arkwright wi' Ankle Lever'', the ''Heckmondwycke with Reverse Spin'' and the ever controversial ''Triple Arkwright''. Other routines included the ''Half Arkwright with Groin Action'', the ''Erotic Elbow Drive'' and the match-winning ''Flying Arkwright'', performed to cries of, “Keep them knees stylish!”
The team
The Cloggies were undisputed champions of their ‘sport’, usually inflicting severe clog dance-related injuries on their opponents before repairing to the nearest
pub
A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...
. Their capacity for beer was legendary; their home venue, the Clog & Bells, Blagdon, where Doris the barmaid was always in a welcoming mood. There were also unorthodox activities involving the use of
ferrets.
The series lampooned contemporary British sports culture and introduced an entire sub-culture of fictitious dance leagues, a governing body for the sport of clog dancing (characterised as officious, bureaucratic, blazer-wearing, out-of-touch and based on
the Football Association
The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world a ...
), an idiosyncratic cast of sociopaths and a yearning for earlier, gentler days of greater respect (such as the famous ''Policeman on a White Bicycle''). As a reflection of the officious nature of league officials and umpires (who always seem to have it in for The Cloggies) the scoring system was deeply arcane and complex, with final scores such as 124.863 to 92
being recorded.
The team consisted of:
* Stan Postlethwaite (captain), later ennobled as Lord Stan of Blagdon
* Albert Postlethwaite (second boot, with his false teeth)
* Neville (third boot; trilby and glasses) (or Wilfrid, trilby, glasses and moustache)
* Arnold (fourth boot)
* Ted (fifth boot, with the grey socks)
* Wally (sixth boot, later deceased, replaced by Norman).
* Norman (bearded).
Other unsavoury local residents included Reginald ('Reg') Thrumper, the "Blagdon Amateur Rapist" and the unnamed 'Blagdon Groper and Nuisance'.
Origin
The sub-title, ''an Everyday Saga in the Life of Clog Dancing Folk'', parodied the subtitle to the long-running
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Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
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radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...
series, ''
The Archers
''The Archers'' is a BBC radio drama on BBC Radio 4, the corporation's main spoken-word channel. Broadcast since 1951, it was famously billed as "an everyday story of country folk" and is now promoted as "a contemporary drama in a rural sett ...
'', which was subtitled ''an Everyday Story of Country Folk''.
Three retrospective collections of the cartoons were published between 1969 and 1977, with titles ''The Cloggies'' (1969), ''The Cloggies Dance Again'' (1973) and ''The Cloggies Are Back'' (1977).
Bill Tidy's inspiration for this series may have grown out of one of his cartoons in
Punch
Punch commonly refers to:
* Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist
* Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice
Punch may also refer to:
Places
* Pun ...
in the mid 1960s, where he parodied the funding objectives and credibility of the
Arts Council of Great Britain by illustrating a group of morris dancers in full costume gathered around a table outside a pub, on which is an enormous pile of empty beer glasses, with one of them asking "''Well lads, what are we going to do wi' rest of Arts Council grant ?''"
Final triumph
In one series of cartoons, the Cloggies were selected to represent Great Britain in the 1966 International Folk Dance Festival, beating the USSR in the final despite Wally’s double hernia, and returned victorious to Blagdon with the Gold Boot of Strichtenstein. They were persuaded to turn professional by their new manager, Morris ‘Zip’ Fassner (later Shufflebottom) and embarked on a world tour before once more returning to the Clog & Bells and rejoining their local league. Their opponents included The Bull & Veterinary Surgeon, The Rat & Goldfish, The Horse & Shovel, The Truss & Slagheap, The Fox & Pervert (a sly swipe at a current scandal and court case involving a leading artistocratic fox hunter with a penchant for sado-masochism), The Grunting Duck and Gridley’s Soap Works. In 1966, a strip showed the Cloggies winning the United Kingdom Drunk and Disorderly Shield.
The Cloggies of University Hall, Buckland
Inspiration
Although other dancers have more recently appropriated the name, The Cloggies originally took on a real life of their own in 1968 when a group of students at
University Hall, Buckland in Oxfordshire, became so inspired by the cartoon characters’ pub-oriented career that they formed their own squad. Photographs from the period show the team in the following order: Stan (Pete Metcalfe), Wally (Gwyn Ellis), Neville (John Barton), Arnold (Iain Murray), Ted (Andy Carr) and Albert (Al Guyver). The shady-looking character is the manager, Morris (Mike Fernie). Arthur (Nigel Brewis), was later named as reserve boot in case of injury or hangover. Bill Tidy personally wrote to the team to officially endorse and encourage them, delighted that “all those years spent labouring on Spam have produced a debased art form”.
Live performances
The Cloggies performed uninvited and to mixed receptions at several college discos, offering terrifying moves such as ''The Forward Lunge with Curse'', but their big breakthrough came when asked by producer Martin Pennock to take on the country-dancing roles in the closing scenes of John Milton’s ''
Comus
In Greek mythology, Comus (; grc, Κῶμος, ''Kōmos'') is the god of festivity, revels and nocturnal dalliances. He is a son and a cup-bearer of the god Dionysus. He was represented as a winged youth or a child-like satyr and represents ana ...
''. Buckland was the smallest ever college (120 students) to enter the ''Sunday Times'' / NUS Drama competition. The preliminary round took place at Lord Faringdon’s private theatre, whose stage was just wide enough to accommodate six Cloggies dancing abreast. As the play was about to start, the lights failed so everyone settled in the pub until the power-cut ended. The adjudicator seemed much more enthusiastic two hours and several pints later, but there was a serious delay in getting the Cloggies from the bar and back on stage. Their performance was hampered by a spread of fruit and milk underfoot from the previous orgy scene and most spectators felt it was a disaster.
Final triumph
Buckland was one of eight chosen from sixty universities and colleges to travel to Southampton University for the Student Drama Festival Finals in the winter of 1970/71. After sitting through several other productions, the audience went wild when the Cloggies hit the stage at the end of ''Comus''. The ''Southern Arts Review'' praised the ‘boisterous rustic dancing Cloggies’, while French radio covered the event, describing them as “un groupe de danseurs folkloriques” and playing a recording of them dancing to the strains of
Fairport Convention’s ''Lark in the Morning'' – the boots, the bells, the yells. Nicholas de Jongh, drama correspondent of ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', wrote that the play was ‘… degraded into a cheap grotesque pantomime’, adding that, ‘the late appearance from the dancing Cloggies underlined the cheapness of the conception.’
[''The Guardian'' 4 January 1971] This was seen by the lads as a complete vindication of all they had stood for.
The team’s swansong was as dancing shepherds in the British premiere of the medieval French fable ''
Aucassin and Nicolette
''Aucassin et Nicolette'' (12th or 13th century) is an anonymous medieval French fictional story. It is the unique example of a ''chantefable'', literally, a "sung story", a combination of prose and verse (similar to a ''prosimetrum'').
History ...
'', translated by Alex Kerr and produced by Pennock in the college grounds on 27 June 1971. The use of a full beer crate as a prop did not interfere with the narrative.
References
External links
Bill Tidy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cloggies, The
1967 comics debuts
1986 comics endings
Comics characters introduced in 1967
Fictional dancers
Satirical comics
Humor comics
British comic strips
Culture in Lancashire
British comics characters