I was just consulting Sreve Roud's new book, The English Year, about a completely different calendar custom, and happened upon the reference to Padstow.

He draws a very defnite link between mistrelsy and Padstow Darkie Day. He cites photographs circa 1900 of revellers in full minstrel guise, and of course discusses the songs that derived directly from minstrelsy, but i believe these have now been phased out...?

I'm not saying that this contravenes what Cat has said, but perhaps the fact that Darkie Day DID, for a significant period of its history, become entwined with the minstrelsy customs in Britain, needs to be acknowledged when discussing this (and other similar) traditions.

And it makes me ask once again: would you be happy to show Black-British or Asian-British children these pictures to familiarise them with the traditional heritage of this country, and happily defend the fact that people STILL black up as part of this tradition, but, well, it's kind of different now because at least they've stopped wearing the wigs and changed the name...?