So let me get this right....taking an orange and/or a packet of biscuits off Branscombe beach is equal to drowning a horse through malicious stupidity, or holding the heads of all horses concerned with the Appleby Fair under water because it's 'tradition' is it?

May be in your book, sure as hell ain't in mine though!


Greg...Yes you misunderstood my words.

Blowz..yes, you're right, of course it was said with humour. Sadly the ones who've followed me round for years have no humour. Nowt I can do about that though.

This thread is about the Appleby Horse Fair and whether it is 'A Tradition Too Far'

Once again, until the travellers themselves decide to change what happens, I think it should be stopped. It is one thing to take your horse to be washed each morning in the river, it is quite another to swim it out to deep water and put it's head underwater. That's cruelty pure and simple...and arrogance too, terrible arrogance!

"It is our right, as it is our tradition"

And having read numerous sites on it, the travellers/gypsies are the largest contingent of people there it would seem. They call themselves travellers, I call them that too, as that is what they choose to be called. Nothing 'racist' about that at all. Appleby is the largest gathering of travellers in this country and I'm sure they would thus regard it as 'their' fair, as in belonging to 'them'...

Why DOES English Folk Music go hand in hand with being as pedantic as some people seem to be in Mudcat? Answers on a VERY BIG postcard please. ;0)

Can't you just enjoy the music without nit-picking ALL the time? Can't you just read posts without dissecting every word, deciding that YOU and YOU ALONE know EXACTLY what the author of those words meant, when in actual fact you know sweet F&A about it...

However, I'll leave this thread now to those who think that to hold the head of a horse underwater is OK...That sickens me I'm afraid..and I for one won't ever go near Appleby Horse Fair.

Oh..and if anyone wants the number of the RSPCA, to complain, then it's 0870 5555999, and if you can get through, complain for me too would you, because I spent about 20 minutes trying to get past their crazy phone system, without any luck. I'll try again tomorrow.