Somebody suggested that stocks should be brought back in earnest for people who had had too much to drink the night before, but at the Fairtrade event on the Market Place it was more a chance to throw wet sponges at some well known Abingdon people.
Paul Townsend – Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce…
Heather Brown, of Choose Abingdon, answering a call from one of the town centre shops – after getting a dowsing.
Duncan Brown, last year’s Mayor, getting one right in the googles.
(More pictures of the Fairtrade event on the Market Place in a bit.)
Great fun to see last year’s mayor in the stocks again, having suffered the same fate as Mayor last year!
Did the current mayor and deputy also take part?
What’s the point of showing pictures from last year?
The pictures are from this year. You can tell by the scaffolding in the background.
I think the point is that Duncan Brown is the person who was mayor last year.
Those are not Stocks they are a Pillory.
Stocks go around your feet. A Pillory goes around your arms and head.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stocks
Any excuse to throw a sponge at Duncan Brown I guess!
Lots of pictures of the ‘ex mayor’ what about the current one?
I assume the mayor or deputy also took part. However, I did not spot either or them – did Backstreeter manage to get a photo?
…weather he/they did or didn’t is secondary. The ASSUMPTION is that they didn’t. Alas, there-in lays the problem…
I want to believe the mayor was there. I just didn’t see him..
I was only at the event for the first couple of hours, but it was my understanding that the Mayor was going to turn up at the event at some point, but had refused to be put in the pillory.
I wonder who owns the pillory?
Comment 8 by Doozer there is spot-on. There is a problem there alright.
There would be a problem if every mayor was expected to do everything that the one before him had. Or is this another so called tradition that was made up by the lib dems that we all need to get up in arms about now that the conservatives arent playing along?
True enough, Native, but I think there is a general expectation of activity level. I think whichever party the current mayor had come from there would be concerns on this front.
Serving simultaneously on three councils AND as mayor cannot be easy for the guy, and something has to give.
In which case he was possibly not the right choice.
Well, we may be being a bit premature in our judgement. As I have said, I was not there all day – perhaps the mayor did turn up and join in to do his bit in the pilory for charity.
But who did chose the mayor?
A quote from the Fair Trade page of http://www.abingdonchamber.co.uk
“We also had a set of stocks that members of the public were able to throw wet sponges at some well known Abingdon residents. Heather Brown from the Choose Abingdon Partnership, former Mayors Lesley Legg & Duncan Brown, and Chamber of Commerce President Paul Townsend all took part in the fundraising event.”
The PEOPLE
The mayor is elected by the town council. We do not have a directly elected mayor.
Oh yes we do. The mayor of Ock street is directly elected!
I stand corrected. I mean no disrespect to the esteemed mayor of Ock Street.