We’re all supposed to subscribe to this shit.
It happens every year:
“Don’t you want Montol to grow?”
“Have thought about sponsorship?”
“Would you be interested in a partnership?”
To be honest: not really.
We have thought about it – we are not complete morons or yokels thank you.
But asking around Team Montol, the answer seems to be the same:
love it and get very excited when hoards of people turn up but …
don’t want to lose that unique party atmosphere.
And we’re not for sale.
We would love to broaden and deepen participation.
But it’s not a numbers game – it’s about allowing, empowering and endorsing active participation.
Dilute the percentage of Poncy Arty Farty Types (and I’d include myself in that tribe), and all those nutjob neopagans (have to admit that as well) and particularly extend the age demographic emphatically downwards (again – have to declare an interest – sigh).
This is and must be Penzance at play, regardless of skin colour, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, origin or politics (up to a point).
Montol is not one of those events that was created to boost local businesses, though I’m glad that it does; to boost tourism, though I’m glad it does (except for Airbnb!).
We are not Hogmanay in Edinburgh, or Carnival in Rio or Venice for that matter – and most of us, I think, don’t want to be.
We are not a show performed behind fences to fee-paying customers and we are not performing monkeys – actually that’s not strictly true – sometimes we are but we are the organ grinder too or, at least they’re one of our friends.
We’re getting enquiries from local “institutions”, from food vendors all over the country, craft fair people and performers. But we have our own shops, cafes, restaurants and pubs, our own food stalls – why would we fill our streets with someone else’s stuff?
But you need to “wash your own face”, “stand on your own two feet”
– I don’t think schools and universities are there to make money, libraries and museums, even, to be honest, the small venues who keep music alive.
The Montol Tribe has been hugely generous through donations of money, resources and time – this year even more so and I’m sure will continue to support us.
But we are part of the intangible cultural heritage of Cornwall, and of Penwith in particular – we will still need support from Penzance Council, Feast and anyone else we can persuade – we’ll never be able to wash our own face but we will always provide a slightly grubby, rich and resonant cultural event to brighten the dark of the year for everyone here in Penwith. To embody and enact solidarity in the face of a system that would make us isolated individual consumers.
And … we’re big in Penzance … and that’s how we like it.
And we don’t want to break it.
Leave a Reply