Sileby Festivals

Sileby Festivals

Sileby Festivals

Edith Gilbert recalls some of the main festivals celebrated in Sileby in the 1920s and 1930s.

East Midlands Oral History Archive

EMOHA

EMOHA

1986

Photograph courtesy of Sileby Villages. To use seek permission from https://www.sileby-village.co.uk/

You may use this item in accordance with the licence http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/uk/

.mp3

Oral History

1min 15sec

The biggest festival in Sileby used to be what we call the parade and it was on Whit Monday and it was a big gala and the streets used to be absolutely packed with people, and where I used to live, in Swan Street where I was born, was a very good vantage point really…The money that was raised went to the Leicester Royal Infirmary to buy a bed…it was a smashing day and then you’d go on to the ‘reccie’ at night, which was the park as they call it now, the ‘reccie’, and that were where it would be… That was just about the biggest festival day but the anniversaries were big days, the Sunday School anniversaries- two Methodists the church and the baptist and there would be big collections every service, morning, afternoon and night. The High Street Methodists was one Sunday, first Sunday in May, and the second Sunday in May was the King Street Methodists and it was a real battle to see who would get the most. I can remember my mum saying, ‘how much have they got? How much have they got?’…a murmur would go round and you could hear the ‘ooh’ even in chapel, they were so pleased because they’d got this little bit more than the Wesleyans had got.

J. Flawith

Edith Gilbert

Sileby, Leicestershire