A St. Shott's Mummering Ordeal

A St. Shott’s Mummering Ordeal

Submitted by: kennet

255 Views | 1 Likes

While home on Christmas leave from the Army in 1983, a few friend’s and I decided to pay my sister Cee a visit in St. Shott’s, where mummering was still very much in vogue. Cee, as everyone in the community knows, is always up for a bit of fun.

She was dressed as a man — pillows stuffed in her stomach and backside, a black ball cap, and a pillowcase over her head. I forget exactly what the rest of us were wearing, but pillowcases were definitely involved.

Things took a turn for the rough when we reached Cee’s sister‑in‑law Regina’s place. A few teenage girls from St. Shott’s were visiting, and they decided they were going to unmask me. They knocked me down like the men who bound down Gulliver, tore the pillowcase off my head, and you should’ve seen their faces — pure shock. They didn’t know me from Adam. They thought I was one of the local boys.

Safe to say I’ve recovered from that ordeal now.

Funny enough I was chatting today with a fellow whose parents grew up in Windsor–Grand Falls — a Mister Edey. He said his father, who’d been in the military, once had people out West thinking he was in the KKK because he kept a white mummering hood hung on his wall. He also told me the Mummer Song video was filmed at his relatives’ house — the Fianders.

I once heard the Late Ron Hynes say in an interview that he needed a visit from someone before he could write a song. That holds true for these little yarns too — hard to get inspired if I never stir out of the house.

I met Ron back in ’76 when he played bass for a gig in Cape Broyle with the Trepassey Band. The boys let me tag along. It was over the Christmas holidays, and Ron was minding the house for his parents in Ferryland. It was shortly after the first WGB record came out with Sonny’s Dream on it. I remember Ron had gotten a new banjo for Christmas.

And really — what music‑loving Newfoundlander doesn’t love Sonny’s Dream?