Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Weird England: Tar Bar'l

Tar Bar'l

Weird England

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Weird England, Tar Bar'lClose menu

Novelist Naomi Booth is drawn to the fiery energy of Allendale’s New Year festivities.

Novelist Naomi Booth remembers the icy cold of childhood Northumberland holidays, but is strangely drawn to the fiery energy of Allendale’s New Year’s Eve festivities.

In this series of Essays, we usher you into a secret world of hidden folklore. Five young writers explore the odder, darker corners of English tradition: this is not an England of bluetits, roses and white cliffs, nor of country lanes and thatched cottages, but an invitation into a compendium of bizarre and sometimes creepy rural rituals. 

Each writer lives or has lived in the area. Their impression of the event stirs childhood memories, fires new convictions, deepens an understanding of ritual and reveals the awkward transposition of ancient ceremonies in contemporary life. In the final essay, the Japanese poet Lila Matsumoto takes her visiting parents to a Staffordshire horn dance. 

This series attempts to hear younger witnesses writing for the times in which we live: dispatches on Englishness from the weird frontline.

1.	Tar Bar’l

On New Year’s Eve in Allendale, Northumberland a group of men heave barrels of burning tar, kindling and paraffin onto their heads and process through the town. This is a programme devoted to the appeal of fire and flame. This is the Tar Barl Festival, Allendale’s way of marking the New Year for over 160 years. Groups of ‘guisers’ dress in costumes (‘guises’) and carry the fiery barrels on their heads. Novelist Naomi Booth presents. Naomi lives in Yorkshire, but remembers the icy cold of childhood Northumberland holidays. She finds herself strangely drawn to the fiery energy at the heart of Allendale’s New Year’s Eve festivities.

The Essay: Weird England

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Five writers explore the odder, darker corners of English tradition.

Five writers explore the odder, darker corners of English tradition, ushering you into a secret world of hidden folklore.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Essay

Weird England

Tar Bar'l

Genres

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3