All the fun of the fete

It was my son’s school’s summer fete, and I forgot to send in the form to say ‘yes, I’d love to help out’.

Last year I was allocated a few hours selling tombola tickets. The year before that I was intrigued to receive a text asking me to man the ‘cool stall’ – and then looked a complete twit when I got there and confirmed my role, only to discover that ‘cool’ is predictive text for ‘book’.

I’d rather help out than not – you get to feel useful and you also have something to do when your child insists they want to stay for the whole four hours and you’ve already walked around every stall three times.

But if I had to have a memory lapse I picked a good year to do it.

The last two have seen the fete hurriedly transferred indoors amid torrential downpours and howling gales.

This year we had glorious sunshine.

The children got to run around outside and play football, the stallholders could catch a bit of sun while they raised funds, and the sales of ice cream must have gone through the roof.

Plus, the headteacher could barbecue without the added stress of trying to keep his sausages dry.

On this occasion, the children had an added reason for begging to stay until the bitter end – the staff were selling tickets for one lucky winner to have the privilege of gunging one of the teachers.

The kids were all terribly excited about this.

It got to the long-anticipated moment, and the teacher in question gamely sat down in the gunge tank to be covered in what looked to be a mix of cold custard and rice pudding (who’d be a primary school teacher?).

He then got his own back by chasing his pupils across the school field to get as much of the horrid mix as possible on as many of them as he could catch.

They were even more delighted by this than they were by the sight of him covered in goo in the first place.

It was all great fun.

There’s something irrepressibly and comfortingly English about a fete, and it’s a sign that summer’s really here – even if half the time it’s pouring down.

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