Rogation was always a rather eccentric observance, but when
the Councillors abandoned their robes it made it less likely that they would
want to do anything corporate in public at all. Today I was talking to some of
the Council staff about what might happen at Christmas: last year Town Carols
was a very lacklustre affair in a municipal hall, so the churches would like to
revert to the civic occasion it was pre-Pandemic, gathering at the Market House
in the High Street and then processing down to the old parish church. The trouble
is that without their gear, the Councillors are just a bunch of people in suits,
not so much processing as ambling in a fundamentally unimpressive way. In an
increasingly secular world they might not care that much about Christmas, but
then we have events such as the Jubilee and the Accession Proclamation last
year, and rare though they are, our elected representatives certainly care
about those.
And I think it’s their role precisely as representatives which is relevant here. The councillors aren’t only technocratic managers of a local authority, elected to carry through a particular set of policies: they also, by appearing en masse at a few very formal occasions, show what a community thinks is important, and some kind of distinctive dress would seem to be an element in that. It says, This group of people aren’t just a random rattle-bag of individuals, they have a role, and a relationship with you, the electors and onlookers. You might just be able to think of other folk in fancy dress to whom similar statements might apply.
