Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

by Helen Mae - 21:39

This weekend was an arts festival in my city. It has happened every year for about the past four or so years, and features music, dance, comedy and lots of street theatre performances. I'd be hard pressed to choose a favourite event from the weekend but there was a jive party on Friday featuring King Pleasure and the Biscuit Boys.

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There were lots of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, some of whom could swing dance in a very impressive manner. Unfortunately as it was absolutely freezing, my own outfit was covered by a coat (must invest in a more appropriate one at some point, but at least I was kept slightly warmer than I otherwise would have been). I did learn how to do the Charleston Stroll though, which I'm pleased to say I'll now be able to join in with the next time it gets busted out at one of the reenactment events.

The events on Saturday took place during the day and fortunately the weather was a bit warmer.. my eye had been drawn to one of the events in particular, "Flights of Fancy" which featured a wonderful contraption called a "Flycycle".

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The instructions said to dress to impress, so naturally I cobbled together an appropriately eccentric pilot's outfit:

The goggles are handmade and I'm actually rather proud of them! I took some inspiration from this post on Tea with the Vintage Baroness and also from The Painted Woman's post on Aviatrix Style in Life and Fiction.

Although I got one or two of my own photos of the Flycycle (and gave the pilot a cheeky salute, which he returned), I didn't actually manage to get a photo of myself with it.

There was a long queue of children waiting to have a ride and unfortunately we needed to leave to get to another event.

As well as the flying bicycle (which didn't actually fly, more's the pity) there was a "Submercycle" - a bicycle powered submarine. I was grabbed by the hostess for a ride whilst I was taking a few photos of it as she said I was dressed for the part.

We were driven a little way around the streets and encouraged to use the periscope and operate the propellers whilst the captain (pilot?) kept up an amusing commentary, asking passers-by for directions and making up poetry.

There was a little walk-round tour of a bit of the city centre given by a theatre group with actors representing William Shakespeare and Charlie Chaplain amongst others.

Action shot! Taken at the end of the Charlie Chaplain silent movie part of the tour.

There were a few other mobile acts that were moving around the city throughout the day. Musical Ruth the Singing Nun has been a recurring act at a few of the arts festivals and there was a gorgeous steampunk robot named Albot which played music and extended in height.

Musical Ruth

Albot the Robot.

Finally, I was utterly humiliated by being press-ganged into one of the acts as a volunteer. Everyone else seemed to enjoy watching me beat a German with a leek though (???), so all was well.