From the Darlington & Stockton Times of July 2, 1921

PUBLIC opprobrium for Matt Hancock and his buttock-clinching antics has forced the former Health Secretary out of office, but he is lucky to be caught philandering in such understanding times. If he had transgressed 150 years ago, he would have had the Stang ridden against him.

Local people would have gathered outside his door at night and, well lubricated, they would have made a racket, banging on pots and pans, shouting rude poems, letting off fireworks and perhaps burning an effigy of him. It was all designed to publicly humiliate him – and to give other residents an excuse to have a drunken riot.

We last touched on this custom in early 2018 when we found that the Stang had been ridden in Richmond, Ripon, Teesdale, Arkengarthdale, Northallerton and Shildon although, disappointingly, the custom faded away as the 19th Century wore on.

Writing in the D&S Times 100 years ago, Major John Fairfax-Blakeborough – a legendary country columnist who wrote for the paper for 54 years – told of a Stang-riding that took place in Bedale, where they had a special rhyme for such an occasion:

“I tinkle, I tinkle, I tinkle tang

It’s neither for your part nor my part

That I ride the Stang

But for one Matt Hancock who his wife did bang”

The name “Matt Hancock” appears in the last line for illustrative purposes only, and that line means nothing more than he had shamed his wife.

Maj Fairfax-Blakeborough quotes a contemporary record of a mammoth Stang-riding session that started on Monday, August 16, 1808.

“There was a great hubbleshoo these last three nights through the riding of the Stang against old “Labberlip”, of Aiskew, his scandalous debaucheries being long well known to all the neighbours,” says the record, which saves the modesty of the adulterer by giving him a nickname.

“In Leeming, Aiskew and Bedale was the cart dragged with the effigy of old Labberlip tied to the Stang-pole, which was set alight to afront of his cottage.

“He was fetched forth and made for to forfeit the price of a flagon of ale to drink his better behaviour in.”

So not only was Labberlip ridiculed for his unacceptable antics but he had to pay for the beer which fuelled the whole hubbleshoo.