Cheese Rolling Painting

Cheese rolling has taken place at Coopers Hill on the Cotswold escarpment between Gloucester and Cheltenham on Spring Bank Holiday Monday for generations. The event is known to be at least 200 years old. A double Gloucester cheese decorated with red and blue ribbon is thrown down the hill and people chase after it, the first to the bottom of the two hundred-metre slope wins the cheese. The reputation of the event locally is that it is wild, dangerous and exciting. The slope has a gradient of 1-in-1 in places, its surface is rough and uneven and it is almost impossible to remain on foot for the descent. In my painting you can just make out the Malvern Hills away in the distance. Gloucester Cheese rolling has become world famous and when I watched it in 2009 there was a crowd estimated to be about 20,000. The excitement of the event is heightened by the fact that there are few measures in place to ensure the safety of the spectators who watch perched precariously at the sides of the slope. I know many people who have taken part in the race and lived to tell the tale. I remember as a child watching Sir David Attenborough's famous programme about the sky-divers of New Guinea who jump from high wooden towers and are saved from death only by vine ropes tied to their ankles. The programme seemed so exotic and remote. It never occurred to me that anything as daring was happening on my doorstep. But here in Gloucestershire the annual Cheese Rolling is just as crazy and dangerous and does the same thing, giving young people the chance to demonstrate their prowess and courage. It is a rare sight to see someone flying and it was the pose of the central figure in mid flight, looking as though he is about to zoom out across the landscape beyond the hill that excited me. The extreme poses of the figures and dramatic contrasts of scale hopefully communicate visually some of the drama, excitement and raw energy of this slightly crazy but wonderful event.