By Simon Pipe

The World Cup and Jubilee have generated an amazing spirit among British people. But let's hear it for the local festival. A herd of stags, unicorns, two-legged elephants is poised to wander up our High Street this weekend, and for a while I seriously wondered whether anyone would notice.

We planned this year's hobby horse festival to avoid clashing with Wimbledon, only to learn that we'd be kicking off at the same time as the World Cup final instead - to the minute.

But it could have been much worse. Until last Friday it looked as though the score would be Football 10, Banbury Hobby Horse Festival nil.

Different breeds of hobby horse

Frankly, it was a relief when England fell to Brazil, not just because all human life would have stopped on the day of the final. But when you've got three dragons roaming the streets, the last thing you by way of obstruction are St George's flags.

And to think we used to worry that it would rain (it still might).

Certainly, you can't get much more escapist than a heard of strange beasts capering through the town centre, nearly all with the wrong number of legs.

It's going to be a busy weekend in Banbury. On Saturday we're expecting about 40 wondrous mock-animals from around the country, a couple of them around 100 years old.

Competitors in the four-man cockhorse race

The next day is the annual Town Mayor's Sunday, when the community can join in events such as a fancy dress competition for children on cockhorses. (We're calling it fancy dressage.)

There will also be teams of adults straddling outsized cockhorses and waddling at speed for un-athletic glory. Yes, it's supposed to look ridiculous - that's the great joy of it.

The Golden Jubilee and World Cup have generated an extraordinary spirit across the country, but let's hear it for local festival.

Horses venture on to the High Street

Even at the dawn of a new millennium, our love of local customs is as strong as it's been for decades. New "traditional" events are being created all the time.

Stratford has Shakespeare; Banbury has a rather twee nursery rhyme, but it's ours and it makes us famous.

There are actually several versions, not all of them whimsical. One reads:

Ride a cockhorse to Banbury Cross
To see an old woman get up on a horse
A ring on her finger, a bonnet of straw
The strangest old woman that ever you saw.

I have no idea how our Banbury festival started, but I fondly imagine a chap standing up in the pub a few hundred years ago and saying, "Hey lads, I've got a great idea.

'Riders' of all ages take part

"Why don't we put on funny clothes and wander round the fields with these antlers all day?"

When you see them, though, there's nothing remotely funny about it. It's just something they do and it looks magnificent.

But if England had made the final, I reckon we'd have dropped everything and watched. After all, 1966 is part of our heritage.

The hobby horse festival takes place at the same time next year. Organisers of major international events, please take note.