Sunrakers Festival

An extract from the book 40 Humourous British Traditions

People from Wiltshire are known as Moonrakers. They used to keep their illicit alcohol in barrels and hide it underwater. They’d be seen by excise officers at night raking the barrels out of the water – when challenged they’d act stupid and say they were trying to rake the moon.

Not to be outdone, the people of Dorset thought they would like a nickname too and came up with the idea of calling themselves sunrakers. The problem was that no-one could come up with a plausible explanation for the expression. So was born the Dorchester Sunrakers festival.