Page 28 - JPGS Magazine

Who threw that first tomato

that started the La Tomatina

festival? The reality is that no

one knows. According to the
most well-known version of the

story, during the festival of

‘Gigantes y Cabezudos’, locals

were looking to start something
to get some attention. They People gather in the village of

happened to come upon a Brockworth to run after a nine

vegetable cart nearby and pound wheel of Double
started hurling squishy Gloucester cheese down a steep

tomatoes. Innocent onlookers hill. Usually they take off the

got involved until the scene fences before starting the race
became a warzone of flying fruit. to prevent any damage if anyone

The people who started the crashes directly into the fence;

commotion had to repay the they check the site to see if there

tomato vendors, but that didn’t are any stones and other
stop the birth of a new tradition. dangerous objects that can
injure the competitors. Over the

years people have been
competing but the vast majority

have been seriously injured

caused by the steepness of the
hill.

The Cheese Rolling festival
takes place in Gloucestershire,

England, UK. It takes place on

the last day of May.

By Ikram Yusuf, Sabeeh Ahmed
and Amna Quraishi