Celebrations and entertainment were always important in Diegem. In 1877 the municipality held a festival with silver medals for the participating clubs of darts, target shooting and skittles. In 1889, after complaints, the council banned organs and orchestrions at dances, except in public halls. Each year the aldermen fixed dates for the winter balls, district by district: around the Stone Cross, the Kerkstraat, the Hoek and the Lo. In 1900 there was still a guild of Saint Sebastian (archers), and in 1933 even ‘cannon thunder’ at weddings was banned. When the district commissioner asked in 1924 for festivities and processions ‘in defence of the Belgian franc’, the aldermen did not follow up.
A thriving club life
Clubs sprang up like mushrooms: the pigeon club ‘De Hoop’ (1878), a first cycling club (1893), the mutual aid society ‘De Volksbond’ (recognised in 1898), a socialist branch (1912), veterans' associations after 1918, drama clubs such as ‘Rust roest’, ‘Vermaak na Arbeid’ and the drama sections of the brass bands, sports clubs such as Star Diegem and the handball club ‘De Verstotelingen’ of Diegem-Hoek, and later Chiro, KWB, KAV and the Davidsfonds. In 1960 the Saint Anne fair in the Broekstraat was revived.
From 1923 the municipality gave 75 francs to drama clubs performing plays ‘of an educational and moral nature’, on condition that they sent the script to an alderman three weeks in advance. In 1924 this went wrong: the script of ‘The Man in the Iron Mask’ went via the rural policeman to an alderman and back, but never reached the mayor. The club missed its subsidy, and the aldermen afterwards paid compensation for the lost script.