A Feast of Fun
"A Feast of Fun". That's what the national (well, local) press said. And so it was, as £978.60 passed through the tills.
The School Maypole Dancers were as good as we've seen and as good as the best. Dominic's Bowls had the usual keen following with the ladies being overwhelmingly better in the adult's part with Lorraine of the Red Lion winning the bottle of whisky in an exciting play off. A tall dark stranger won the "Bun on a String" competition and left the experienced Prior players rather open mouthed. As the stranger strode away into the sunset one heard the other competitors muttering "Who was that man?" Everything went very well - book selling, can throwing, lucky dipping, beer tenting etc, and if you ventured into the Tea Room it was filled with people of all ages enjoying what is universally accepted as the "Best Cream Tea" in East Anglia.
Amongst all the other activities the Egg Throwing Competition (thanks Martin) produced the usual number of "oohs", and "aahs" and squeals and claps as people caught, missed, or had egg splattered all over the face. An Australian (of course it would be!) said that "In Australia we use bricks". I'm not sure we are up to this but next year we might experiment with half bricks as these will be much easier for the twelve year olds to catch.
Should the Feast immediately follow on the Reach Fair? That's the current debate. I reckon that if this were put to the vote, and if every person turned out to vote, the result would be 49.5% one way and 50.5% the other. We shall see.
Meantime thanks to everyone for their help, including our new live band, and not forgetting Steve Lang who uncomplainingly and with great efficiency puts up the roadside signs for this and other events.
Our thanks to the Newmarket Journal for their kind permission to use the photograph of the bun-eating competition and to the Bougheys for those of the band and the maypole