Written by Angela Harvey. Pictures by Paul Harvey

Fun and Games on the Playing Field
8th September 2013
Although the afternoon started badly with a heavy downpour, soon the clouds moved away and we had a fine afternoon. We had the usual games – volley ball, boules, crazy croquet, quoits, table tennis – we also had the “Tour de Chance”, new for this year.  This consisted of a timed cycle trial beside the wildflower meadow, up into Sandy’s Wood, round the bench and back to the start line.

Fred Brenchley was the starter and Denise saw fair play at the bench.  There was fierce competition for the yellow jersey (a high-viz vest!) in the adults and juniors classes.  The fastest man (even on a borrowed bike) was Nick Makin.   Becky Uttley won the  ladies’ class with a fantastic time of 0.57 seconds and her son, Jake, won the children’s class – to the frustration of his sister Daisy (she was only 1 second slower!).  They won French beer, French wine and Heroes chocolates in addition to handsome cups.

We only had two teams of Volley Ball Players but the game was hotly contested  – quite a challenge for the referee!


The Crazy Cross-Country Croquet was popular as usual – the children may have  been persuaded to take part by the offer of a chocolate sweetie at the end!  The Jackson family managed to secure the big prizes including a whole box of sweets and a bottle of wine.

Paul Harvey - Chief Architect of our Annual Event

We didn’t have as many table tennis players this year but several people had  “friendly” games.  The quoits proved quite a challenge as could be seen from the concentration on the players faces!

We had the traditional sumptuous feast at tea time with sandwiches, cream  scones, shortbread, teabread, lemon, marble and fruit cakes.  All were much  enjoyed. We didn’t have a very large turnout from village residents (only 25) but numbers were swelled by visitors and old friends of Little Bedwyn.  We  cancelled the barbecue as there were not many takers (I think we were all too full after tea).