Blewbury tuned into the national celebration with a fine turnout in the school playground on Platinum Sunday. As the village tucked into hog roast, Paul Wolff, David Long and Deirdre Cochrane took up their stations in Blewbury Croquet Club corner, nicely placed to capture passing trade between short tennis and the slide.
Paul Wolff cast a mandarin eye over his layout, safe in the knowledge that David Grinstead’s gazebo would protect it if the threatened rain fell. Susan Tilbrook explained the intricacies of toequet, a GC format game kicking footballs in primary colours through large plastic hoops, to groups of Salah wannabes. Meanwhile David demonstrated the bullseye approach to slotting 8 croquet balls into holes in a wooden board: ball into correctly coloured hole 10 points, incorrect hole 5 points. He claimed 40, but I can’t confirm….
Phil and Margot flew the South African flag with distinction in both disciplines, but the joint ball slot champions were William Elmore-Wickens, who’d demonstrated footballing expertise in toequet, and Ralph Smith, a father of two from Aston Tirrold. Both scored 35 points: each wins an intro session on the BCC courts.
Celebration standouts also included trout racing as part of an exhibit of local chalk stream habitat, glitter face painting, wood carving and archery. After the grand finale, a beefy tug of war, villagers drifted towards the church to see floral tributes to Her Majesty. For croquistas, there was only one winner: Susan’s flowers in patriotic colours set against a white hoop with red and blue balls. A fitting end to a splendid day.
