Newsletter Number 76
October 2002
Editorial
All over again (at least for most of
us) and the next thing to look forward to is the Whitehall Parade at the end of
January. This in theory gives you plenty of time to dry out your coat, breeches,
shirt, tent etc before making yourself look pristine for the event that normally
gives us our biggest photo opportunity of the year. A large majority of us now
own authentic shoes, some of us are lucky (wealthy!) enough to have a couple of
pairs, if this is the your case would it be too much to ask to let somebody with
only poor old D.Bs borrow them for the duration of the march to give
us as big a proportion of authentic footwear as possible? Although at the time
of writing (03:57 hrs Sat 28th September, now that’s dedication)
nothing has been confirmed regarding the traditional Saturday night merriment
prior to the London Parade I can tell you that we do have various irons in the
fire, and hopefully we will have full details in the December newsletter. What
we will need however if things go to plan and an event comes off, is a good
attendance figure, this may help to ensure that a future booking at the location
is easier to negotiate. Naturally it will also make for a far better event.
Powderham and Corfe were huge credits
to their organisers, being blessed with good weather, good crowds, excellent
beer and for the most part good action! Congratulations and thanks should be
expressed to Martin and Grant for all the work involved for Powderham, with
similar feelings donated to Steve and Nichola for once again letting us into
their castle to play. We should also thank various other people for endeavouring
to make our lives much happier and drunker, namely Jenny, Lynne, Robin, Margaret
for working either in the kitchen or in the creation of the surprise party, or
more often than not ………both! The surprise party was of course a surprise
for the local love buds that ran off in September to Italy to tie the knot. Any
thoughts Erica had about the raising of the future chip-child would
probably have been dispelled by the elder Chips over exuberance in drill
exercises for the under 10s, but we shall see! Personally I didn’t see any
parent complain nor any child run out screaming and sobbing about the child
cruelty act, but at least we can take some comfort in the fact that in some
parts of deepest darkest Dorsetshire there are certain young people that
literally know the meaning of discipline, even though they are highly unlikely
ever to come out of their shells again for the next sixty years!
Letters and Articles
The second
in this occasional series, delving into the past fortunes of certain members
(past and present), divulging the truth as I saw it and correcting all blame
that was shoved in my direction.
Flookborough (1993ish)
Just in case
you don’t know, Flookborough is somewhere near Grange-Over-Sands which judging
by the length of train journey from London and scenery in between put it in ‘t
Northwest of England.
It didn’t
start off that great! I exited the train station and began what was likely to be
a two to three mile walk with a bloody heavy ruck-sack and very little idea in
which direction to go, although left looked more promising than right (which
looked very barren!). The very first vehicle that passed me by in the
same direction (this after about 5 minutes!) was the Angels’ Passion Wagon
otherwise known at the time as the Green Pea. I waved frantically as it darted
around the corner ahead of me, I saw the brake lights illuminate (there is a God
I thought) Oh! no there isn’t, it was just a set of traffic lights placed
strategically at a set of cross roads around the bend in order to wind me up,
because I saw The Green Pea pull away from me for the second time in as many
seconds, and the long long walk to the camp site was enforced.
It was a
large camp site and full of Steam Fire Engines, Tractors and all sorts of other
steam driven vehicles from when Georgie was a boy, plus thousands of other types
of displays such as dogs, bikes, cows, woman, horses and other edible things.
There was also a cleverly placed beer tent (clever because it wasn’t a million
miles from our camp site).
Obviously
upon hearing of my plight the Angles and the rest of the ensembled company were
only too sympathetic and offered me a pint, but only if we walked back up to the
pub at the crossroads! Failing to comprehend my answer we went to the beer tent
to await further membership of the ‘Where’s Flookborough Brigade’. At
some point when it was dark (but getting lighter) I put my tent up for a well
earned rest.
I remember
that Pete Angel had trouble getting into his armour (it was a long time ago
remember), so in order to help him in we laid him down sideways and then I
jumped on him until the clasps would just about fit together. Pete couldn’t
breathe but as we were late for the event it was decided to ignore this, we then
gave him an oak tree for a pike to cheer him up along with some excellent green
gloves, and a morion that was about twelve sizes to big! Later on in the day he
expressed his thanks to me and told me that if ever we were short of pikemen
again, we were to contact him and he would be only to happy to jump on a jet
somewhere……(at this point he started crying!)
That evening
(Sat) we did take a stroll to the pub two miles up the road, if I remember
rightly which is very unlikely, there were the Angles, Scrabby, Bryan (Milburn),
Julian (Voldemort), Bully, Mark Pitman and a few others. The pub proved very
popular at 80p a pint (or was it less?) and I have a vague recollection of a
lock in, although I can’t be sure of that either, it was a good night and we
promised to return the following day.
Which we
did, but the morning after, (traditionally the domain of hangover hill), we all
witnessed a sight that will stay for us for many a year.
Lord Victor
Scrabster was busy underneath his van trying to fix the alternator or something,
and you know what it’s like when you have to over extend yourself in order to
reach a nut, even though you’re laying down, you can still be off balance if
you don’t position yourself correctly. Well! Scrabby got himself into this
position under the van and was trying to rectify the situation when legendary
Hopton Dog ‘Merlin’ (a large black flat coated retriever) sensed and seized
the chance of a quick rogering and pounced on poor old helpless Scrabby for all
he was worth refusing point blank his masters squealing request for him to
kindly desist and was ‘at it’ for ages, ignoring the rapturous rounds of
applause he was receiving, and carrying on regardless until well and truly
satisfied with himself. The biggest cheer came from the blokes driving the steam
brewery van who stopped to have a look see at all the commotion.
Lunchtime we
took another wander down to the pub, on the way we met three youngish but
extraordinary ugly females sitting on the corner of a road painting their
toenails and doing the best impression possible of ‘Ladies of the
Night’. Naturally enough we (Bryan, Voldemort and myself) stopped to ask
for directions and to introduce ourselves to them. These unfortunate girls were
soon under the impression that Bryan was a ‘Blue Movie Maker’, Julian was
his Camera man with me on sound, and
before long we had these young femmes convinced we could do a movie with
them but only if they came back to the camp site in the evening. Unfortunately
for us they did and we spent the entire session in the beer tent frantically
trying to escape their clutches despite them being directed as to our
whereabouts by every other ‘helpful Hopton’ going. We did escape but only
because all three of them spied and descended on an unfortunate in a red coat
and dragged him off kicking and screaming into the night. Funnily enough I’ve
never seen him again. Good muster though!
Mars ‘our’ Triumph
Conceived
about nine years ago. Went into the planning stage shortly after. Made its East
End debut the following year to a largely apathetic audience. ‘Mars His
Triumph’ finally got what I think it deserved at Powderham with 32 Pike,
slightly fewer Musket, in front of an appreciative audience on the sunny August
Bank Holiday Monday.
In March
1993, sitting in a dripping tent at Mells with beer glasses scattered over the
table replicating soldiers (these later changed to scrabble pieces, chess
pieces, dominoes and marbles), four copies of ‘Barriffe’ opened at various
pages trying to work out frontages, distances, manoeuvres etc, never actually
thinking that it could be conceivable, but working relentlessly at it anyway.
I don’t think any of us (only two remain by the way) thought that it
would ever get as large or as dominant as Hopton’s drill procedure is today.
In the
intervening years the display has been criticised, modified, amplified and
finally disguised to such an extent that William Barriffe probably wouldn’t
recognise his work of undoubted art, not that every (bar one) manoeuvre we do
isn’t contained somewhere in the book. All the 24 postures for Pike and Musket
when done correctly are, as they were performed 350 years ago, by Lieutenants,
Captains and Majors of the day who were intrigued into the history of Greek and
Roman warfare.
Everybody
that has performed ‘Mars’ over these years deserves a big pat on the
back, especially the likes of Julian (instigator), Pete Angel
(coordinator/diplomat) and Bully (first draft) for without any of their
individual efforts it would have fallen flat at a very early hurdle, and we
would still be waddling around waiting for an Officer to make up drill as he
goes along, and that’s assuming he knew it! Technically you see, every Officer
could call out the commands of ‘Mars’ with maybe a few crib sheets in the
early stages. *I’ve done it, so has Martin and Dodge, and it’s probably true
to say that Pete deserves a rest should he ever want to, but to reiterate,
anybody could call out the commands.
Without
being too whimsical about the whole affair, it has been an ambition of ours to
see it on such a large scale, also to involve the other Oxford Companies and to
make sure that everybody enjoys the whole affair, doesn’t feel as if they are
intruding, intimidated or likely to be the scapegoats when (horror upon horror),
it all goes wrong. I was looking carefully at the other regimental members at
Powderham and I know that they were enjoying it, even though their concentration
levels were naturally higher than ours! When the four divisions ‘faced square
by division’ and marched, turned, then marched together again there were
appreciative nods from more than one member at how good this drill looks with
large numbers. But now we must improve again!
I think we
can improve this drill another 50% quite easily by regularly practising the
postures of the pike and musket. Whilst the Oxford Company in creation is a
necessary and excellent idea it has left gaps in individual regiments training
regimes, and this is certainly showing in the manoeuvring of the weapons. The
fact that we can no longer perform the third set of (pike) postures correctly is
testament to this.** Marching also needs to be addressed, especially with the
pikes at advanced. But this is nit picking at what was an excellent display that
has finally come to a sort of fruition, even though there are a lot of us out
there that know that it could and will be done even better.
Keep up the
good work; you never know what’s around the corner!
* This
article believe it or not was written prior to me making a continual faux pas of
Mars at Corfe. Pete you’re not having your rest!
** Yes I
know you did at Corfe Grant, please read above sentence again!!
Re-enactors Fare
The
re-enactors fare, traditionally held at Blackbird Lees Leisure Centre in Oxford,
has moved to pastures grandiosely new. This year the fare is to be held at the
Birmingham Exhibition Centre over the weekend of November 16th 17th.
Normally this wouldn’t have warranted an inclusion in such an esteemed
journal, but this year a concerted effort is being made by Paul Boreham to get
as large a gang of Hopton’s to the event as is humanly possible. He is willing
to hire a B and B or small hotel in our name so that overnight accommodation can
be as snug as possible; all he needs now are a few names and promises (the easy
bit!). If you are interested in attending contact Paul (asap) on 019436589476 to
book your place.
Hopton’s Fotopage
Most of you
have been unknowing victims to the new peril of the 21st century;
that of the digital camera, and most of you have been caught in action by me,
either at Powderham or Corfe. With this new fangled machine of mine I can upload
pictures onto the following site (………..) for you to squirm at in the
privacy of your own home. All you need is the () which is Lord Hopton and the
password which is april16 to view all the photos which I choose to upload, plus
some that I really shouldn’t of.
DB’s or DDB’s
No! not
another media format for you to read the newsletter by nor the latest in
hangover ailments but a simple scheme devised by non other than ‘Psycho’
Pete Sercombe to improve the life and more importantly the look of the humble
desert boot. Fed up with getting his feet soaked during the glorious English
summer, Psycho started thinking about waterproofing his outmoded old desert
boots (DB’s) and set about giving them a good old helping of dubbing taking
care to rub in especially carefully around the stitching and I so doing
unwittingly creating the doctored desert boot (DDB’S) as shown in glorious
monochrome below.
The look
after a just a few applications surprised him so much that he decided to do the
other shoe as well and to complete the effect he cut the shoe material just
above the bottom lace hole and around to the back stitching in order to make it
look as authentic a possible .
I’m sure
you’ll agree that whilst not the complete answer to our immediate authenticity
requirements it does look a whole lot better than shiny desert boots direct from
Clarks, and certainly better than trainers or hobnails. I think this should now
become the new ‘entry level standard’ for all new recruits and also for
those that stubbornly refuse to leave the old d b’s back in the retro
seventies where they look best along with flares, flowers and flip-flops.
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