In the summer the British press being hard pressed for real news stories would resort to their imagination to fill up the space; so here goes…
The Lord Brougham 150th Anniversary RH3 #883 run
883 is a prime number so we should have expected something exceptional and a most unusual hash was forthcoming.
Our Hares Sex Club (Canadian pronunciation Sox Club) and Iron Lady are both from the Geneva Hash, indeed Iron Lady was the Founder 25 years ago, so we expected conventional hash marked with precision. Iron Lady normally uses the Bouncing Ball flour laying technique but she was told that this was not necessary as all had been prepared by her co-hare, who had organised a special trail in Le Cannot, which would take us to areas of local interest .
It’s always easy to say the directions were confusing. This time I easily found the mediateque and parked there as instructed, but it seems I should have been across the road at the Jardin Turpin, This historically interesting area was where the famous highwayman Dick Turpin used to hold up visiting Scottish aristocrats with the well known phrase ‘Stand and Deliver’ and if the nobles refused to hand over their guineas they would be shot and interred at the local graveyard- a great number of them as we were later to find out.
Not much provision for parking your Brougham around here which did cause some difficulty- Prestressed found a nice spot but having left it to accompany the beer car, but on his return he found that someone had taken his place. So we just had a flying visit from Prestressed and Padre.
Farty Bum is still trying to find the meeting point.
When is a hash not a hash? Normally we have the run after the start, but this time we had it after the finish. The hares instructed us to walk along the street to a bus stop where we would foregather for further instructions. The bus stop was a rest spot (only seats for 2) before tackling the uphill part of the trail.
The uphill lead to the mystery part of the hash. We found ourselves before some huge gates in an area surrounded by a serious wall. Slipping in through a side entrance we were confronting a big maze. Was this a version of Dante’s Divine Comedy where we would be guided by a local Virgil through Hell , Purgatory and Heaven? Did we need a thread like Theseus to retrace our steps if we were lost? We were split into 2 teams and were set the task of finding the tomb of Lord Broom – there were apparently little blue candles (unlit) to lead us on our way. Untroubled by anyone else we wandered round and round , Iron Lady was rumoured to be lost but we all met up again and were lead to a prominent spot where the aforementioned Lord Broom had been interred some 150 years ago. Lord Broom ( pronounced Brog Ham) had been a British Prime Minister responsible , inter alia, for the Repeal of the Corn Laws, the Abolition of Slavery, Brexit, Magna Carta, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Defeat of the Spanish Armada, Votes for Women, Establishment of the NHS and other notable historic events.
Exhausted by all this he came down to the Mediterranean for a rest and after founding the Cannes Film Festival, made a few rules for the cemetery
- no picnics - no photography - no music - no pets - formal dress required - no games - no savage discharges - don’t feed the birds - no planting trees or bushes
I think we broke all these rules during the hash or the recce apart from the last two.
Sex Club also wanted us to find Queen Victoria’s long lost son, but we failed. Was the 4th Duke of Montrose an adequate substitute?
Is visiting cemeteries to be a regular feature of Riviera Hashes? We have recently been to the cemetery in Menton to see Webb Ellis (at least 2 visits) and the British Cemetery at Bordighera.
After so much excitement we left the Garden of Rest, visiting the local conveniences outside the gates and walked around the corner to find the BEER STOP.
The hares had found a little recreation area, probably banned for people aged above 12 unless accompanying children, (but as we had Will and Charlotte we could claim that we were in order) where we regaled ourselves on cool beers and panaches. Suddenly it seemed that this was to be the closing circle and Cumalot proposed down-downs for
- The hares
- -Visitors- Pissdrinker, Flying Chicken, The Vicar, Doctor Sara, Lonely mark2 and Will and Charlotte
And several other down downs not noted down by any scribe.
Then, after all was over, we had the run back to the start.
OnOn to the next prime number.