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Heavy Events
The following article, in his
own words, from Keith Wheeldon a member of the committee 1985 – 1997.
I guess when first involved
I was pretty ignorant of the whys and wherefores of this historic event.
David (David Frith one of the founder
members and current Chairman of the committee)
carted me off to the Carmunoch 'games and
said, "Take some notes"! Well, program of events was duly noted along with some
measurements and a list of items required and back we came.
That first event, ' 85 1
think, we did not have a caber and David arranged for it to come down on one of
Sellers & Kent's tankers, you'll have to ask who we had it from.
Anyway the following year Sir Ian (the
late Sir Peter Walker-Okeover, Bart. Sir Peter was the first President and
Chieftain of the Gathering)
was asked if one could be supplied from the estate. A meeting was
arranged for me to meet the 'woodsman' in the grounds of Osmaston Park.
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Geoff Capes (centre) with a couple of his strongmen |
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Strongmen |
The guy, complete with chainsaw, had not been told a lot and says "well
what do you want" after which we wandered through the woodland and I
chose a couple of straight Pines that looked right for the job.
Arrived home with these two stripped trees, which were awfully long when
roped to my trailer, and proceeded to trim them to an accepted profile,
this was a two day job ending up with a couple of presentable cabers at
18' and 19'6" that I thought would do the job.
In the first few years we seemed to break one each year a combination of
green wood (not being seasoned and the apparent training of heavy weight
contestants because Geoff (Geoff
Capes being ever present throughout our history.)
always had some guys who were new to this 'field'. We always
managed to get a replacement from either Osmaston or Oakover (Osmaston
and Oakeover Estates owned by the late Sir Peter Walker-Okeover, Bart.).
The Manhood Stones were made for the AHG by a local stone quarry in the
mid 80's. These are expensive to produce therefore two were ordered
originally, as the process is manual and time consuming the quarry
almost missed the deadline and they arrived on the field in an Escort
van the day of the eve. |
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