Ashbourne Highland Gathering
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.
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.