John Guy – Captain or Lege(nd)?

The man knows no fear,

The Captain, John Guy

Fashion’s not in his sphere

Croquet Titan, John Guy

He plays close to the edge

(On the lawns, he’s not shy)

But that hat?

On the Lege?

My main question is…WHY????

Anonymous

MEMBER PROFILE – JOHN GUY

I read recently that the development of modern theories of thermodynamics have shown that perpetual motion devices are impossible. 

And yet here I am, sitting in front of the embodiment and living-breathing definition of perpetual motion, our very own croquet club captain, John Keith Guy.

My impression of John is that he never seems to stop, so I was really pleased to pin him down and keep him reasonably still for a couple of hours early in January, whilst we chatted about his love of croquet and Broadwas Croquet Club in particular, over coffee at the St Johns home he shares with wife Jackie.

Because of his seeming omnipotence in all things croquet-related, it’s difficult to imagine a time before John picked up his first mallet. But he reassures there WAS such a time, and John places all the blame for his introduction to croquet and his growing obsession with the sport, on club president John Steel.

John recalls vividly that it was 2008 when his ‘ex’ rang him to pick something up from the shops on his way back home. John called in at the Co-op in St John’s and while he was in the supermarket, he spotted a flyer amongst the many that the now defunct Co-op branch often displayed on its numerous notice boards. He later found out that the notice had been placed by John Steel.

The flyer read ‘Do you want to try something new? Come and play croquet with us on a Friday evening and have a glass of wine!’  Said John of the invitation, “Well, you can’t resist, can you?”

John thoroughly enjoyed his introductory session in Golf Croquet and began playing regularly. In those days, the club  day was Tuesday and John swiftly arranged to take Tuesdays off, after negotiations with his then employer, Smiths News. “I got hooked very quickly” John admitted. After a year – as the grip of croquet got tighter – John asked Smiths News for a further day off.  Initially, the management at the Worcester branch refused, until John threatened to resign. They relented and John was then able to play in the Association Croquet afternoons held at Broadwas on Wednesdays.

John played a lot of sport early in his life – playing ‘parks football’ for a team in Birmingham  and occasionally playing cricket, table-tennis and latterly, badminton. In his younger days, John even qualified as a Class 3 football referee, enabling him to referee parks football matches.

At the time, John had been working in what he described as ‘odds and ends jobs for a few years,’ having left the job he held for 30 years as a computer program analyst at Kays Catalogues in Worcester.

I asked John about his early life. He was born in Old Hill in the Black Country. “Black Country born, Black Country bred, Strong in the arm, And weak in the head” said John cheerily. I wasn’t quite sure how to take that as a Brummie, who went to college in Wednesbury. Although accurate, it was too close for comfort!

A grammar school pupil, John took his 11-plus exam a year early and consequently sat his A-levels at just sixteen.  Deemed by his headmaster to be too young to go to university, John sought work in the then-fledgling world of computers after a neighbour spotted his aptitude and encouraged him to work with computers.

So, in 1963, John  wrote on spec to every firm within ten miles of Birmingham likely to have a computer and eventually secured his first job as a trainee programmer, working for an insurance company. John described the original computers as huge – being seven feet high with a broad base, but they only possessed a memory of just four kilobytes. He later moved to the former engineering firm Archdales in Worcester because he felt that the insurance company wasn’t keeping pace with the advancement in computing. He moved to Kays around 1972 until the millennium, when Kays began to make people redundant. Immediately after John was made redundant, he did what John described as odds and ends – a series of jobs including working in a day care centre, working for a Malvern inventor who developed and marketed reusable toaster bags and two spells in the civil service.

I, for one, had always viewed John’s command of all things administrative in the club to be impeccable, but there was once a chink in his infallibility. One of his civil service roles was related to agriculture and he was responsible for re-mapping farms with regard to their eligibility for farm subsidies. One day, John discovered that two neighbouring farms were claiming subsidies for the same piece of land. John asked both farm owners to submit a response to his findings.  One farmer immediately responded, while there was a long delay from the other. The latter blamed his tardy response for a flood caused by burst pipes. The famer said his paperwork had been ruined. John remapped the farms from aerial photographs and wrote to the farmer expressing his sympathy for the flood, adding that to help the farmer respond to his request he was enclosing a new mop. Give John a break though. Maybe typing just isn’t his forte.

After his introduction to GC in 2008, John practiced as much as he possibly could – even playing with other members through the winter. On 30^th June, 2009, John ceased work altogether, enabling him to improve in Association Croquet, which was held at the club on Wednesday afternoons. Just one year later, John joined a team of six which included Janet Bedford and Josie Watson for a three-day AC event at Cheltenham – and won it.

John also recalled that he was in a Broadwas team which won the South West Federation’s Golf Croquet tournament in 2009. I’m often impressed by John’s recall of places and dates, which, during my conversation with him, he was instantly able to confirm by referring to his collection of diaries and notebooks dedicated to croquet and Broadwas Croquet Club.   

When I put it to John that he is the one of the most organised people  I have ever met, he dismissed it with an “I just love croquet so much.” Pointing to one of his many books he said “I just have to fill them in.” John  even keeps score cards from past matches, as well as every handicap card he’s ever had.

I asked John how long it took him “to get good” at croquet. In my previous chat to Janet Barber, she had remarked at how enthusiastic John was when he first joined the club. John said that he did get some coaching from John Barber when he joined the club but recalled “In those years, the winters were different and quite a lot of the winters we would play through. Most Tuesdays between 2008 and 2009 during the winter I would be at the club all the time it was light.” He often played then-members of the club, John Edwards, an experienced player and John Evans, who joined the club roughly the same time as John. John said “Because we could play over winter, I got a lot of one-on-one coaching throughout the year. “Once the frost had gone you could play.” There  was even once a winter tournament set up a the club called the Winter Dash, based on the same rules as the Ryland Trophy.  It was intended to be played for on the first Tuesday in January. “We haven’t been able to play for the cup since 8^th Jan 2013.  We managed to play it once.”

In 2009 and 2010, Broadwas only played in the South West Federation at GC and AC. GC was handicapped, while the AC league was split into three sections depending on handicap. John started in the B-level team which then progressed to the intermediate level. In 2014 the club won the South West Intermediate League at AC and then progressed to the top league, known as the Federation League.

In 2011, Broadwas joined the West Midlands league because the club then wanted to play in level play Golf Croquet tournaments. Although the South West had just started a level play competition, there were only six teams in it and some were as far afield as Cornwall. John reckoned John Barber ‘chatted someone up’ who he knew in the West Midlands league that he met through friendly games and they let us join it. John said that even today “Very few clubs are in two Federations.” 

John suspects that the West Midlands league possibly wished they hadn’t let us in, “Because from the first eight years we entered, we won it seven times.” We won and won and won.” At that point, Stuart Smith, who joined the club just a month after John, was club captain.

When Stuart became chairman, around 2012-2013,  John took over the role of club captain. The only thing that John hadn’t remarked on in his extensive diaries was when he took over as club captain, although he had noted that in 2010 and 2011, the club first won the national Murphy Shield for Golf Croquet.

“As a club we’ve expanded hugely since I started,” said John. We had about fifty members then. “Once people come in  and try  croquet, they love it. The problem is  getting them there. I think we’re a very friendly club. We don’t have any cliques – and a lot of the shuffling around that goes on in rollups on Tuesdays and Fridays helps tremendously.” John recalled that in the early days, members would turn up in a group of four on a Tuesday and play together all afternoon without mixing. He feels that the mixing up of players on rollup days has helped develop the friendly atmosphere the club has today.

John recalled that he played his first league match in 2009 against Dyffryn, at home.  John had been playing off a nine but a week before the match, John Barber  changed him to a seven. The match was  at home. John asked the captain John Barber who he was playing first. He pointed to the player – Kevin Ham – “He’s a Welsh international!” Noting the look on John’s face, his captain said “It’s alright, play off your marbles.” Kevin Ham was playing off a one handicap. “I beat him,” said John. 

When John came off the lawns and told his non-playing captain  “I won and I’ve still got a marble in my pocket.”  John Barber replied “You can come in here with a marble left and tell me you’ve won, but come in here with a marble left and tell me you’ve lost and I’ll chop your @$*% off.”

In the early days of the club there wasn’t a booking system and through the summer John recalled “On a Tuesday we’d be at the club from 10.00am till about seven, playing singles in the morning.” 

John attributed his early rapid progress to practice and said “To get better, you’ve GOT to play singles.” “You have to do your thinking yourself.”

In the early days of the club, not every member had a handicap card, only those who played in competitive matches against other clubs. John still has all of his handicap cards from the beginning of his competitive career. The handicapping system wasn’t as rigid and there were no blocks, but there were a lot of knockout competitions at the club, including a handicap singles open men’s handicap, ladies handicap and level play. “People would keep an eye on handicapping – a little bit.”

The club’s current official handicappers are Jeff Faulkner, Stuart and John. The cards are taken in regularly to check people are filling them in properly and Croquet England strongly recommend that the procedure is done annually at the very least.  In the early days, John was TOLD by John Barber that his handicap was nine and had dropped to seven in June 2009, but within 12 months John had gone down to three.

John currently has a handicap of one at GC and five at AC. John explained that the index system for handicapping has changed over time. When John started, the highest handicap possible was 12 while the lowest handicap was zero. Nowadays the highest handicap is 20. 

I asked John if he felt he was a croquet ‘natural.’  John said “There are people who don’t look idiotic straight away – I think I’m one of them. John said he used to play ‘a fair amount’ of golf when he was younger. John felt that initially, his golf experience helped a lot – in particular with keeping his head down during a stroke. In golf that’s the first thing you are taught. ‘Keep your head still.’ It’s all about hand-eye coordination.”  If people aren’t playing well, John said that he will stand behind them and watch and often picks up that they aren’t aiming where they think they are. In the past, I have been a victim of John’s beady eye. “Some have an innate ability to see the line – you can’t teach that,” said John.

The technique of ‘casting’ is something that John doesn’t get on with. He doesn’t like it. “It either suits or doesn’t,” he said.” John admits that he  will vary his grip, depending on whether he is taking short or long shots.

John said that he was pleased when he  qualified as a GC referee in 2015. He was one of only two of the twelve candidates who passed at that sitting. He qualified as a GC coach later. Jeff Faulkner is the club’s other qualified coach.

John said “Jeff does more coaching, but if you’re captain and have to look at handicapping, coaching helps.”  John takes a look at  all  new club members in order to assess their coaching requirements. “Some other clubs insist on new members undergoing a course of coaching when they join.”

Knowing John is keen to see Association Croquet expand at the Broadwas I asked him “Which do you prefer – AC or GC.” There was no hesitation. “AC,” John replied. “In AC there is so much more to think about. “It’s like chess to draughts.” “Some people like draughts, others prefer to play chess. “Some people prefer to be involved every second – if you want that, play GC.”

One thing that John would like to see at Broadwas is an increase in the rate of play at rollups.  Perhaps that’s the computer program analyst side in him coming out.

John says he prefers to play singles. “You need to play at your rate.” John says the average time he takes for a GC  singles game is 25 minutes.

Nowadays,  the only GC tournaments he plays in is the blocks.  John believes it is important for players with higher handicaps to play better players, so they can learn from them. As a result, John admits he isn’t a fan of the handicap system and ‘extra turns’ and refuses to play in games that use the system. He feels that the system  teaches players a totally different game. He believes that if you have, say, eight extra turns, you SHOULD really win every time. John said “That’s why We joined the West Midlands Federation because there’s one GC league and no handicap restrictions.”

Since John’s passion is for Association Croquet, he pointed out that Broadwas has won the AC West Midlands league a couple of times. “We’ve won the top league in the South West once, the middle league once, he said.

The Broadwas AC team  generally has  Stuart, John , Roger Wood, Ian Dampney, Ian Lambert and Janet Bedford to call on as its base squad, with Gill Brooks joining the West Midlands side. John said “The club’s  only got seven to eight AC players, so finding a team can sometimes become a struggle.”

John says that although he likes to play games quickly, he’s much more laid-back than people think. He’s prepared to sit and wait – on an AC lawn. “I love AC.”

John said, somewhat ruefully, that he plays fewer AC games per season “Because we don’t have competitive AC games at the club.”

John would really like to encourage more people to take up AC. Having had a couple of introductory AC sessions, I would agree with John that there’s much more to think about in AC. I confess that I’d forgotten quite a lot between the two sessions. John said that he and John Evans were in the same boat. He said “It must have been five or six sessions ‘before the light went on’ and we realised what you are trying to do.”  As a result, John has dropped the GC captaincy in the West Midlands Federation GC league and now Jon Carrington will take over the  level-play golf croquet captaincy.  John will only play in  the league if Jon is short of players.

John keeps ALL the Broadwas results in a series of books, heavily illustrated with photographs and newspaper cuttings from over a decade. As he pored over one of the books, John said he now feels  he wants to “slow down a bit.” He went on “Because I prefer AC, the thing I’ll chop is the GC.”  John feels that he’s found many players don’t have the patience or tenacity to stick long enough to learn what’s going on.

Perhaps it’s understandable that John feels he may need to cut down a little. Besides the work involved in being club captain, John was captain of both of the West Midlands Teams last year – the level play GC and the AC. He is also the league organiser for the West Midlands Association and is on the West Midlands Federation Committee. On top of that, John and Jackie have seven grandchildren between them, spread all over the country – AND he has a strange and obsessive desire to visit the Hawthorns every home game to watch The Baggies – a ritual he has followed for 69 years.

I felt slightly uneasy when John said he wanted to slow down. I’ve heard it said from almost everyone I’ve spoken to about him, that John is indispensable.

I asked John “Where do you get your energy from and keep on top of everything?”

John replied “It’s down to organisation.” As a career computer program analyst, he was once in a team that had to write six million lines of code. He feels that the work you do does influence you. The job moulds you in a certain way. You HAVE to be accurate (in computing). “It’s made me logical. All the things you have got to do – write them down.” He went on “Go to the list every day, then drop them out of your head.”  John said he does one thing at a time. “Focus is important,’ he said. It’s why he hates mobile phones as a source of distraction. Most people who have ever emailed John will have been impressed at the rate he replies and acts on them.

I asked John, “Would you say you are inherently competitive?” His reply was an instantaneous “Yes.” He added “Not at work because I joined an industry which was fledgling. People get promoted to their level of incompetence.” Of the club captaincy, he said “When I accepted the  job, I wanted to do the best  I could.”

Although John is trying to reduce some of his workload (he used to be club secretary), he’s happy to greet new members who want to apply for membership as well as assess  their handicapping and coaching needs. John admits that some of his captaincy responsibilities keep him out of Jackie’s hair.

I asked John if  there was anything he would like to improve at Broadwas Croquet club.

John replied “Speed of play, and more people to get involved.  I would like to see more younger people play.  We need to get young blood in and people who will do jobs.”

“To paraphrase JFK,” John said, “Think not of what Broadwas Croquet Club can do for you, think of what you can do for Broadwas Croquet Club.”

Paul Felton

MEMBER PROFILE – JOHN STEEL

His quiet and modest demeanour very much belies the whirlwind that is Club President John Steel.

Now 85 years-old, as Lawns Manager,  John (or Steely, as John Guy calls him) is still the primary go-to guy when things go awry with anything occurring on the club grounds. 

John’s services to croquet were recognised last year, when the Croquet Association (now Croquet England), awarded him with a Diploma for Services To Croquet.

It was only when I discovered more about John’s adventurous life and engineering background, that I fully appreciated exactly why Steely is seen as Broadwas Croquet Club’s ‘Mr Fixit.’ 

John lives in Lower Broadheath, where he has resided for 19 years, with wife Valerie. The couple celebrated their 60^th wedding anniversary in 2023, marked by a card from the King.

Early Club Beginnings 

John’s introduction to the club came when he saw a handwritten poster made by club founder John Barber, some 19 years ago, placed on the counter at the Royal Oak pub. John and Valerie went up to the club and found John Barber playing croquet on the lawns. John and wife Janet both asked if John and Valerie would like to join, and so began Steely’s association with the club. 

The couple had moved to the area from North West London. John and Valerie both joined U3A (The University of the Third Age) John’s semi-retirement, but his only experience of croquet was playing Association Croquet with U3A for one summer while still living near London. 

After six months or so with the club, John Barber realised that the newcomer had engineering skills and promoted John on to the Broadwas Sports Association in order to give him back up on the committee since the other members weren’t croquet club members, but were associated with the cricket and football clubs. John joked “They didn’t like John getting away with all his  mad schemes like ‘we’ll buy this tractor and we’ll sell that tractor.’ So I was brought in as John’s number two. At the time, John was chairman. John would tell me before a meeting  what I had to say!” 

John Steel’s engineering skills were astounding. 

Early Life

John was born in Stockport in 1939, but his parents moved to Southampton at the outbreak of World War 2. The family stayed in Southamptom for five years and witnessed the Normandy invasion build-up of equipment in the road where they lived.  John recalled going to air-raid shelters with his parents and watching bombs being dropped on Southampton docks. John was raised in a Methodist family and both he and Valerie were Sunday School teachers. When they became engaged, in order to earn money for the wedding, John took up beekeeping and had five hives. When he entered a local honey show, he won best in show with an automatic entry to the international honey show in Westminster hall London. John described getting married as the “best thing in my life.”

Both he and Valerie were used to moving around the country with their parents, which is just as well, since John’s career took them both all over the world. 

John is a graduate from Brunel Polytechnic (now Brunel University), gaining a degree in Plastics Engineering and Polymer Science, while working for Smiths Industries.  It was after completing his degree that a tutor rang John up and asked if he wanted to work in Brazil. The tutor had developed a biodegradable plastic and a company in Brazil were interested in making sacks for planting coffee beans in. Five weeks later, John, Valerie and their three children, all flew off to live in Brazil for four years, where John initially oversaw the building of a biodegradable plastics manufacturing plant. “I had to learn Portuguese fast,” he told me.  The family lived in Copacabana for a year, before settling in São Paulo for the remainder of their stay.

At one point, John was  Chairman of the London section of the Institute of Materials and was  involved with setting up group meetings to introduce new materials and he was also involved with organising the annual ball at the Royal Lancaster in London for 1000 members, partners and special guests. Prince Philip was the Institute’s patron. John was once invited as group chairman to lunch at the Royal Yacht Club in Pall Mall and afternoon tea at Buckingham Palace.

It was while John was working in China  19 years ago that Valerie Faxed him to say that she and daughter Paula, who lives in Droitwich, had seen a house in the area. The couple had decided some time beforehand, to move out of London. When John agreed, Valerie arranged the purchase of their Lower Broadheath home over one weekend. 

John and Valerie have two other children. Sally lives in Guildford, while their son Chris lives in Bournemouth.  The couple have four grandchildren and one great grandchild, with another expected in May. 

Engineering Skills

One of the last major engineering jobs that John participated in was based in China, although that eventually took him to the North Sea and involved the installation of offshore wind farms. John was tasked with enabling the safe sea transport and installation of the upright bases of wind turbines.  John explained that the 48 metres-long, ten foot diameter turbine bases weighed two-and-a-half thousand tons. The problem that John was faced with, was designing  bearings that these massive structures could sit on during transport by ship, that would provide maximum friction to withstand movement at sea, but would facilitate easy removal from ships by cranes when they were ready for being driven into the seabed. John said “I’ve been involved in projects most of my life, which could go horribly wrong.” John remained a consultant with the company Fluorocarbons until he turned 80 years-of-age. 

So, it’s probably no surprise to learn that the idea of protecting our lawns with an effective rabbit-proof fence, didn’t scare John.  He explained that when he first joined the club, he got fed up with going up to the club before a match to fill in rabbit holes. In the early days of the club, in an effort to save money, John Barber’s idea was to avoid white-lining – which took a lot of time and money – instead  marking out the playing areas by using  a mixture of creosote and diesel. The mixture killed the grass where it was lined and stayed black for the whole of the season. Although effectively, the grass roots were also killed in the process, thus opening up the soil.  As a result, rabbits homed in on the areas in order to take advantage of the easy digging opportunities. 

Money Raising Prowess

Fortunately for the club, John is particularly adept nowadays at securing grants – a skill he honed when he sourced the  contractor who was able to provide truly rabbit-proof fencing. John, with number-crunching help from Stuart Smith, managed to obtain the £7,000 required to complete the work, from Malvern District Council. Having secured his first grant successfully, a few years later, the team of Steel and Smith applied for funding to buy an invaluable tractor-mower to carry out heavy duty work on the lawns. The application was successful yet again,  securing £8,500 from Sport England. 

John even took a hand in building the ‘new’ toilet block next to the pavilion, with Geoff Winkworth and John Barber. The new block became essential when the membership of the club outgrew the old Portaloo ‘acquired’ by ‘big-time wheeler-dealer’ John Barber. John recalled that in the early days the club only played friendly matches, so the existing facilities were adequate. Once Federation matches came along, it was decided that the club needed to build a new toilet block. The three members put the foundations down and built part of the walls, only enlisting a bricklayer for part of the construction. The three put the roof on and  Geoff Winkworth carried out the plumbing work.

Around that time, John Steel had acquired £3,500 in sponsorship for the club, from Broadheath and Broadwas Parish Council’s and so it was decided to spruce up the pavilion’s kitchen area. Led by John, a party of volunteer members which included the late John Evans, Stuart Smith and John Guy stripped the existing facilities and acquired flatpack kitchen cupboards. John recalled John Guy declaring “I’m not practical in any way, but I CAN read a drawing, so I’ll assemble the cabinets!” Working two days a week, the work party finished the job in three weeks. “And, we didn’t kill anybody by overworking them,” John joked. 

John’s fund-raising abilities know no bounds. He even managed a few years ago, to raise £3,500 to almost completely finance the provision of new PVC windows in the clubhouse.

Life-Saving Equipment

One of John’s latest fund-raisers was to provide the club’s newly installed Automated External Defibrillator. But John recalled that it all started as a joke. Members suggested that an AED should be provided since ‘everyone is getting older.’  John set to work, researching defibrillators online. In view of the average age of members at the club, John made a case for the provision of an AED and  approached the London Heart Foundation. The Foundation found John’s argument compelling and offered the club a defibrillator at half price – they normally cost £1,500. John set about raising the £750 to buy the AED, securing £250 each, from Lower Broadheath and Broadwas Parish Councils, and Malvern Hills District Council. The AED is now installed and will soon be fully functioning, with public access available to Broadwas villagers  and visitors, once it has been formally registered.  

John feels that what enables the club to secure finance is the club’s due diligence in balancing the books in order to meet unexpected and necessary expenses – such as the new drive built in 2023.  He credits committee management and treasurer Stuart Smith for that. John believes that institutions that give grants and fund projects are more likely to give assistance to well-managed clubs.  

Since he joined, John has overseen the introduction of three lawns at the club. Steely said that before he died, John Barber set him the task of taking the club to six lawns and the membership to one hundred. As a result, John said that he has spent more time looking after the grass, than playing croquet. He said that he found it difficult to ignore the state of the lawns rather than concentrate on playing.  During our chat, John told me that ideally, he would like to cut a half-lawn next to lawn five, and make it into a coaching and practice lawn. 

John is vehement in his determination to promote the club and would like to see the club flag and Broadwas Sports Association flag displayed on the flagpoles on match days against visiting opponents. “We are a big club now. They look nice. We just need someone to automatically put them up on match days.”

I asked John what grabbed him about croquet. “I couldn’t play golf,” he joked. “I spent a good deal of time in the rough.” He said “Croquet is good fun and a challenge. It appealed to me because I could control it.” 

John feels that the greatest accolade for Broadwas Croquet Club so far, is being chosen as one of the clubs representing England in the forthcoming World Croquet Federation’s 2024 European GC Club League. “We are a very sound, well-organised club,” he said. 

John’s long-term ambition for the club would be the provision of a new pavilion in order to provide more facilities, such as a changing area, although he sees funding as a  stumbling block. 

Horticultural Skills

Perhaps not surprising since he spends a lot of time tending our lawns, John is a keen horticulturalist, inheriting his interest from his accountant father who was a show secretary for a local garden society. John’s wife Valerie has also been involved in arranging flower in Worcester Cathedral and his daughter Paula also has an interest in entering flower shows, particularly at Malvern. His other daughter Sally studied garden design and had her own garden design business.  As a Parish Councillor in Lower Broadheath, John’s main role is overseeing the village’s allotments and public trees. As if he has time to fill, John is also involved with the organisation  of the Royal Horticultural Society Shows at Malvern. He shows giant vegetables as well as entering the general horticultural classes. He has won best in show on two occasions.

As many will know, John has also run the popular close season Breakfast Club, which has run for the past five years, at The Bell pub in Lower Broadheath. This year, we also enjoyed an afternoon tea, to conclude the close season get-togethers. 

Once a five handicap, John now plays off seven. He used to play all over the country, on one occasion being runner-up to John Edwards in the Grass Roots tournament at Northampton in 2008. He was also runner-up in the West Midlands GC tournament at Edgbaston, only being beaten by a four handicap player. 

John also won the  Men’s Open GC cup in 2011 and the club’s Veteran’s Trophy in 2019.

John said he very much enjoyed travelling to  other clubs for tournaments, but his participation in competitive matches reduced a few years ago with the onset of various illnesses, including open-heart surgery. Nowadays, he makes it a rule to play at least every Friday, and Tuesdays if possible.

To anyone who knows him, John appears to be able to turn his hand to most things. While at Smiths Industries in his research and development role early on in his career, he was involved in the manufacture of the world’s first plastic alarm clock, making the mechanism for ten shillings. The whole clock sold for £1.  Even as a youngster, John was runner-up (with colleagues) in the Young Automation Engineer Great of Britain competition, setting up a fully automated plastic moulding machine. 

After a couple of hours of chatting to John, I couldn’t quite fathom where he gets his energy from. Even now, he’s thinking up ways of raising funds towards the club’s bid to reach the finals of the forthcoming European GC competition and has already secured a promise of a donation to the cause.  

Apart from imbibing his enthusiasm, the other thing I learned from John was this: 

“Opportunities only pass by once. Grab it, or miss it and moan “If only I had taken the opportunity.”

Paul Felton

MEMBER PROFILES – GILL AND KEITH BROOKS

Despite us growing up pretty much in the same area of the West Midlands, I didn’t know an awful lot about Gill Brooks – other than she’s a very generous GC player – sharing with me a great playing tip that has been invaluable over the past couple of years. And no, I’m not going to share it with you, so there!  I didn’t know much about Keith either, other than he was instrumental in helping set Broadwas Croquet Club up, so I was delighted when Gill and Keith agreed to an interview over coffee and cake, a few weeks ago.

Both Gill and Keith are 85. They will be celebrating 65 years of marriage on Thursday December 5^th.

The couple met while Gill was on holiday in Southsea with a friend. At that time, both Gill and Keith were seventeen years old.  One day, Gill and her mate visited Portsmouth, where Keith was based in the Royal Navy. Keith recalled “Me and my mate were out on the prowl and they were in the funfair.” Gill said that when Keith approached while she and her friend were waiting for a funfair ride, she couldn’t understand a word he said because ‘he’d got a very strong Somerset accent.’ Not really taking on board what Keith had said, Gill just replied ‘oh yeah.’ When the ride stopped and Gill got on the ride, Keith suddenly leapt on the back. Gill asked him ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ (you can just hear it, can’t you?). Keith replied ‘I asked you if you’d like a ride and you said “yes”.’

And so, stalking was born!

Keith, a Somerset lad born in Minehead and brought up in Plymouth and Taunton, joined the navy just after his sixteenth birthday and served for nine years. Keith said he originally signed up for seven years but had erroneously overlooked the fact that his service term didn’t officially start until his eighteenth birthday! At one point, Keith served on the Ark Royal and was based in Singapore ‘for eighteen months of our married life!’ exclaimed Gill. Keith also visited the United States whilst serving, as well as Burma and many European destinations.

Keith entered the navy as a boy seaman, becoming a junior seaman at eighteen. He then became an able seaman. Keith passed examinations to become a  leading seaman but didn’t take on the rank because it would have meant continuing in the service for another year. During his time, Keith qualified as a shallow water diver as well as undertaking training in gunnery. He also served on coastal minesweepers.

Keith had originally intended becoming a diver on leaving the navy, building on his diving experience in the service, but he thought better of it. ‘It wasn’t the thing to do. It was very iffy in those days.’  Gill said a job in diving would have involved Keith working off the coast of Scotland on oil rigs.

Gill and Keith’s first home together after their marriage, was in Smethwick, in a high-rise. They were the first residents in the tower block and Gill recalled they could see planes taking off from Elmdon Airport (now Birmingham International). All through Keith’s time in the navy, after they had married, Gill had still been living at her parents’ home in Smethwick.

During Keith’s time in the navy, Gill continued working. Gill was qualified in shorthand and typing and worked as a secretary. Late on in her career when computers took over the workplace, Gill’s recognised competency in IT landed her with the responsibility of dealing with accountancy matters and employees’ wages at a company which among other things, made crucial and secret components for Royal Navy submarines – she even had to sign official secrets act documents.  Gill ceased working for the firm on the birth of the couples’ son, Gary.

During his career, Keith at one time worked as a manager for the Gallagher Group, the multinational tobacco company. He worked for the company for thirty years following five years working at HJ Heinz.

Keith took up his role at Heinz after leaving the Royal Navy, becoming an area salesman for the whole of Birmingham. Keith recalled that he had the interview for that job on the very day he and Gill were about to go on holiday. At the time, the couple were living in Smethwick, Gill’s hometown. During his time with Gallagher’s, Keith spent a lot of time moving between the head office at Bristol, Manchester, London and Heathrow. He became a regional manager. Keith retired at sixty.

Keith and Gill moved from Smethwick to Worcestershire as their son was approaching eleven years of age. Keith being a keen golfer and playing regularly at Droitwich, they moved to the town when Gary turned eleven. The family moved to Broadwas  when Gary was sixteen. Gill and Keith’s granddaughter Zoe, is currently at university in Leicester.

On moving to Broadwas, Gill worked at various industrial companies in Worcestershire, including Metal Castings in Worcester. She retired at 60 after the firm collapsed around 2000 – or so she thought. Within a few weeks of ‘retiring’ she was approached by Pam Ryland, who worked as a practice nurse and was asked to work in administration at Knightwick surgery. After a successful interview, Gill was offered the job. She accepted it only on the condition that her days didn’t clash with her croquet afternoons. Gill worked there on a part-time basis for five years until she could finally get on with some SERIOUS croquet.

Gill and Keith had been friends of John and Janet Barber for forty years, holidaying in France with the couple. They were friends with two other club founders, John Ryland and Hugh Popplewell.

I asked how the club originally began. It was Hugh who said “Let’s do it.” Keith said ‘That’s when we all got involved.’  Keith was originally a cricketer at Broadwas, until interest in cricket in the village  waned and the cricket club closed. 

For a period, the cricket pitch was rented out to another local club until that club left, leaving a large ground with no activity on it.  

John Barber had a huge interest in converting part of the field to a croquet lawn but Gill said ‘The main instigators were John Ryland and Hugh Popplewell. John living next to the ground was all for using the ground for croquet. We started off with one lawn (Lawn 1).”

Initially, the club opened for roll-ups on Tuesday evening. After then looking closely at the membership, the realisation hit that most members were retired, hence Tuesday afternoon roll-ups were born, though Keith and Gill couldn’t play for the first year  because they were both still working.

Neither Gill nor Keith had played croquet other than on holiday, though Keith played golf to county level. Keith’s other passion is trout and salmon fishing.

Keith recalled that in the early days, John Barber and he both bought metal croquet mallets from Australia. Keith still uses his to this day. It was while on holiday in a gite in France with John and Janet Barber that Keith and Gill had their first taste at croquet. Setting up hoops on an area of grass that they had mown in an orchard attached to the property.

Gill and Keith went straight into golf croquet on joining the club. Gill said “Everybody played golf croquet initially until Hugh Popplewell suggested introducing association croquet to the club.”  She said that in those days, Cheltenham used to host a three-day AC competition which other clubs participated in and there was even an advisor in attendance to lend a helping hand if competitors got into any difficulties. Gill recalled Janet Bedford winning the event one year, followed by John Guy the following year.

The only disagreement between the Gill and Keith during our chat seemed to be over which is the best croquet code – GC or AC?

Gill undoubtedly is a big fan of Association Croquet. “It’s a fantastic game” she said. “Keith always complained that it was too long sitting out.” Janet added “Basically, he got bored having to wait!”

Keith recalled that it was a few years after the club was formed before Broadwas played other clubs in organised competitions, although there had been the odd friendly.

Before he was introduced to croquet, Keith was a keen cricketer – an all-rounder – but he recalled that at Broadwas, the team was always struggling for players until the cricket club finally folded.  Keith also played golf, predominantly at Droitwich Golf Club.

Someone at the club told me that Gill and Keith were once into skiing. Keith and Gill told me that they didn’t put skis on until they were 45 years old. Gill took to it “like a duck to water,” while Keith was a little more cautious in his approach – not surprising since on one trip he dislocated his thumb when he fell. When he stood up, Keith realised what he’d done and was in such pain (you may want to look away now) pulled his thumb so it clicked back into place! Ouch!

While Keith gave up on skiing when it was discovered that a recurrent illness that he succumbed to on trips was due to altitude sickness, Gill continued, only giving up skiing when she was 75 years old. Keith preferred to work in his well-equipped workshop where he indulged his passion for woodworking. Keith has made doors for their house and even built the couples’ conservatory, as well as making noticeboards for Broadwas village and the church. He also carried out work at Cotheridge church. Gill recalled that Keith also made a base for one of the club’s competition trophies. One of Keith’s big interests was lathe turning. At one time, Keith also made a roll of honour board for the clubhouse, but he was also in the team that helped John Barber furbish the prefabricated building that became the current clubhouse.

While Keith was putting his woodworking skills to good use, Gill didn’t slack,  becoming the club secretary for a number of years after John Ryland and Hugh Popplewell pretty much press-ganged her into the position. Gill also did a three-year stint as secretary to the Broadwas Sports Association.

As if they didn’t have enough to do, Keith and Gill once managed Broadwas Village Hall for 25 years, with Gill becoming  chairperson after providing secretarial support and Keith becoming treasurer.  In those days the village hall held film nights, dances, theatrical productions and various talks as well as social events, like New Year celebrations.  

Both Keith and Gill played for Broadwas teams. Before the club entered leagues, annual friendly matches were played at Edgbaston with return matches being played at home. They also played in friendly matches against Cheltenham. Worcester Norton and even Weston-super-Mare. Eventually, Broadwas was one of the first clubs to join the newly formed South West Croquet Federation.

When the club first began, the membership started at around fifteen to twenty players in the first year. Gill told me that the club’s membership had a boost when the late Jeremy Pardoe (coincidentally, a former newspaper colleague of mine) organised the first Broadwas open day. That open day induced former club webmaster Roy Schofield to join the club.

Keith said that in the early days, Broadwas was very much focussed on the social side of the club and there wasn’t as much competitiveness as exists currently. He said that as people like John Guy and Stuart Smith joined the club, it transformed into the go-ahead club we have now.

Along the way, partnerning Ian Dampney, Gill won the club’s GC doubles trophy in 2013 and won it again in 2016, partnering John Guy. Gill also won the GC Open Handicap in 2019, beating Barry Kirby in the final. In 2009, Gill won the club’s AC tournament, beating John Barber in the final. Gill also reached the Grass Roots National final in 2012. Gill just missed out on winning the John Ryland memorial trophy in 2015, just losing by one point to Jeremy Pardoe. And despite not being totally in love with AC as Gill is, Keith actually won the club’s AC Handicap Singles competition in 2004.

While Keith doesn’t play quite as frequently as he once did, there is no stopping Gill. When I heard that Gill had decided to stop playing AC competitively, the club’s rookie High Handicap GC was hammering at her door. Mercifully it took no arm-twisting and we’ll be welcoming her to the SWF High Handicap team next year.

I’d like to thank Gill and Keith very much for the chat with them. See Gill? I didn’t mention your connections to the Peaky Blinders once. Apart from then. Ooopsy!

Paul Felton

MEMBER PROFILE – JON CARRINGTON

This suddenly felt like it was not going to be the interview I was intending.

I’d arranged to meet Jon Carrington for our chat in the café at Laylocks Garden Centre. I noted that as he approached me, there was a subtle change in his gait.  We ordered our early morning drinks and took our seats, but then Jon revealed that he has been recently experiencing a recurrence of gout.  He put the latest episode of gout down to having “a glass of wine.”  Jon said he believed that the first ever episode of gout he experienced was down to a ‘heavy weekend’ in the past. He then, rather unnervingly, went on to tell me about all the types of alcohol that exacerbate gout and how he has had to change from drinking bitter to cider in order to avoid sparking off the condition. He’d obviously done his research because it appeared that Jon really knows his onions when it comes to the metabolic processes at work in the development of gout and he reeled off the fact that the condition is caused by a build-up of uric acid in the blood and that bitter already contains uric acid. “That’s why I switched to cider,” said Jon, matter-of-factly.

“That’s your battle with alcoholism dealt with,” I said. “Now let’s talk about croquet!”

Jon eyed my small notebook as the waitress arrived at our table and then modestly expressed surprise that I even wanted to write an article about him. “Good job it’s a small notebook. I’ve only been playing for two years, what is there for me to say?” This from a man who for the forthcoming season is 2^nd in England in the Golf Croquet Ranking List for 2024 and is ranked 13^th in the world! 😉

I had to point out to Jon that he is most certainly of much interest since in that short time as a newcomer, he has not only reduced his handicap to one, but has also won many games in national competitions. Jon had to reluctantly concede that his success in Golf Croquet so far, has been ‘well above average.’

Jon’s progress in the game in such a short space of time seems to me and many others within the club to have been quite phenomenal. Again, Jon reluctantly agreed that he may have been perceived to be the player that had ‘improved quickest’ but said “I think Billy (Cooke) is going to do that as well.”

Jon says that ‘hand-eye coordination’ is the most  important attribute for players in croquet but that his own, while being ‘reasonable,’ “Isn’t phenomenal.”  He said that he played golf in the past  but he admitted to being ‘no good’ and had never entered a golf competition in his life.

When Jon lived down in High Wycombe, a year before moving back to Worcestershire in 2018, he tried his hand at croquet with his wife Elizabeth, just for one session at a local club which was offering what we would call at Broadwas, a ‘taster session.’ His instructor at the time said that for someone who had never swung a mallet before, Jon was ‘quite good.’ Because he was working at that time, Jon never followed the session up despite giving his instructor what he felt was ‘a good run for his money.’ At that time, Jon was working as a manager over a team of sales representatives for a pharmaceutical company.

Jon was born in Birmingham and lived in Halesowen until the family moved to Bromsgrove when he was three. He was educated at South Bromsgrove High School and then went on to obtain a degree in Environmental Biology from Sunderland University. After university, he moved into pharmaceuticals, working as a sales representative before moving into managing teams before ending his career and ultimately retiring in 2018 after the company he worked for restructured. Jon subsequently moved to Worcester with wife Elizabeth, a podiatrist, and daughter Xanthe, who is now 13 years old.

It was after finishing working as a volunteer in the community shop in Lower Broadheath after his move back to the county, that Jon decided to respond to a flyer for Broadwas Croquet Club which had been posted inside the shop, probably by John Steel.  

Jon remembers his first game at Broadwas was on Lawn 1, in August 2021. It was a mere one year later that Jon entered a national C-Level GC competition, following it up with participation  in the  national B-Level competition in 2023.

I asked Jon what drew him into Golf Croquet so completely. He said “The tactics are fascinating. The first few games that he was involved in when he joined the club he described as a ‘joyous learning curve.’ Jon compares the tactics of the game to chess – he actually played for Bromsgrove Chess Club’s third team when he was only nine and was also school champion.  He enjoys the strategy of croquet. Jon said “There’s an element of a puzzle to croquet. It’s not just a matter of trying to hit a ball through a hoop. You might not get a chance if you end up putting a ball in a stupid place – you’re just going to be knocked away. It’s also not a matter of – can you play the shot you’re aiming for? More important is, have you chosen the right shot in the first place? It doesn’t matter how well you can execute shots, if you haven’t chosen the right shot to take, and that will quite often depend on your opponent.”

Soon after Jon joined the club, he had frequent coaching sessions with Jeff Faulkner. “Jeff has been my coach and I STILL class him as my coach. The player I am today is down to Jeff entirely.” Whenever Jon is away on competitions, he even emails his results to Jeff headed “Hi Coach.” It was only in 2022 that Jon started practising by himself – once he knew WHAT he should be practising. By that time, he had stopped playing golf altogether because he preferred the superior game, Golf Croquet.

Amazingly, Jon’s first external competition was a B-Level tournament held at Camerton and Peasedown Croquet Club, near Bath.  Jon applied for admission into that competition to enable him to  earn a ‘dynamic ranking’ (dynamic grading) in order to be able to qualify for the often oversubscribed C-Level competition. Once he had earned his grading, Jon was then able to enter several C-Level competitions. Incredibly, up to that point, Jon hadn’t even played in external competitions for Broadwas, other than a friendly at Cheltenham. Jon didn’t appear to be fazed by entering such a high-profile B-Level competition. He said “It was only playing a load of people I had never played before. At that time, I hadn’t played most people in our club. I’m very competitive, but ultimately, if I lose, it’s just a game of croquet.”

When I asked Jon where he finished in that first competition, he limped off to his car in order to fetch his old handicap cards. On his return he was able to confirm that although he won one of his group games – beating someone who was a six handicap – he didn’t qualify. However,  Jon went on to meet ‘Coach’ Faulkner in the knockout round and beat him 7-6. The recall of that victory raised a chuckle from him.  Jon eventually finished 12^th out of 16 players, which at B-Level in only his first full season in GC, is no mean feat.

Jon joined the Broadwas blocks competition in May of 2022 and the handicap card showed that he even beat Fran Wall 7-4, 7-1 in one blocks match – again – no mean feat.  Later, when Jon  played his very first C-Level tournament held at Ealing in June of that year, he reached the final in the competition,  narrowly losing top spot the  on the 13^th hoop. 

Almost unbelievably, despite his success in the C-Level, Jon didn’t play for Broadwas regularly during 2022, playing only once for the club’s  GC Handicap Team in the last match of the season away at Glamorgan, winning all four of the games he played in.  In the forthcoming season,  Jon will be captaining the Broadwas GC Level Play Team in the West Midlands Federation, having been a member of Eileen Holt’s Handicap GC Team in 2023. Jon also played in a couple of matches for  John Guy’s West Midlands GC team. In one match, he played opponents with  two, three, four and five handicaps, and thrashing them all.

In all, Jon has entered around 16 national C and B-Level competitions in the past two years.  In 2022, his first season of entering external competitions, Jon won the C-Level tournament at Guildford. In 2023, Jon won B-Level competitions at Guildford, Ashby, Nailsea and Bath. Jon sounded slightly resentful that at Bath, he wasn’t given a trophy! By winning four regional heats – a feat no other player had achieved before – Jon went on to take part in the  national B-Level finals held at Eastbourne and took third place in the competition overall. In the same Eastbourne tournament, Fran Wall took 12^th place.  Jon has also reached C-Level finals, reaching 6^th place in that competition.

Jon’s handicap over two years has reduced to one, mainly as a result of his participation in B and C-Level competitions although he says the club’s blocks competition “has helped.” The four wins in the B-Level regional competitions helped Jon reduce his handicap from three down to one. I doubt I will ever be in Jon’s handicap sphere, so I won’t have to get my head around the concept of winning a match 2-1 against a higher handicap player, but ending up 17 index points down on the deal. “What a great game that was” said Jon.

I asked Jon how he felt when he first went to play in national competitions. I wanted to know if he felt anxious at all, bearing in mind at the time he first played a B-Level, he had been playing less than a year.  He told me “I was very nervous in my first competitions, especially the first one, a B-Level, because I knew I was playing a level that I shouldn’t have been in. I only did that so I could obtain a dynamic ranking to enable me to enter the C-Level. I was very nervous at that. I still get a sense of anticipation, rather than nervousness – even for the national finals.” Jon hasn’t yet decided which A-Level tournaments he will enter in the new season, especially since the A-Level competitions are run over two days.

When talking about competitions, Jon firmly believes that club members should take the opportunity to join the blocks. “It’s a chance to practice” said Jon. In preparing for tournaments Jon isn’t a fan of practising shots by himself – he would much rather play an opponent.  During the winter, he occasionally plays at Cheltenham and had a practise game recently – his first game since 17^th October. He was pleased with his performance after a long lay-off.

Having such a wide experience of croquet courts around the country, Jon feels that playing at Broadwas has prepared him when encountering small lawn deviations in competitions. He said he’s met a number of tournament players who are fazed  by even small deviations in playing surfaces, but because of his experience at the club, such discrepancies don’t bother him at all.

In competitions, Jon admits to occasionally indulging in a much milder form of what cricketers would term ‘sledging’ – where they verbally intimidate opposing players. He only uses in when there has been banter going on during B and C-Level games. “My favourite thing is, when the opponent knocks you away a bit, say four yards, I say ‘doesn’t matter, I’ll run it from there anyway!’” Jon says that nowadays, opponents won’t beat him mentally. “I won’t give up. I won’t be negative. You see it when some B and C-Level players come to Broadwas and look at the lawns. Some of them say ‘I don’t know how you can judge shots’ – those players are beaten before they even go on to the courts. That mindset won’t help you win a game.” He added “We are so lucky to have learned at Broadwas because it makes you mentally stronger.”

Jon is also a great believer in visualisation. He visualises the consequences of every shot he takes before he aims his mallet and feels it is an important part of his game, as is a positive mental attitude.   

In June a Broadwas GC team captained by Stuart Smith is travelling  to Czechia (formerly the Czech Republic) to compete in the European Club League 2024. Other than my smile when I hear the tea bell clang out on a roll up Friday and I know that Glenys Croft’s cakes will soon be distributed by Chris, I haven’t seen a bigger smile than Jon’s when I said “So, Europe then.”  “Can’t wait for that” he beamed. “Am so excited.”  Jon said that when he ordered his mallet in preparation for the 2022 season, he selected a mallet that unscrewed halfway up the shaft to enable it to be transported more easily when travelling abroad. So he’s well-prepared. Broadwas will be in a group with club teams from Czechia, Spain and Germany. Seven groups in all will compete, with a final being held in Spain in October.

For Jon, level play games are his preference, rather than the Advantage or marbles based system. He WILL participate in competitions where Advantage or marbles are used but would prefer to avoid them if possible. Jon says “You learn more by being beaten by players better than you. Always. Getting beaten on a level playing field is the ultimate lesson, although it feels harsh when its being done to you.”

Jon’s aim is merely to get as good as he can get, and at the start of each season he sets goals for himself.  A current aim is to get better than Stuart Smith.  Amongst previous goals were success in B and C-Levels – which he achieved – and to reduce his handicap to two, although he reduced it to one.

Jon would like to see more players from the club taking part in competitions. “Players need to see that competitions aren’t a big scary thing. You aren’t getting paid for it, so you aren’t going to be sacked,”  he joked.

I asked Jon how he survives the winter without croquet. “Elizabeth would tell you ‘In a depressed manner.’ I struggle to remember how I got through winter’s previously. I miss the game so much now – this winter I’ve been just counting the days. I can’t wait to get outside and play.” Having said that, when, at the end of the chat we walked out to the car park and Jon deposited his handicap cards in the boot of his car, there were two sets of hoops lying in the base of the boot which he is going to repaint for the new season. I’d quite forgotten to ask him about all the work he does on maintaining the lawns and equipment. Will save that for another time.

We both live in the same village and as he drove off, I thought “Wrong way Jon. The cider shop is the other way.”

Paul Felton

MEMBER PROFILE – BRIAN HUMPHREYS

‘I’ve been very lucky,’ Brian Humphreys told me several times when we sat down for a lengthy and fascinating chat at his Hallow home, recently.

While he may have had a LITTLE bit of luck, to me, it feels that Brian’s career success in policing – he reached the rank of Chief Superintendent – would more accurately be described as being purely down to extremely hard work, enthusiasm and diligence.  Chatting to him, it was difficult not to be buoyed by his ebullience for everything he does.

Brian began his police career in Hereford, well before the West Mercia Police force was created. In the 1960’s, police officers from Herefordshire were in the police district which covered the whole of Wales and so some of his initial training was held in Bridgend.

Brian joined Herefordshire Police as a cadet when he was fifteen – just a couple of weeks short of his sixteenth birthday. He joked ‘I was “fiddled” into the police. My dad knew a DI (Detective Inspector) and he must have bragged about my footballing skills, which weren’t that good! The instructors soon discovered  I wasn’t the footballer my father had bragged me up to be.’ Although he played in a few games of football for Herefordshire Police during his three years as a cadet, Brian played rugby to a much higher standard, eventually representing the force on a regular basis.

Romance On The Beat

As a cadet, Brian began work in general administration at the Hereford force’s headquarters and at one stage during his cadetship helped prepare the wage slips of county police officers. Once the documentation had been completed, he had to hand deliver it by walking the two miles from Tupsley into Hereford city centre to the central police station. He then had to pick up all of the central police station’s post and take it to the post office. He performed all of his duties in his police cadet’s uniform and it was during one of his walking excursions into Hereford  that Brian caught the eye of his future wife Jo.

Brian told me ‘I knew one of her hairdressing colleagues and I used to have to walk past the premises.’ One day, the hairdresser approached Brian and told him ‘One of my mates at the hairdresser’s, Josephine Williams, fancies you.’ A blind date was duly arranged. Brian was to meet Jo outside the Odeon Cinema in Hereford on a Sunday afternoon and…Jo didn’t turn up! Being a budding law enforcer, Brian immediately got on the phone to point out Jo’s breach of blind date protocol and the life-changing blind date went ahead a week later.

At school, Brian was a keen rower and had been a member of Hereford Rowing Club for a few years. His rowing career was curtailed however, when he transformed from a cadet to a police constable. At that time,  police regulations  forbade officers from working in the area where they lived, so Brian was sent to work in Ledbury. That move meant that he was unable to train with his fellow rowers easily, who were at that time preparing to row in the Henley Regatta, although he was nominated as a substitute crew member.  Eventually, Brian invested in a motorbike in order to travel to Hereford which also enabled him to meet up with Jo.

After two years at Ledbury, around 1965, Brian found himself transferred back in  Hereford following his father’s illness. In 1967 the “Big Bang” occurred in policing, with some of the smaller forces across the UK amalgamating to create bigger forces. This created the West Mercia Constabulary which included Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire and Worcester City Police. Brian said many saw amalgamations as a “huge backwards step.” ‘We were almost “family forces” up until that point. We knew everybody. The only advantages were that the bigger force created more income from the police authorities as well as promotion opportunities.’

Brian’s first arrest. The suspect was chased through Herefordshire by police cars. He was finally caught in Dinmore churchyard. 

Early Promotion

Brian said he wasn’t particularly ambitious, but a colleague suggested that they both take the sergeant’s examination. The rivalry between them led Brian to buy a huge tape recorder and reading his books on police law to the tape so he could play them back to himself in the evenings, even falling asleep to them on occasions.

As a result of that effort, Brian’s results were ranked in the top 200 in England and Wales and a chance to be enrolled on a fast-track promotion scheme with an automatic promotion to Sergeant after 12 months. However, although failing to become enrolled in that scheme, he was in any event, promoted sergeant within nine months of taking the examination after only five years as a constable. The usual time frame for promotion was at least 12 – 15 years.

The promotion led to Brian and Jo moving to Worcester and moving to a police house in Ronkswood. Brian’s new appointment was an eye-opener. ‘Being a county man, you dealt with everything,’ Brian said. ‘Crime, traffic, domestic disputes, accidents, sudden death…anything that came your way, apart from the serious crime that CID would deal with. Compiling and processing prosecution files, even files for the Director of Public was completed by individual officers whereas in a City force, officers could purchase their own accommodation because there was no fear of being posted beyond the city limits. This resulted in full recruitment and the formation of specialist squads to deal with every individual aspect of policing, including the compilation of such reports.

In addition to being a patrol and station sergeant at Worcester and Droitwich, he was posted to supervise a rural section at Alfrick which covered a wide area skirting the city including the village police stations at Suckley, Leigh Sinton Powick and Broadwas. ‘This was real Community Policing, I loved it’ he said, ‘we had 24-hour responsibilities and dealt with everything. It was these added experiences which Brian suggests were the cause of him sometimes being consulted by his sergeant colleagues on how to deal with some aspects of county policing which they were unfamiliar with.

“That was my luck again”, he exclaimed, “I would never have been promoted to Inspector so early had I not been a Sergeant at Worcester”, he said.

Brian says that he was quite settled in the rank of Sergeant and Jo and he were intent on returning to retire in Alfrick, when that time came along. However, he was persuaded to take his Inspector’s promotion examination whilst being sent on a long CID course in Wakefield and off to Halesowen he went to become a Detective Sergeant. Leaving Alfrick was hard, especially going to Halesowen but Brian loved the work. The icing on the cake was that he was also told that his name was on the Inspector’s promotion list.

At the time, he was the youngest officer on the list, so he would be last in that year to receive the promotion. Brian again thanks his luck by falling onto some ‘heavy’ high profile crimes to detect, which earned commendations from the Chief Constable and Crown Court Judges.

After a couple of years, Brian’s Chief Superintendant called him into his office and asked him why he hadn’t applied to become an inspector, despite the fact he had passed the qualifying examination. Brian told his boss that he was still learning his job as a sergeant. He was told in no uncertain terms that he WOULD apply to become an inspector.

One day, Brian’s Chief Superintendent rang him to ask if he would like to replace a detective sergeant who was retiring from Evesham. Just as the time approached for his move, the Chief Constable called Brian in, offering a post as a detective sergeant in Halesowen. On accepting the offer, Brian found himself on the Inspector’s Promotion List. At the time, he was the youngest officer on the list. While in this post, Brian became involved in solving a number of high profile crimes including solving two rapes and a series of smash and grabs of stores in which gangs drove cars into shop windows. Brian received a commendation for the latter.

When the 1974 Local Government boundary changes saw Halesowen and Stourbridge move into the West Midlands conurbation Brian, being on the Inspector’s promotion list returned to West Mercia, promoted to inspector to  work in charge of a shift within the Force Operations Room at Hindlip Hall. This wasn’t the job he would have selected but he quickly, in his words, ‘escaped’ back to operational work when he moved to Droitwich Police Station to become the Deputy Sub Divisional Commander of Droitwich and the rural area surrounding the whole of the Worcester City boundary, including his old Alfrick Section. 

Youngest Chief Inspector

Here he led a few pub raids. ‘I got my nose into most of the CID work. I loved every minute of it there’ Brian said. One day, Humph was summoned to the new West Mercia training school in Droitwich, by the Assistant Chief Constable. Expecting a ticking off – another superior officer had just emerged from the Chief’s office, having received a dressing-down from the Assistant Chief Constable – Brian found himself promoted to Chief Inspector at the police training school. That promotion hit the press, since, at 31, it made him the youngest serving chief inspector in the West Mercia force.

Brian admitted that he hadn’t got a clue about training. Brian told me ‘I was Chief Instructor but not very good at it!’

Despite this, he soon found himself running a course for sergeants from other forces. Brian confessed that he wasn’t great at instructing, and that he was prone to “waffling.” Brian said he enjoyed his time at the training school but admitted “I wasn’t cut out for training.” At one point, Brian found himself having to entertain Mary Whitehouse, the activist known for her campaign against excessive violence and sexual content on TV, for the day. She was lecturing students at the training school.

And Just Like That!

After 18 months or so at the training school, Brian was at a New Year’s Eve celebration at the senior officer’s mess at Hindlip and everyone had to wear a funny hat.  The Chief Constable himself was wearing a fez and when he approached Humph’s group, Brian drew his attention to his resemblance to comedian Tommy Cooper, the Chief did his best Tommy impersonation, telling him “Humph. You’re the new DCI at Malvern…JUST LIKE THAT!’

The job at Malvern included many visits to the Category A men’s prison at Long Lartin. In fact, Brian was the only police officer allowed in the prison. He was called into the prison by the Governor to investigate the numerous criminal incidents that occurred within its walls.   Humph admitted that he found the task “a bind” since it prevented him from being involved in tackling serious crime in the Malvern area, although he said he learned a lot from interactions with the Long Lartin prisoners.

While at Malvern, Brian one day received a call from another DCI Humphreys, from the Metropolitan Police. He warned Brian that the Met was in possession of information that suggested that members of the notorious Brink’s-Mat gang were planning on landing a helicopter inside Long Lartin in order to effect the escape of imprisoned gang members.  When Brian looked into the information, he found that the plan was well under way and together with Detective Chief Superintendent Robert (Bob) Booth (who carried out the investigation into the kidnapping and murder of heiress Lesley Whittle), they foiled the escape plan.

Task Force

Brian then went back to Worcester as a uniformed chief inspector, although he later became a superintendent (see below) at Worcester and was instrumental in setting up the West Mercia Task Force which could be called upon by West Mercia superintendents to lend a hand with extraordinary events in the area. The hand-picked task force was utilised locally when IRA activity increased in the  mainland. At one point, the team found themselves in the dead of night, providing security for a local Member of Parliament.  The Task Force were trained in Class A Police Driving in unmarked cars, Authorised  Firearms Officers and surveillance techniques. They eventually had a force wide remit assisting Divisions when personnel were insufficient to deal with large scale events such as Public Disorder, Drugs Operations, Sporting events, Royal Visits and of course, tackling crime when surveillance was required etc.

Worcester Sorting Office Robbery

Humph believes that one of the factors that may have helped him get his promotion to superintendent was his role in thwarting the Worcester Sorting Office raid in January1980.

It was when Humph was the Detective Chief Inspector at Worcester that information from the Post Office Investigation Department suggested that a gang from Liverpool had planned to attack the Sorting Office in Sansome Walk. A skylight window was discovered to have been tampered with.

Brian planned the operation to capture the gang and on the night of the raid directed the operation via the control radio. Unusually, the Chief Constable attended with the  Chief Superintendent of the Division, and both stood right behind Brian during the operation. The gang were going to be armed and were notorious in escaping from many like premises all over the country.

After four or five nights of staking the sorting office and surrounding area  out, the gang eventually turned up. They were armed with a revolver and wooden staves and entered the sorting office shouting and screaming. Brian’s deputy was inside the premises and on being attacked, one of the task force officers shot one of the robbers, as it was thought he was going to use a weapon. The injured robber woke in hospital and said “I only went for a stamp.”

Two of the robbers managed to escape, but both were later arrested. Brian had to go to Walton Prison after the attempted robbery to get information on the robbers. The gang

later all pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary and in total received gaol terms totalling 50 years. Humph said ‘It was only a few months after that I was promoted to superintendent, so maybe that job might have had something to do with it.

New Department, New Role

As Superintendent Of Operations – Brian was in charge of a new department which was set up to oversee the planning of Royal visits, contingency planning, looking after the Task Force and the firearms department and firearms training and civil defence as well as including the Police Dog Section. Queen’s Flight trips were called ‘PROVING FLIGHTS’.

 Called the OSS – Operation Support Section – Brian said it was later nicknamed the “Odds and Sods Section.”  Humph said ‘It was a brilliant job.’  It involved him joining the Queen’s Flight, taking helicopter flights over the proposed route for the Queen a process called ‘Proving Flights.’ When the Queen visited Worcester to distribute Maundy Money in 1980, Brian was responsible for placing marksmen on the roofs of buildings along the Queen’s route. He subsequently organised security for all Royal visits in the whole of West Mercia as well as coordinating with other emergency services in developing strategies for dealing with unexpected disasters.

Another Unexpected Promotion

Whilst in charge of the OSS, Brian was invited to join the intermediate command course at the Police Staff College. During a visit by the West Mercia Chief Constable, Humph was offered a job overseeing the widespread and busy Bromsgrove sub-division.

Shortly after his appointment, Brian was told that Her Majesty’s Inspector (HMIC) of Constabularies was coming to live on his patch. One Christmas, whilst at the Bromsgrove CID Christmas lunch in – he was still a superintendent at that point – he had a call to go to  see the Chief Constable. On arriving at Hindlip, Humph was told to jump in the car to go to the HMI’s office. When he arrived, the office party was going on.  The HMIC told the throng ‘Ladies and gentlemen. Meet Chief Superintendent Humphreys! He’s going to be my new staff officer.’

From that point, Brian was seconded for two years to the Home Office, based at Whittington. Modestly, Brian told me “I’ve always been at the right place at the right time.’ He later found that it was the intention of the HMIC to train Brian to be an Assistant Chief Constable.

Modestly, Brian told me ‘I’ve always been at the right place at the right time.’

He was very aware that during his two year secondment, the HMI was tutoring him for higher ranks and the Chief Constables of the Wales and Midlands Region they were responsible for, were always keen to have ex HMI Staff Officers appointed to their forces as Assistant Chiefs. Such an opportunity did present itself but a move away from Worcestershire which that entailed, and the domestic situation of his family, saw him shy away from an offer of further advancement.

Retirement? Nah! Even More Work

Towards the end of his police career, Brian went to Redditch as Divisional Commander, before being invited to become Chief Superintendent of Traffic and Operations at Hindlip. Whilst thinking of what he would do once he finished with the police – he was approaching the police retirement age – Brian was made aware by the Chief Constable  that on the Hindlip site, there was a project running that was rolling out the first computerised  biometric fingerprint system in England and Wales. Over a pleasant Chinese meal on the A44 where his interview was carried out, Humph got the job. It was after Sir John Hoddinott, the Chief Constable of Hampshire Constabulary tackled the then Home Secretary to finance the running of a trial system with a few other forces, that the project was first launched from Hindlip.

Once the project was up and running, Brian often travelled to the USA to liaise with the software company behind the project in Tacoma, Washington State. The success of the project caught the attention of Interpol and the British police were asked if they would set up a similar system in the Caribbean.  Brian spent the next four or five years negotiating with various Governments to take up the system. The project was a great success, with hundreds of fingerprint matches being caught by the system and passed on to local police forces to proceed with prosecutions. The system meant that within 19 minutes – no matter where in the world the fingerprints were scanned – a match could be confirmed or eliminated by the software technicians in Tacoma. During the setting up of the new database, Brian’s fingerprints were the first in the world to be transmitted across the Atlantic by the new system.  Brian and Jo’s daughter Sarah, incidentally, worked as a fingerprint expert during her time with West Mercia police.

During his time, Brian also participated in cold case reviews, one of which was the murder of Shrewsbury rose grower and anti-nuclear campaigner Hilda Murrell. The case was controversial because of claims by Labour MP Tam Dalyell that British intelligence was involved in her death. At the time the MP was criticised by Shrewsbury and Atcham MP Derek Conway, who said in the Commons that the House should urge Mr Dalyell ‘to cease impeding the police inquiry.’ The result of the review was that it was discovered that a local burglar was involved and the burglary had gone wrong. The man had been interviewed during the original investigation, but it was only because of the development of DNA analysis that enabled the killer to be identified.

Not wishing to take it easy during retirement, and after Humph ceased working with the fingerprints project, he set up his own private investigation business, working with a local solicitor. But not content with that work, he also became involved with a project instigated by an American investigation into an international paedophile ring, looking into British suspects.  Meanwhile there was then a massive, unexpected turn in Humph’s career trajectory when he was unexpectedly asked to become a part-time school manager at the Elgar Technology College in Worcester. He did that job for five years. Brian said he thoroughly enjoyed it.

Once Humph reduced his legal work, he began writing and estimates he has written around a dozen books. These range from a collection of life stories of nine people from Crowle to an autobiographical account of his role in establishing the digital fingerprint system, titled A Chapter of Life in Fingerprints.

After completing a couple of books about Crowle, Humph was asked to take on additional projects. One of his early works involved auditing graves and burials in the area, compiling a list, and uncovering the stories of nine intriguing individuals from Crowle. Starting with one person’s story, he would ask for suggestions on who else might be interesting and built the book from there. Over time, he has lost count of the number of books he has written. Notable titles include Changing Shapes and Death of Community Policing.

As someone known for his meticulous evidence-gathering during his legal career, Brian approaches his writing with the same diligence. For one project, he researched the lives of 18 local soldiers who died in the First World War, delving into their family trees and compiling detailed accounts of their lives.

He attributes his productivity to his habit of rising early—at 5:30 a.m. each morning. ‘I can think better at that time,’ he explained.

And Finally, To Croquet

I asked Humph about his attraction to croquet. He said ‘Honestly, the best time I’m having is with the croquet. I love it, I really do. I like golf, but I’m too old for it now. I still play but use a buggy. I still enjoy it, but not half as much as I love croquet.’ Brian was a valuable member of the High Handicap GC squad in 2024.

Brian pictured hooping the yellow at Broadwas against Moreton-in-Marsh for the High Handicap team in 2024

It was Chris Croft who introduced Brian to croquet. In the past, he played golf tours with Chris. Both Brian and Chris were together in local Rotary and Round Table organisations. Brian also plays bowls.

I was surprised to learn that Brian has only been playing croquet for two years. Last year he played in the club’s High Handicap team and in 2023 he won the Open Golf Croquet Plate, only to have the trophy snatched away from him by the Other Bloke, in 2024. I think Humph really needs to apply himself.

Paul Felton

MEMBER PROFILE – JANET BEDFORD

I met up for my long-awaited chat with Janet Beford in mid-April of 2024. At that time, the lawns were awaiting the first cut of the year, work having been delayed by exceptionally wet weather.

Until this lengthy chat, Janet scared me mildly.  I once had a ticking off from her during a club competition in my first ever interaction with her in 2022, more of which later.

Janet was born in Washington DC .  At the time, her father worked in Naval Intelligence in Washington. During the war, her father served in the Royal Navy and sent to work in Naval Intelligence because of his suitability and his proficiency in speaking a number of languages.

Janet’s grandmother was Prussian and arrived in Britain as a child.  Consequently, Janet’s father spoke fluent German, which was an obvious asset.  After the war, on returning to England he was recruited to MI6.   Janet only discovered this some years after her father retired from the Secret Services.

Janet and her Mother returned to Surrey from Washington.  Her father followed about 18 months later and  then joined MI6.  Janet was sent to board at Tormead in Guildford, which she described as being  ‘reasonably’ close to her home. Janet’s exeat days and weekends enabled her to spend time at home with her dogs and pony.  She and her close friends were all ‘horse mad.’   Janet then went to finishing school in Gstaad, Switzerland.  “It was very fashionable at that time for girls.” Janet added “I dread to think how much money it cost.  My father always said it was the biggest waste of money ever.” But it was not completely wasted. Janet said  “I came home able to smoke and make mayonnaise!”

On finishing her formal education, Janet moved to London, working in corporate advertising for a large  agency in High Holborn. At the agency she worked in administration as well as organising market research. The agency’s biggest clients  were cigarette companies.

Janet really loved London, sharing flats with friends and thoroughly enjoying the ‘Swinging 60’s.’

Janet met her first partner in late 60’s and they moved to the Norfolk-Suffolk border where she could continue her love of horses and participated in competitive horse driving trials promoted by Prince Phillip in the early 1970’s.

Janet’s interest in the sport was triggered after watching a competition at Windsor. She then joined a group of other enthusiasts locally, near her home in Norfolk and competed nationally, in three and four day events from 1974.

With the help of Prince Philip, the sport was emerging to prominence.  Janet said “It was great fun for many, many years, then like all sports it started to change. It became commercial – you had to get sponsors. There was an accident where someone was killed and then there was a requirement to have insurance.” Janet was involved in the sport for about twenty years, which she thoroughly enjoyed. She recalled enjoying the social aspect of  competitions. “We’d have four nights in wonderful settings, places like Sandringham and Windsor and Tatton Park. We’d  be all over the whole estate as part of the competition.”

Janet’s horse at the time was named Brockwell Bossy. Janet bought him as a yearling. That partnership lasted thirty years. “He won everything for me. He was brilliant,”  Janet told me. “Some wins are memorable. He won Sandringham for me. That was nice because we were in front of a home crowd.”

Janet beamed when she spoke of Brockwell Bossy. “There were other horses with him, but he was especially special I think partly because I’d had him from such a baby. Nobody thought I’d get him in a carriage because he was a difficult youngster– he really was a bugger! When he got the hang of it, he was brilliant.”

Janet and her partner owned other horses – Arabians – which she showed nationally.  One of them became the British National Champion gelding, two years running.

At this time they also owned Salukis  – in her opinion one of the most beautiful of hounds – which they ran on the beaches of Norfolk.

Janet had a property in Hay-on-Wye from 1980 and after coming over to this side of the country permanently, settled in Alfrick with her partner, Josie.

Janet was one of the early members of the newly formed Broadwas Croquet Club. She heard about the new Broadwas club after lunching with a friend in Cheltenham. They then went to look at Cheltenham’s Croquet Club. At the time Janet said she hadn’t a clue which form of croquet she played – “I just played to the rules that came in the box.”

Janet’s introduction to croquet was through garden croquet, which she played as a child at her family home. Later, she played at school in the evenings. “Croquet has always been in my life” she said.

Janet phoned Hugh Popplewell – one of the Broadwas Croquet Club’s founder members. Janet said “He asked which game I played – I said AC  – never having heard of Golf Croquet.   I went up to the club and met Hugh  and it started there!” Janet was also a member of Cheltenham Croquet Club for about eight years and has her name on the ceiling as an AC competition winner!

“A lot of the original Broadwas members have gone now, which is sad. We used to have a roll of honour which Keith Brooks created because we used to have a lot of internal competitions. Keith set it all up and it used to be displayed in the clubhouse, but that’s all gone now,” Janet said. It would be good to have a roll of honour containing the lovely old names that were once associated with the club – like Hugh and John Barber.” Janet would like to see a roll of honour reintroduced and displayed in the clubhouse.

Janet went on “New people coming into the club is really good. It keeps the sport going and it keeps the sport changing.”

When Janet first joined Broadwas, the club had about 30 members and golf croquet was the most prominent game played.

When Hugh Popplewell asked Janet if she played association croquet and Janet replied “I don’t know. I play croquet!” When they went through the rules, it was established that Janet played AC. Janet plays GC but says she really prefers AC.

“The association side is much diminished now, but I think it’s by far the most interesting game. Unfortunately, all clubs seem to be suffering from a lack of AC players.”

In the past, Janet played in South West Federation competition matches in both GC and AC. Nowadays she will offer to be a backup in external team competitions, though she no longer feels the need to play in team tournaments because of the surfeit of willing GC players in the club. Janet admits to having arthritis in her thumbs which she dismisses as “extremely annoying,” sometimes having to resort to consuming paracetamol before playing.

Janet is pictured after competition success with John Taber (left), Roger Wood and John Guy

As an aside, Janet told me that she is keen on playing boules and would like to see a pétanque court (boules pitch) at the club. “I think the two sports go rather well together.”

Janet is happy to see the growth of the club and the work of new members. “People have new ideas and they are enthusiastic and we have some good younger players.”

Janet’s favourite club tournament is the Ryland Tropy, named after John Ryland – a founder member of the club. She has won the tournament twice, but complained of being beaten a number of times in the final by either Stuart Smith or John Guy. “I will always compete in the Ryland. For as long as I can stand.”

Being a relatively new member of the club, I wasn’t aware that Janet was once the Broadwas club captain – filling the role for a year until John Guy came forward to take over the job permanently. Janet said that in the past, the club captain looked after all of the teams, whereas now, each team has its own captain. Janet was once also the captain of the Broadwas Level Play Golf team for three years.

Janet has also been involved over the years in running club tournaments, like the Veteran’s competition.

Janet describes John Guy as the ‘soul’ of the club. At the time she said “It would have been very difficult for the club to have continued without him.”

I reminded Janet of our first interaction. I played against her in the Ryland tournament. Within a few minutes of starting our game, Janet sportingly chastised me for not using my marbles. She recalled “Yes, yes. You weren’t using them. You CANNOT finish the game with marbles in your pocket.” That was me told!

Janet doesn’t consider herself to be highly competitive but likes to play as well as she can.   She has many interests, like Bridge, but she is particularly passionate about the garden.   She and Josie are keen travellers especially  to France and Italy.   They are avid about art and complete a lot of art courses online.  When I interviewed her, Janet  had  just taken up needlepoint. “I don’t like sitting in front of the television not doing anything,” she told me.  Janet and Josie have two Italian Greyhounds, which are a great joy.   “I have been very fortunate through my life and owe a lot to the pleasure the horse and the hound have given me.  Not to forget my rescue Goffin Cockatoo named Samuel Sancerre after the white wine – I have had him for 40 years. He flies free in the garden and is likely to outlive me!”

Although she is open to new ideas in croquet, one that doesn’t appeal is advantage handicap play. “Giving somebody a hoop which they may never have won…I find that decidedly nuts!”

Paul Felton

MEMBER PROFILE – JANET BARBER

I’ve only known Janet Barber for a couple of years, but I can say with all  honestly, that I have never seen her with a frown.

The only times I’ve seen her close up without her customary smile is when she has been mustering her steely determination to clear me from what I’d previously thought of as a certain hooping position, from what I had naively assessed to be an almost impossible five yards away – until she struck.  

I was greeted by that beaming smile one cold morning in early December when I met up with Janet, Broadwas Croquet Club’s longest-serving member, at her home in the village.

Over coffee and biscuits, surrounded by pictures of her family – three sons and a daughter, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren – I chatted with Janet about the creation of the club, which was launched in 1998 by Hugh Popplewell and Janet’s husband, John Barber.  

Neither John nor Janet had ever played croquet when one day in the early 90’s, Jay and Hugh Popplewell asked them to a summer garden party at their house. Hugh invited the couple to take part in a game of garden croquet.

At that time, the sports ground was used by the local cricket team, but Hugh approached John and asked if he would be interested in creating a croquet lawn in the cricket outfield. Janet recalled John replying “why not?” and Broadwas Croquet Club was conceived.

At that time, the cricket club was struggling for members and so the ground was initially rented out by the Broadwas Sports Association to clubs at Bransford and Ombersley, until the interest of those clubs waned.

The first lawn croquet lawn created was the area now known as Lawn 2, while the second lawn to be added is the one everyone now knows as Lawn 1. For a while, the cricket club and croquet club co-existed, until the cricket club no longer had enough members to field a team. Janet remembers cricket still being played on the grounds up to 2016.

Janet said “There weren’t many members when the croquet club first started. The club began with about a dozen members and then it grew as word got out that we were here.” Janet recalled that the cricket players didn’t appear to be interested in croquet.

John Barber was appointed as club captain from the birth of the club until Stuart Smith took over the role in 2009.

Janet remembers current club captain John Guy’s first days at the club. “John was very interested. He altered his day off from work to a Tuesday, so it would fit in with the club’s main croquet day.” In those days, Wednesdays were reserved for Association Croquet. She said “Generally, people just turned up to play. There was no booking system. John (Barber) would allot competitors to each other.”

At the time that the club launched, John Barber had no real experience of croquet. “He was essentially, self-taught,” said Janet. She added in the early days “We had a lot of help from Norton Croquet Club.” But she joked “They came, but they weren’t very complimentary about the slope.”

“Norton helped us to get going and we went over to their ground and played, although that was initially, Association Croquet.”

Janet said that in the early days of the club she didn’t play much since she was helping out at a local hospital.  She recalled that when Golf Croquet was introduced at the club, there was a lot of learning to do related to the GC rules.

Most of the work required to create the first croquet lawn was carried out by members. Janet recalled that John initially used his car for mowing – towing the crass cutters on the back of his car. Eventually, he acquired two tractors to help with the task. John left work early on a Friday in order to cut the new croquet lawns.

Although originally from Birmingham, privately-educated Janet first met John  in London in 1954.  They both then worked for what was then known as the Lucas Group. John was a metallurgist at the company, while Janet worked as a technician in the chemistry laboratory where she helped carry out analysis.

Janet and John married in 1958 and shortly after they started their family, John moved into research, which took all the family to Lancashire  and eventually Four Oaks,  Sutton Coldfield.  

When the couple moved to Broadwas in the early-90’s, John was heavily involved in the building of a copper refinery and was, according to Janet “Jetting off all over the world.” John was once a recipient of the Queen’s Award For Industry and received his award from the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

Janet admitted that until the croquet club formed “I was never sporting at all.” Her other half was “A very sporty child” however. John had lost his mother when he was just five and he and his two sisters went to the Royal Commercial Travellers’ School in Watford, where he regularly got into trouble for abandoning his revision in favour of cricket, swimming and hockey.

Janet said that John threw himself into croquet, starting off in AC.  Janet said although she enjoyed AC years ago, she admits that she wouldn’t now manage the bending required to play AC.

Janet recalled that in the early days of the club, the  inter-club matches were mainly played against Norton – and Norton were usually the victors. Later, Stroud became opponents. She said it was some time before the club competed in the West Midlands league, although when it did, Broadwas competed in both AC and GC competitions. Such was John’s prowess in Association Croquet, at one point he was ranked 10^th in the world. At that time, AC dominated at Broadwas.  

In the early days of the club, Janet competed for Broadwas in both AC and GC matches. She remembers one occasion when she was playing in a GC competition away against a newly-formed club in Wales.  One of her opponents was an absolute beginner and Janet being Janet, she began to coach her opponent during the game. True to form, John Guy, who was playing on an adjacent lawn, called across to Janet, saying “It’s alright you coaching Janet, but for Heaven’s sake…WIN !”

Janet remembers John teaching John Guy croquet from scratch. She particularly recalls John Guy’s enthusiasm for the game and also said that Janet Bedford’s arrival at the club “brought a lot of life” to the Broadwas lawns.

Initially, club members were local, but then members came from further afield – particularly Bromyard and Malvern. Janet said Some of the original members preferred not to encourage too many members because they enjoyed the ‘cosiness’ of the small number the club had.  But she said her husband was  ‘fiercely competitive’ and so John insisted that new people were brought into the club. Janet said John helped a lot of people with their game.

In the early days, the club got some coaching help from Cheltenham. Janet said that  although people played bowls, the sport never really took off in Broadwas.

Janet said that the club began to become successful against other clubs with the arrival of John Guy and Janet herself gained a couple of trophies in doubles in GC in the early days.

Janet said that the club started with just twelve members and it took a little while to build up the membership. Janet is the longest serving member of the club and once sat on the Broadwas Sports Association Committee. As previously mentioned, Janet admitted that she was never sporting, but she was attracted to the ‘gentle’ nature of the game – although having been victim to one of her clearing shots, the adjective ‘gentle’ doesn’t immediately spring to my mind.  

Janet loves the club as it is currently, particularly the social side. She prefers Golf Croquet because it seems more sociable. She feels that croquet keeps her fit and as a result has a strong ‘core.’  Janet’s playing style would occasionally garner criticism from John. She said that her husband would tell her off for ‘not standing right’ and for not swinging and following through. She says that her play has taken time to get right lamenting that that her rate of progress was  “Not like Billy Cooke!”

She ended by saying “John would be ‘over the moon’ to see how the club stands now.”

Paul Felton

THE SOUND OF BROADWAS – A SONG

(Sung to the tune of ‘My Favourite Things)

Unplayable croquet lawns drenched through and sodden

Covered in worm casts, remaining untrodden

Kirby and Wood both have a mallet that pings

These are a few of my least favourite things

Arriving at rollup, finding cake plates deserted

“Where are the flapjacks?” most players have blurted

Chris says “play’s not on – to the balls, that mud  clings”

These are a few of my least favourite things

When John Guy bites

When Dave Holt sings

When I’m feeling sad

I simply remember my least favourite things

And then I don’t feel so bad

Someone clears you from far – you feel anger flashes

Till you remember it’s Cooke, with one of his smashes

You forgive him his skill but still how it stings

These are a few of my least favourite things

Fran Wall aims his mallet like swinging a sporran

Four players deserted us for somewhere foreign

Who knows what the Met Office every day brings

These are a few of my least favourite things

When your index drops

And your approach flops

And you’re feeling bad

I simply remember my least favourite things

And then I don’t feel so sad

(A Steely breakfast at The Bell helps)

Paul Felton

GOLF CROQUET FOR DUMMIES – A 72 PART SERIES ON HOW TO BECOME A BETTER GC PLAYER

If you follow this course avidly, I’m 17.3% confident that you will see  a 9.8% improvement in your GC game within ten years.

But before we begin, I have to warn you – you will probably never be as good a GC player as me. Very few players are capable of going from an 11-handicap to a 16-handicap in two months, as I did this season, so lower your sights a little. But don’t despair. If you don’t manage to hit a high handicap in the 2025 season, remember, there’s always cake.

Croquet has often been described as ‘a nasty game played by nice people.’ If you study this course diligently, I can guarantee you will make your game much nastier, ergo, much more fun.

In Unit One, we will start with the basics – GC Psychology.

Messing with your opponent’s mind is crucial if you are going to succeed in the sport. Golf Croquet is not for wimps, so if you’re squeamish, please bail out now and take up needlepoint instead.

‘My advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now…’ *

1. Imply you really do know what you are doing

One thing that will really put your opponent(s) on the back foot and inject trepidation into their deepest recesses is to give the impression that you possess a deep mastery over GC strategy.

When playing in a doubles match, near the beginning of the game, whisper to your partner (loud enough for both your opponents to hear it) “Let’s play the percentages!” This is a favourite of Jon Carrington.

This has two effects. A) Few players know what that means so it will give the impression you are a true GC expert thus undermining the confidence of your opponents. B) The introduction of maths into the game will make your opponent’s quiver. This simple strategy is good for at least two hoops before your opponent’s stop shaking with mind-numbing fear.

2. Imply there is an underlying threat of physical violence

Few things can unsettle an opponent’s confidence more effectively than implying that things could turn ugly if the result doesn’t go your way.

This technique is best employed just at the start of the game when you are all ready to play to Hoop 1.  As everyone has said “Have a good game,” say to your partner (quietly, but so your opponents can hear) “Remember, no biting this time!” In actuality, this technique only works if you’re partnering Peter Hill or Gill Brooks.

3. Introduce medical trepidation

At a crucial stage in the game, massage your left arm and ask both of your opponents if they know what the code  for the AED is. When you’re asked by the opposition if you’re feeling ok, say “Yes, yes…it’ll pass,” then in view, slip a tablet under your tongue. A Cherry Cola Tic Tac is ideal for this. This is a particularly effective technique when your opponent is preparing for a clearing shot.

4. Give the impression you have a plan

Nothing throws opponents off more than giving the impression that you have a secret strategy up your waterproofs.

I remember partnering Alan Stevens once on a rollup. There was a particularly tricky situation in front of Hoop 7 and our opponents were deliberating extensively over their next move. I wandered over to Alan and turned away from our opponents. I heard our opponents speculating on whether we had a strategy, when in fact I merely whispered to Alan that I had a really nice curry in Birmingham in 1972. We won the hoop. It really does pay to spice things up this way occasionally.

5. Get a clicker

Scoring devices are essential if you are really serious about winning at GC – but be careful when choosing your unit. It MUST emit an audible click if it’s to be effective.

A well-timed click can distract an opponent as they are about to take their stroke, but the possession of a clicker really does separate the men from the boys.

Clickers are best used to intimidate opponents who are…leisurely when they are lining up their shots. By coordinating with a similarly armed doubles partner, an opponent can be flustered when after a minute or so, you and your partner can operate the clickers so that they sound like crickets in the dusk. This is particularly useful technique when David Harington is lining up a shot.

I remember Chris Croft helping me and my partner win a hoop when he threw in the distraction “Watch out! He’s got his clicker out!”  He should really  have added a Frankie Howerd “Missus,” but it still had the desired effect.

6. Sledging

Sledging is the art of deliberately insulting or verbally intimidating an opposing player, used to great effect in cricket.

This can be best used against John Guy. “How are the Albion doing John?” slipped in just as he’s about to take a shot at a hoop from a distance, is well worth a punt. The tears welling up in his eyes are sometimes hard to take.

Jim Norris’s variation on sledging comes in the form of sixth-former jokes. The nausea induced by Jim in his opponents is often worth a couple of hoops until their anti-emetics take effect.  

7. Appealing for sympathy

This technique is best employed when you are just in front of the hoop and is most effective when delivered in an intimate whisper to the player who is intending to clear you.

Go close up to your opponent, smile sweetly and delicately whisper “If you have any ounce of humanity in your soul, you wouldn’t clear me.”

Don’t bother appealing to Janet Barber though. Hard as nails.

8. Mesmerise the opposition

Again, David Harington is a master of this, by inducing drowsiness in his opponents with his somnambulistic lining up technique.

But confusing the opposition right at the start of the game has been perfected by Gerry Stevens and Mary Dryden in what I like to call the GerryMarying method.

Both of them employ the technique when nobody has a coin to toss. They put two balls behind their backs and then make the opponents call a colour and then repeat the procedure. The beauty of this system is that their opponents don’t know which side they are playing on until they are three hoops down.

9. Feigning haplessness

This is employed to induce overconfidence in the opponent(s).

Expert proponents of this technique are Sue Curphey, who persistently tries to give the impression she’s a newcomer to the game and Brian Humphreys, who tries to perpetuate the illusion that he doesn’t know which way he’s playing and doesn’t know his left from his right.

Sometimes, players might NOT be feigning haplessness – they just are – Stuart Smith being a prime example.

10. Call a fault

Calling a fault in front of the hoop will halt an opponent’s flow.  Calling a crush or a double-tap will throw a real spanner in the works, since nobody in Broadwas knows what a double-tap or crush is so they can dispute the call.  The same goes for playing the wrong ball. If you magnanimously let the opponent off with the fault, you might just be allowed to get a hoop even though you ‘accidentally’ kicked the opponent’s ball out the way. “He let me off, I suppose I should let him off.”

11. Wear the right gear

You can’t expect to win any games if you don’t wear the right headgear. How do you think Jon Carrington wins all those competitions he goes in for? It’s all in the hat….or so I thought.

A few months ago, Jon was in the clubhouse asking if anyone wanted his castoff hat – a slightly smaller version of the one he always wears when playing. Naturally, I snapped up the offer and wore it constantly for competition games. For the next few weeks I won every competition game I played. THEN, the spell wore off and I realised I’d got a dud. If I’d bought it at Millets, I’d have demanded a refund.

On reflection, I should have used some dirty tricks (see above).

NEXT TIME: When is the most strategic and tactically appropriate time to go for a wee?

Paul Felton

*Baz Luhrmann

BROADWAS CROQUET CLUB – AN ODE (AND A FEW REPLIES)

I’ll tell you a tale about Broadwas

It’s an epic, I’m  sure you’ll agree

It’s a story of near misses and heartbreak

All occurring on Mount Stoney Ley

Let me tell you a tale about Broadwas

It’s rolling hills feared near and wide

Only conquered by those who discover,

Balls ne’re go straight, veering off to the side

Let me fill you with myths about Broadwas

Of the bravery and skill that is shown

In attempts to secure Champagne moments

(More chance, getting blood from a stone!)

This tale I will tell about Broadwas

Speaks of feasts once a year full of gammon

Though the leader Fran Wall often takes aim

Like he’s actually fishing for salmon

This story I tell about Broadwas

Led by a great croquet warrior, John Guy

Who protects us and leads us victorious

(Don’t say ‘Golden Hoop’ in his ear, or you’ll die)

Let me tell you of styles up at  Broadwas

To be happy, embrace your own stance

Like the clearing whizz that is David Harington

But I’d ask “Too much starch in his pants?”

What great glories you hear of at Broadwas

More treasures remain yet unfurled

Won by Smith, Wall, Faulkner and young Jon

Who  says with a wink “Next, the world!”

As the winter light spreads slow o’er Broadwas

Ne’re fear, for you’ll at least get a break

From muddy balls and bad jokes from Norris

By March, you’ll be ready for cake

Paul Felton

I’ve Told You A Dozen Times Already!!

We’ve found ourselves a wordsmith,

His name is Felton – Paul,

He tells us tales of croquet

And keeps us in his thrall.

He tells us of the Broadwas lawns,

The balls veer out of true,

How hard it is to run a hoop,

And knock your ball right through.

He tells of all the players,

Of our lovely friendly game,

Many of whom just play for fun,

While others garner fame.

But in the midst of all this fun,

The comedy he wrote,

He mentions something personal,

That really gets my goat

So when you’re playing a tight game,

The score is six points each.

You turn to play the next long hoop,

Which your croquet ball must reach

Drive your ball on past the hoop,

Then turn to play it back,

Don’t let your oppo have a shot,

With either Blue or Black

You hoop with Red or Yellow,

Feel like a king or queen,

But the hoop it isn’t made of gold,

IT’S SIMPLY HOOP THIRTEEN.

John Guy

I’m Definitely Not Giving Champagne Away For THAT!!

A bashful young mallet called Ted

Just couldn’t stop hitting the red

When it came to six all

He’d strike the wrong ball

So there was no way he was panning for gold, was there?

Chris Croft

I’ll Say This, Then I Will Go Into Hiding

There is a club member called Guy

Whose expectations are terribly high

A crafty push shot will not please him one jot

And his next one will kiss you bye bye.

Jim Norris

Champagne? In Your Dreams!

There’s a little slice of heaven on Stoney Lee,

HQ for our wonderful croquet fraternity,

Charming characters make up our group,

Such a pleasure to be part of it from hoop to hoop.

There’s a legend of a seldom seen ‘Champagne Moment’ prize,

Though it’s only ever valid if seen by Mr Croft’s own eyes,

So we forge on in pursuit of this mystical thing,

With all the joy and happiness that the game of croquet brings.

William Cooke

WHEN A BODY WAS FOUND ON THE LAWNS OF BROADWAS CROQUET CLUB, EVERYONE BECAME A SUSPECT…

CHAPTER ONE

“If the police aren’t going to do anything about it, then WE must!!”

The Broadwas Croquet Club committee sat in stunned silence, chilled to the core by the news that they’d just received from chairman Fran Wall.

The body had been found on lawn three on Monday morning, discovered by Nick Reed as he was about to unleash the mowers ready for the weekly cut. As Nick approached the shed, his mind preoccupied with worries about which mower would require mechanical attention today, he suddenly spotted a shapeless mound on lawn three, which had attracted the attention of a murder of crows.

Nick’s pace began to slow as he approached the sizeable amorphous lump, reluctantly, tentatively edging forward until he could just about identify the object lying prostrate on the lawn. The atmosphere on the lawns was very eerie.

Nick suddenly jumped in the air as he heard a scream.

“SHUT THE BLOODY GATE!”

It was John Guy. Nick had forgotten to shut the bloody gate.

Nick beckoned John over and they both, very gingerly, crept forward, finally being confronted by a bloody corpse just in front of hoop five. Despite himself, Nick licked his lips.

The unclothed body appeared to have been battered and neither Nick nor John could identify the victim. This poor soul had been the subject of a vicious attack with a blunt object – battered beyond all recognition.

With blood drained from his face, Nick wandered off to phone the police.

By the time the police arrived, most of the lawns were cut, apart from  a nine metre square area around hoop five. Nick’s elite mowing team were always focussed on the job and the odd corpse on the lawns proved to be little deterrent to such a determined band of plucky volunteers.

Nick and John were appalled by the attitude of the police officer who arrive to investigate the vicious crime. She seemed starkly disinterested in the concerns of Nick and John and gave the impression that this sort of crime was run-of-the-mill and very much beneath the duties of the  ‘very busy’ West Mercia Constabulary. As she drove her patrol car back on to Stoney Ley, she shouted “I’ll send forensics up when they’re not too busy!”  As she edged down the lane, she added sarcastically “And Interpol…”

But the police never returned and the body lay under a tarpaulin for a full 24 hours.  An emergency committee meeting was called and as they sat in the clubhouse, staring out at the wretched soul on lawn three, the committee members were at a loss as to what to do next.  

“It’s murder!” exclaimed Fran. “And the police apparently aren’t going to do anything about it. We need to find out who did this! We have a killer in the club and we need to track him…OR her, down! A private investigator?”

“I fully agree with finding the killer Fran,” said treasurer Stuart Smith.

“…Although, if we find the murderer and rescind their membership, our income will be reduced slightly. I might have to look at the club’s finances again and think about raising membership fees.”

The other committee members quietly nodded as they took on board the prospect of potentially serious financial consequences arising out of any successful investigation into this truly grisly crime.

“Might I suggest that WE carry out the investigation?”

Everyone turned to  Gill Richardson. “We can be pretty sure that it was a club member who did it. I mean, the gate had the chain secured on the nail when Nick arrived yesterday, so it wasn’t some opportunistic sadistic killer who was just passing by who popped in for a quick slaughtering and then closed the gate neatly after themselves.”

“We know everyone in the club and all their quirks and foibles. Surely, we can work out who did this?” she added.

“I think that’s a great idea Gill, but in the absence of a proper police investigation, I think we should take it one step at a time,” said Fran. “We should try and figure out who would be capable of such a murderous act, and then go on to figure out the motive.”

John Guy picked up his briefcase off the floor and rummaged in it. “I’ve got some statistics here,” he said. “They might give us some clues as to who the likely suspects might be.”

“How can statistics help us, John?” Eileen Holt was sceptical.

“Well, for example,” John replied. “Lawn usage might give us a clue.  If we look at the members who never book lawn three, it might give us some idea of a potential culprit.  I mean, would YOU slaughter someone on lawn three if it was YOUR favourite lawn?”

“That’s true,” said Paula. “What about those blokes who only ever play on a Thursday afternoon  when nobody else is around?”

Jon Carrington interjected “Good point! I’ve never seen them on any lawn other than four. Who knows what other dastardly deeds they’ve got planned for lawns one, two  and five!”

John Guy was still shuffling through a massive file with ‘Lawn Booking Stats’ labelled on the front.

“There we go…Geoff Hill, Nick Dean, Chris Bray,  Phil Apperley and Patrick Linturn have booked lawn four at 1.00pm on a Thursday since records began. They’ve had that lawn 97.6543% of the time it was available on a Thursday afternoon.” “AND,” he said, stabbing at a calculator, “I’m pretty sure that figure is 73.45674% accurate.”

“Good!” exclaimed Jon. “I hate that lawn.”  There were general murmurs of agreement from the committee table. “At least lawn four is put to some use though. I had to mow it AGAIN on Monday,” Jon added, bitterly.

“But the fact that they CHOOSE lawn four every week must surely indicate that they are somehow deranged?” said Nick.

“AND some of them are ex-Worcestershire County Council workers…so they are capable of disseminating effective evil with abandon. In fact, it’s probably in their job description.”

“I see your point” said Fran. “The Thursday boys go to the top of the list – for now.”

“That’s all very well,” said Paula, “But who in the club would have a motive for carrying out such a barbaric act?”

“Someone with a deep grudge,” Jon muttered, almost imperceptibly. “A borderline psychopath.”

There was a unified intake of breath from the committee members as they pondered Jon’s words and almost as one, they squealed “PETER HILL!”

Jon interrupted. “Hang on, hang on! Peter’s anger is always directed against himself – mainly when he misses a shot even a two-year old would hoop, blindfolded. It happens a lot, but I’ve rarely seen Peter take a swing at anyone in anger…he mostly prefers biting. But think! Who lives with Peter and has to bear all of the tension that exists in Great Witley? Who really needs to let out the stress more than anyone on the planet?”

“DIANA !” the committee shouted.

Fran made a note on his sheet of A4. “Straight to the top of the list I think.”

David Kaner interrupted. “Am I minuting this?”

“For the safety of everyone on the committee, leave the bit out about Peter. We don’t want to risk another corpse for the moment,” reflected Fran.

Then Nick said “Excuse me chair. If Diana is going to the top of the list, what about Jackie Guy – same reasoning.”

John shouted “Agreed! Fair enough! Put Jackie at the VERY TOP of the list. The things that girl has to put up with…”  

“Here, Here” murmured Eileen, a little too emphatically.

“Look!” said Fran. Shall we just run through members who can’t possibly fall under suspicion? People like Barry Kirby?”

Gill said “You mean Barry, ‘Keep your head down’ Barry? Barry with the only metal mallet in the club licensed by the National Rifle Association? People around Broadwas are saying that on the night of the murder, they heard an unearthly metallic clanging emanating from the pinnacle of Stoney Ley. I’d put him right up there with the Lawn Four Five if I were you.”

“On…the…list” noted Fran.

“Are we all convinced that  a mallet was the murder weapon?” Eileen asked.

“Pretty much” Jon replied. “There was an oblong dent in the skull. It looked like a good mallet.”

“In that case,” Eileen said, “We can rule out David Harington. By the time he’d taken aim, the victim would have had the time to stroll off down the Royal Oak AND had a pint and a pie. Actually, after his recent horizontal lining-up antics in the blocks, you can eliminate Stuart as well.”

“Shall I minute that?” asked David.

“Pauline Watson!”

“What?” said John.

“She’s been doing a huge amount of practice recently, especially on jumping. She’s getting good at it. It’s quite a hefty swing she’s developed. Just sayin,’” said Jon.

“Personally, I’d put all the Association Croquet players on the list” said Nick. “It makes sense. To enjoy playing AC, they’ve all got to have some sort of deeply deranged personality disorder. They relish isolation and abandonment. Let’s face it, AC fanatics all demonstrate the same psychological profiles as serial killers – they’re all loners – they all just sit there, quietly watching…AND judging! Put the Ians’ – Lambert and Dampney on the list. And don’t forget to add present company! Guy, Smith and Kaner. All highly suspicious in my view. Oh, and while you’re at it, put Debbie Kaner down as well. She’s married to a fanatical AC player. It rubs off, you know, AND I’ve seen her voluntarily play on lawn one. Very dubious behaviour.”

John objected loudly “Just because we like the game for grown-ups  doesn’t automatically mean we’re kill…”

“On the list” said Fran.  

“HANG ON A MINUTE!! We’re missing the blindingly obvious here” exclaimed Jon. “JIM NORRIS!”

“What about him?” David asked.

“Has he told you the one about the…”

David facepalmed. “I’ve heard them all.”

“Exactly!” said Jon. “Just imagine you’ve just about had your fill of his jokes and he starts to tell you about the three blokes who want to go golfing and they have to bargain with their wives, and you just…SNAP! Well, who knows what Jim would be capable of if someone refused to listen until he got to the punchline?”

“Good point,” said Gill.  “AND he must have been planning this for a long time. He’s even got an escape route to Ealing all worked out.”

“Obviously Jim should go straight to the top” Fran agreed. “AND Roger Wood? What do we think?”

“Absolutely!” the committee agreed unanimously.

“All that Einstein hair. Roger MUST be an evil genius,” said Fran, scribbling away. “AND he quite obviously hates handicap marbles. There’s a lot of anger and resentment bubbling away there.”

“We mustn’t forget the club detective,” said David. “We can’t rule Brian Humphries out. You have to wonder why the police are reluctant to investigate. I reckon Brian could be influencing the local force so they don’t look into it properly. Something to hide maybe?”

“Brian’s definitely a dodgy one” said Felton. He’s right up there with Vivien Ellis, Jennifer Whittaker and Peter Lawrence to my mind. Stick ‘em all down on the list. We need to look at them all, VERY closely.”

“At least we can rule out Janet Barber,” Gill suggested.

“WHAT??” exclaimed Felton. “Have you ever watched her face when she’s ruthlessly clearing you from right in front of the hoop? Look closely next time. She has the cold, dead eyes of a killer.  Same goes for Catherine and John Lane. On the list, Mr Chairman.”

“Done!” said Fran with a flourish. “That’s quite a list of suspects we’ve got now. Surely, we  must have SOME members who above suspicion.”

“Come off it!” said Felton. “We all play GC. Let’s face it, it’s an EVIL game. I once saw it described as a nasty game played by nice people, but if you actually enjoy playing a nasty game, surely deep down you must be innately malevolent? I’m not, obviously.”

“That’s all very well, countered Nick. “But what about people like Chris Croft.”

“WASH YOUR MOUTH OUT” exclaimed Felton. “He brings in those exquisite cakes every Friday. Don’t you DARE sully his name. The man is a saint. And the same goes for Mary Dryden. She brings cakes up to the mower drivers on a Monday.”

“W…W…WHAT?” shouted Nick. “Mary never brings any to my team!”

“That’s because Jim Dryden isn’t in YOUR team…DUH!”

“Look, can we get on with it” said Nick in exasperation. I mean we haven’t looked at Janet Bedford yet…”

“Well she DOES have the air of a professional assassin” said John. “Good AC player though, so don’t put her on the list. I need her for next season.”

“Sorry” said Fran. “I already snuck her on. Can we eliminate some OBVIOUSLY incapable killers please? This meeting’s going on much longer than anticipated. We need to talk about the annual lunch next.”

“Shona Smith?” said John.

“Nope. She has a dodgy hoop counter. List her!”  said Felton.

“Dodgy hoop counter?” queried Stuart.

“Yes. Have you ever heard it?” Felton asked.

“Can’t say I have.”

“EXACTLY!” It doesn’t make a noise. It’s a stealth clicker…AND…it’s cylindrical! VERY suspicious.”

Everyone gasped and the room fell silent for a few seconds, the only noise in the clubhouse coming from Fran’s furiously scribbling pen.   

“How about Billy Nicholson then? Surely he’s not capable of violence?” suggested John.

“AND it’s a long way from Pershore. Do killer’s like travelling?” Eileen asked.

“Well, Billy certainly relished travelling to Europe” replied Felton, “So distance is no object to him. I looked at the murder statistics for the time the European team were in Prague and there were a number of killings in the EU around the time of the tournament. That affable, butter-wouldn’t-melt demeanour is an attempt to throw us off the track! And if he can skip across to Broadwas to play from Pershore at the drop of a hat, he could easily cross a couple of borders for a quick bit of playful homicide while he was sitting out his bye.”

“I don’t think I have any choice but to put Mr Nicholson on the list with the other potential miscreants,” agreed Fran. “But surely we can eliminate the Brooks’s?”

“Nope!” Felton muttered. “They would have worked as a team. Gill could have sat on the victim while Keith did the deed. It’s obvious. Gill’s a Brummay! She definitely gives off Peaky Blinder vibes, PLUS, she used to be an AC player!”

“You’ve been pointing a lot of fingers this morning, Felton” Jon said, sternly. “Why aren’t you on the list? I narrowly avoided being bumped off by you last year when you nearly reversed over me with the tractor, AND I hear you nearly saw off Chris Croft and Stuart the other week when you crashed a mower into the tractor.”

“But that wasn’t malevolent…it was…it was…clumsy!” he countered.

“Be that as it may” said Jon. “I’m making a phone note even if Fran doesn’t.”

“Come come gents. Let’s calm down a bit,” said Eileen. “Nobody is pointing a finger at anyone.”

“But they are!” laughed John Guy, bitterly.  “That’s exactly what we’ve been doing all morning. There have been thirty fingers pointed so far! That’s very roughly, 43.47826% of the membership!”

“Dave Holt,” said Gill, quietly. “As the club handyman, he knows how to use blunt objects to devastating effect.”

“Yeah, he does,” agreed Eileen. “Great use of accusatory digits there, Gill. Put him down Fran!”

“We MUST be able to eliminate Alan Stevens from the list?” asked Nick.

“Why?” said Felton. “Have you ever been at the sharp end of his sarcasm?”  Felton’s lower lip quivered. “It hurts.” He wiped away his tears and gave a big blow into his tissue.   “AND, he’s a Brummie”, he continued. “He’s an out an out wrong ‘un.”

“But not Gerry?” said Nick.

“Married to a Brummie. She’s almost certainly corrupted by association. Move on.”

“And then, of course, we have the stalkers,” said Nick.

“The who?”

“The stalkers…Jeff and Jean Faulkner. Have you seen the way they size up the hoops? They’re like leopards hunting antelope. And when they go in for the kill…” Nick stood up and imitated Jeff’s side-saddle jump shots to make his point.

The room drew in its collective breath and nodded in agreement.

“Nobody has mentioned John Steel yet,” said Fran.

“Preposterous idea” Jon guffawed. Steely wouldn’t bother killing unless he could raise sponsorship money for it…don’t anyone mention that idea to him by the way. He’d like a new clubhouse. It’d be a bloodbath.”

“What about Norman Ward?” Gill asked. “Norman wouldn’t be capable of hurting anything.”

“You ARE joking,” Felton scoffed. “I’ve seen him close up. He tries to give this impression of easy-going affability, but he’s like a viper, waiting to strike. AND he once worked with amateur thespians at Bromyard so I bet he picked up a few tricks off Agatha Christie on the way.

“This list is getting a mile long” Fran complained. “Surely we can eliminate some easy ones. How about  Keith Parsons?”

“Yes, he should be eliminated straight off,” said Gill. “He’s a titan of golf croquet…above reproach in my estimation Admittedly, he has a funny way of  lining up his shot with all that aiming…”

“Titan? Pah! You can say that again about his lining up though. It’s weird!” Felton exploded. “He THINKS he looks like Robin Hood about to alleviate mediaeval poverty with a well-aimed arrow, but he ACTUALLY looks like he’s trying to down a particularly resilient cobweb with a cast-iron feather duster. AND have you ever noticed he always parks OUTSIDE the gate? He’s constantly  setting himself up for a quick getaway, I reckon. Put him on the list!”

“Well I’m not putting the Cooke’s down on the list, before anyone suggests them!” Said Fran.  “Look at him,” Fran whispered, looking at Billy Whizzbang practising jumping hoop two from just in front of hoop one. He continued “Billy is only interested in scoring hoops and the lad will bring greatness to the club one day, while Gwen couldn’t have done it because none of the club mallets were bloodstained. Billy hasn’t gotten around to buying Gwen her own mallet yet. I think he’s waiting for a big birthday or an anniversary.”

“I think our newest members should be eliminated as suspects, said Felton, magnanimously.  “Peter Dobson is still trying to find his way around the lawns and John Kingsley would take too much time to  line the victim up before bashing his brains in – I mean one day, I would swear that he was lining his mallet up to pick up a Starlink signal. It worked, mind you.”  

“Put Alison Disley on the list though. When she’s hooping, she has the air of an exterminator,” Felton added emphatically. “And while we’re at it, Derry Bancroft is another butter-wouldn’t melt, suspect. The man’s driven! I’ve seen him practising his jump shots on a wet Sunday morning, close up! The glint in his eye chilled me to the core. Absolutely manic!”

“I really hadn’t realised that we’re surrounded by complete and utter maniacs,” Stuart said quietly. “When you look at it as closely as we are doing, it’s quite obvious that people you wouldn’t suspect in a million years, like Howard Freeman and Josie Watson are almost certainly harbouring homicidal tendencies. Josie is cut-throat on the lawns and  look at Howard. One day he can hoop from ten yards, the next he misses a sitter. Erratic. The hallmark of a killer. On the list, I’d say.”

“Yes but Andrea Draper and David Creed-Newton must surely be totally above suspicion,” said Paula. “They come across as being so gentle.”

“Nonsense,” said Felton. “Andrea’s a writer – she would be more than capable of creating such a devious and dastardly scenario as that out there – and as for David – have you ever known a man who takes as many holidays as he does? Mafia connections, without a shadow of a doubt. Write them both down in a big, thick red Sharpie, Mr Wall.”

“But surely Emma Laws is above reproach,” said Gill.

Felton guffawed. “WHAT??? I was playing against her in a doubles once, and when we won and I did a victory dance in front of her, she told me to ****  *** *** *****!” he mouthed.

“GOOD FOR HER,” said John. “Then she’s DEFINITLY not going on the list!”

“Sue Curphey can’t be under any suspicion, surely,” said Eileen.

“And why not, exactly?” said Felton. “She lives in Lower Broadheath. There are lots of dubious folk in Broadheath. And for that very reason. I’d put Hazel down on the suspect list as well if I were you…AND underline it.”

“What about Malcolm Armstrong?” asked Paula Armstrong.

“YES!” shouted Felton. “On the list.”

“That’s only because he beats you every time he plays you,” protested Paula.

“EXACTLY. It’ll put him off his game. P L E A S E put him on the list, Fran.”

“OK. Just for you,” said Fran.

“So now we’ve established that all these members could be killers,  can we PLEASE think about the motive for the killing?” John Guy pleaded.

The committee fell silent for a minute. Completely stumped.

Then suddenly the silence was broken by an almost inaudible whisper.

“I think it may have been me.”

Everyone turned to Felton.

“It may have been you, what?” said Nick.

“I may have done the killing!”

“What do you mean?” asked Fran.

Suddenly really embarrassed, Felton explained.

“Well,” he said, supressing a nervous giggle. I suddently remembered. I decided to have an impromptu practice session late on Sunday, after I’d come up to have a look at the new white-lining machine. It was quite dark by the time I’d washed my balls. I put them back in the clubhouse, then I realised I’d left my mallet on lawn three.”

“So?” said Jon.

“Well, I went to retrieve it and as I walked back over the lawn, because my hands were slippery, I dropped my mallet,” Felton gulped.

“And?”

“Well I heard a little squeak, now I recall. But it was dark, so I didn’t bother to explore for the source of the noise. I thought the squeak was from my new croquet shoes” Felton explained.

Felton gulped even harder as he confessed.

“Erm, Ooopsie! I’m pretty sure I accidentally killed the rabbit!”

“I KNEW IT! You clumsy idiot!” exclaimed Jon Carrington.

“Meeting closed!” said Fran. “Let’s not fret about it. After all, it WAS only a rabbit. Anybody for a quick game of singles before rollup?”

THE END

Look out for the next in the Tuesday And Friday Murder Club series – ‘The Brush That Missed’ (The Little Bit Of Mud On The Yellow And Earned A Rollicking From John Guy)

YOUR STARS FOR THE 2025 CROQUET SEASON (I THINK THIS IS HOW ASTROLOGY WORKS)

Predictive Pauly

A POETIC SUMMARY OF BROADWAS CROQUET CLUB’S 2024 SEASON

An End-Of-Year Ode To Stoney Ley

You can now book online

It caused folk no worries

Apart from lost passwords

(A few though, in flurries)

We’ve also a device

(A defib – it’s nice)

If your heart’s all a flutter

Will be fixed in a trice

We were late getting started

(Beginning of May)

Floods in abundance

I blame the clay

Some folk went to Europe

(I say ‘folk,’ meant ‘elite’)

They stormed Czech Republic

Runners-up – that was sweet!

Others went national

Gathering B and C-Levels galore

Go to broadwascroquetclub.org.uk

If you want to read more

GC teams were magnificent

AC squads were glorious

Summer lunch was outstanding

Rabbit poop? Notorious!

Blocks and Open were magic

All the comps were exciting

Next year, why not enter?

There’s nowt more inviting!

Pauly The Poet

To Pauly, the Astrologically Challenged Poet!

Too much information goes up the cry from all,

Just let us play our croquet from Springtime to the Fall.

Astrologers and Poets, their heads amongst the stars,

They’ll never hold a candle to the ones who play on Mars.

Less talk about the theory – of croquet, how it’s played,

Is it not on sward itself where reputations made,

So set aside those crystal balls and ditch that rhyming prose,

Step out on grass itself, I say, feel grass beneath your toes.

Worry not of rabbits, of bees and other things,

Think clear and true of hooping and what the New Year brings.

Lightly clasp your mallet, swing it how you feel,

Now wake yourself from slumbering

And do it all for real!

Anonymous

CARRINGELLA – A YULETIDE FAIRY TALE OF STONEY LEY

Once upon a time, in a land not far away (unless you’re trying to avoid random Severn Trent repairs and you try typing in the postcode and then, using Google maps end up on some muddy track the other side of Martley after going round the Wrekin and not hitting the A44 once), there lived a handsome Prince called Alan. Alan was renowned for his sartorial elegance and exquisite taste in headgear. In all, he reckoned he owned seven hats…or it may have been six…anyway, like his GC handicap, it remained a mystery, much to the consternation of his father. 

The Kingdom of Stoney Ley was a happy land, ruled over by a benevolent sovereign, King John, who rarely executed subjects, save the odd occasion when they left the castle’s portcullis open thus letting the bears in. Shunning the woods, the bears preferred to whoopsie on the King’s highly prized lawns, which caused much consternation o’er the land and much profanity, such as is only usually heard in the neighbouring Kingdom of Hawthorn at ten past three on a winter’s Saturday afternoon.

One day, whilst feasting his eyes on his Kingdom, Queen Jackie was out sourcing biscuits for the more pernickety of the King’s subjects. The King was wishing someone would hurry up and invent the lawnmower, preferably with a throne on it, the King decided that it was time that the young Prince found himself a bride, especially since Prince Alan was roughly four years older than his old man.

The King sent forth his messenger to the scribes of Ye Olde Cygnet (formerly the Stoney Ley News), ordering that they publish details of the King’s search for a suitable Princess Consort for Prince Alan. Why King John didn’t just put an email out, nobody could fathom. Nor could they get their heads around the ethereal concept of multi-recipient emails, especially since a) emailing hadn’t been invented yet and b) emails talking about betrothals were banned by the Court of the King because of an ancient law called GDPR.

Very soon, the news spread far beyond the Kingdom that the King was absolutely desperate to marry his son off to pretty much anyone who would have him, especially since  there weren’t many female fans of floppy shapeless hats o’er the land. 

Meanwhile, in a dilapidated baronial pile on the edge of the Kingdom, a strikingly tall and beautiful young lady called Carringella was busy scrubbing croquet balls, overseen by her cruel stepmother, Petronella Hill. Petronella often violently insisted that people called her Pete when she’d had a few and she had a florid temper and a profanity-laden vocabulary that would have made Roy Chubby Brown search for the smelling salts. Still, Carringella didn’t mind scrubbing the balls. It made a change from fixing floors, mowing the outfield of the castle grounds with two goats (because the John Deere hadn’t been invented yet) and looking for bear holes in the castle walls.

‘You missed a bit,’ you stupid girl,’ shouted Carringella’s stepmother – a bad-tempered former legal scribe who specialised in the conveyancing of buy-to-let cess pits.

‘I’m doing my best Mama,’ said Carringella, picking out a bit of mud and dismembered croquet player’s flesh from under her fingernails. ‘Why the King would let people play on the lawns with grizzly bears on the loose and tining plugs all strewn about is beyond my comprehension.’ 

‘As is your comprehension of AC, you ******* stupid girl!’ Shouted the wicked stepmother. ‘King John didn’t want to miss winning the last match of the season against the Kingdom of Kenilworth. The King fears no grizzlies, just loads of opposition bisques – whatever they are.’

‘Poor Mathter Kaner’ lamented Carringella, staring at a bit of giblet on the lawn. ‘At leatht he fought to the latht on the firtht lawn.’ (Carringella didn’t have a lithp, that’th how they thpoke in thothe dayth – bugger, she’s got me doing it now). She gently massaged the discarded colon of Master Kaner. ‘Strewn all over Lawn 1. It’s what he would have wanted’  she reflected. ‘That means the King’s squad is down to three players now, doesn’t it, Mama?’

‘It’s no matter to the King, you stupid girl!’  ‘He hath Mistress Bedford lined up as a thubthitute (I’m not going there again), and once Masters Dampney, Lambert and Smith have had their and arms legs sewn back on, the AC warriors of Stoney Ley will once again reign AC terror in the Realm of the West Midlands…unless the bears suddenly get a dose of the runs again, of course.’  

Just then, Carringella’s four exceptionally ugly stepsisters arrived on the scene. I mean, just to give you an idea of just how ugly these girlies were, if one of them  ever were to walk into the clubhouse in daylight, they would have instantly curdled Mistress Richardson’s plentiful supply of semi-skimmed.  The excruciatingly ugly sisters (who all had different dads, by the way) were Jimona Norris, Davina Harington, Christina Croft and Nichola Reed (though she preferred to spell it Reid occasionally if she really wanted to impress a really hot nobleman).

‘Look at how stupid Carringella’s lined up those balls,’ shouted Davina Harington. ‘Let me show you how to line them up so you can get the balls cleaned quicker.’ Two hours later, Jimona, Christina and Nichola grabbed Davina by the throat and dragged her out of the way.  ‘Just give Carringella a good whipping Mama and be done with it!’ shouted Jimona. ‘By the way, have you heard the one about the…’ 

‘ENOUGH!!’ shouted Petronella. ‘Jimona, go and do something. How about packing ready for Londinium?  Christina, you go and bake some cakes…some DECENT ones this time, there’s a good girl and Nichola…oh, you haven’t got a job anymore. Just go and make a young man very happy. And Davina…just make yourself scarce – but QUICKLY.

As she walked back to the house Petronella shouted ‘Carringella! If I can’t see my face in those croquet balls by sundown, there will be Hell to pay. And when you’ve finished, put the brush and bowl away, just outside the Castle, by the privy.

Just then, the King’s Court Crier walked into the stable yard and began to plug in his laptop. Baron Hardup-Humphreys, Petronella’s husband, suddenly appeared. ‘Allo allo allo,’ he said. ‘What’s going on here?’

‘I’m just going to announce that the King is searching for a Princess Consort for Prince Alan the Charming,’ the  Court Crier replied.

‘Well, you can’t park yourself here, sir.’ Said Baron Hardup-Humphreys. ‘Can’t you see those red…blue…black…erm YELLOW lines?’

‘GO AND LIE DOWN HUMPH’ snarled Petronella Hill. ‘Get on with it!’ She shouted at the Town Crier, Master Wall.

‘Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking’ Master Wall began, until a croquet ball smacked him hard on that big bony bit on the outside of the ankle. ‘Was that REALLY necessary?’ he asked Jimona.

‘Just get on with it!’ Shouted the ugly sisters.

‘Ok’ said Master Wall.  ‘I think I ought to do a roundup of the past year to give some background context to where we are now.’

‘GRRRRRR!’ said Christina. ‘Do I have to come over there and…’

‘OK OK. Hear ye, hear ye! The King is seeking a wife for the Prince and all fair maidens in the Kingdom  are invited to a grand ball at Ye Olde Royale Oake on Friday next.’

‘Is that it?’ Snarled the wicked stepmother. ‘You could have put that out in an emai…’

‘Friday? Wot? No roll-up?’ said Nichola.

‘Fraid so’ said Master Wall. ‘Must dash, the King has asked me to do a risk assessment for the Kingdom and I’m a bit behind…eighteen months, to be exact. ’

‘Oh Mama’ gushed the ugly sisters. ‘Can we go?  Davina said ‘We’re normally only ever allowed to attend Baron Steel’s breakfasts in the distant and mysterious Kingdom of Broadheath. There are rarely any decent blokes there apart from the gorgeous Masters Armstrong, Bancroft and Felton, but they’re already taken. And the delicious Master Parsons couldn’t be asked. Too far from the mountains of Malvern, apparently.’ Christina added ‘But let’s face it, there’s been no REAL man-totty around since Master Kirby was banished to penal servitude in the colonies.’

‘Of course, you all must go,’ said Petronella. ‘But NOT Carringella. She can do the moss treatment and finally find someone to fix the hood on the ploughing horse.’

Over the next few days, tremendous excitement overtook the Kingdom and the King’s trusty servant Mistress Armstrong took over the arrangements for the ball, organising the food, mead and PA system. There was no raffle since Master Smith was still having his legs reattached (see above).

Prince Alan spent much of his time deciding on his outfit for the ball and trying to find his six or seven hats.  He was sure he had put them in the bag of his manservant Gerry Mander, but the bag couldn’t be found anywhere. ’She’s for the chop’ thought Prince Al in an unusual fit of pique.

Back at Hardup Hall on the night of the ball, poor Carringella sat alone in her cold dark room, trying to figure out, by the light of a single candle, how you could work out who had won a singles GC game under the Advantage system when time was called. She got totally fed up with the whole process, deeming it impossible, and  so started Brasso-ing her mallet instead (an unusual choice of cleaning material, but it was left over from the bell cleaning, “so what the hell?” thought Carringella.

Suddenly, a dazzling light filled the room and, in an instant, there appeared a vision of a lady in a sparkly white dress and a mallet over her shoulder with a star on the end of it.

‘Who are you?’ Carringella asked.

‘I am Janet Barber’ said the vision. But most people refer to me as the Fairy Godmother.

‘A Fairy Godmother?’ repeated Carringella, confused. The nearest thing to a Fairy Godmother/Miracle Worker she had ever met was Master Faulkner, the legendary Court Coachman. She was forever devoted to him after he taught her how to play a ‘bouncing bomb,’ some six centuries before ACTUAL bouncing bombs were invented.

‘Yes. I am here to help. I heard you wished to attend the ball being held for Prince Six-Hats Alan…it’s DEFINITELY SIX hats by the way…but your wicked stepmother and her offspring are trying to prevent you. That Petronella Hill is an absolute animal!  She messed up my conveyancing once. I’d exchanged on a two-tank cesspit and was just about to complete when I found out planning permission had been given for a four-bed dormer.  She got really narked when I rebuked her. She called me a “****** ***** ***** and I need to go and **** ** * ******* ****!”  Well, I’ve never heard anything like it in my life. I put a curse on her.  She will never ever succeed in scoring a hoop with a jump shot, for all eternity.’

‘That’s some revenge babe’ said Carringella. ‘But I don’t see how you can help. For I have no fine clothes – I only have rags – these shorts and a croquet sun-hat that has seen better days, but has seen me through many an A-Level. And I have no means to get to a ball. My sisters and mean Mama have taken the pony and Peugeot 107.’

’Never fear!’ said the Fairy Godmother. In a flash, five rabbits and a pumpkin appeared. ‘These will take you to the ball!’

‘Are you on something?’ Asked Carringella.

‘Only something to suppress the violent mood-swings’ said the Fairy Godmother. ‘Follow me.’

Carringella followed the Fairy Godmother outside. In one swing of her wand-mallet, the pumpkin transformed into a bright orange Tesla. That was no good because OVO hadn’t connected any power to the world yet and there was nowhere on the bodywork you could tether a horse. And when the rabbits  were miraculously transformed into the Lawn Four Five – Masters Hill, Linturn, Dean, Apperley and Bray, blood-curdling screams emanated from the darkness.  From the undergrowth, Mistress Bedford and Mistress Watson emerged. ‘I’m not having that!’ said Mistress Bedford.  ‘White ponies or nothing.’

‘Who said that?’ said the Fairy Godmother, looking high. It was only when she looked low that she realised who it was. ‘Ah’ she exclaimed. ‘Bridget…’

‘WHAT??? said Mistress Bedford.

‘Sorry’ said the Fairy Godmother.

‘You’ve been talking to Master Brooks haven’t you?

The Fairy Godmother was forced to admit ’Tis true.’ But with one twirl of the magic mallet, the Lawn Four Five were transformed into five magnificent ponies, all of whom instantly fertilised Lawn Two with the finest manure in the whole Kingdom, and the pumpkin was transformed into a magnificent golden eco-carriage, about the size of a Peugeot 107 (the finest car in the Kingdom).  Suddenly, Carringella too,  found herself transformed. She was now dressed in the most magnificent ball gown she had seen in her whole life.

There was another blinding flash and a splendid Court Page instantly appeared. ’This is your helper, Buttons…formerly Mistress Ellis.’

‘Why buttons?  Couldn’t I have just a  COUPLE of marbles? Buttons are no fun,’ protested Mistress Ellis.

‘Marbles marbles marbles! You’re obsessed!’ scolded  the Fairy Godmother. ‘Wean yourself off them before Advantage is foisted upon thee!’

’Thank Goodness for level play,’ snorted Carringella to herself.

‘Stop sulking BUTTONS and escort Carringella to the ball’ commanded the Fairy Godmother.

‘Ooh. Hang on’ said Carringella.  I never go anywhere without me mallet…!’

On the arrival of Carringella’s carriage at the ball, everyone was mystified. Who was the late arrival, the unannounced debutante in the gold and orange carriage?  One of the King’s long-serving trusty butlers, Master Holt, went to the carriage door to let the occupant out and slowly opened it. He stopped suddenly and put his ear to the door. ‘That’s a nasty squeak. I reckon that needs replacing. I’ll see to it, IF I can get the funding.’

When she emerged from the carriage, gasps echoed around the courtyard. ‘Look at the shine on that mallet’ they cried, accompanied by murmurings of ‘She’s a bit of all right as well.’

Inside Ye Olde Royale Oak, everyone was mesmerised by Carringella, especially Prince Alan. In particular, he admired  the way she could knock off a steak and ale pie and chips followed by a big chocolate brownie in the time it would take to flip a coin to see who is taking the blue. Mistress Stevens was very good at that now she’d found a treasured vintage penny in a bag she thought she’d lost in the Kingdom of Worcester.

The Prince and Carringella danced all through the night and His Highness sustained only Grade 2 contusions as a result of Carringella’s mallet smashing into his ankle’s when they danced the Branle (a bit like the Hokey Kokey – look it up).

Suddenly, Carringella was filled with fear when she looked at the ballroom clock. The clock was showing  ten minutes to midnight. She had been warned by the Fairy Godmother that her carriage and ponies would revert to a pumpkin and the Lawn Four Five at the stroke of midnight, but the narrator forgot to mention it earlier on in the story.

Carringella shrieked and ran from the ballroom, leaving a stunned Prince Alan behind, as well as a premium very long quality stealth mallet which came apart to fit in a carry-on airline bag, had Boeing 747’s been invented then.   

The Prince was distraught – he hadn’t been this upset since Master Felton beat him 7-4 in a fraught late-autumn game of GC.  I mean, Master Felton REALLY rubbed his nose in it. It was effectively a whitewash. The problem was, nobody knew who the fair maiden was, for she had used a face-mask all night – you couldn’t be too careful with  SARS-CoV-2 still abounding. Even her ugly stepsister didn’t know who the mysterious young woman was. All he had as a memento was a five foot long croquet mallet with an

“I Heart Telč” sticker on it.

On her return to Hardup Hall, Carringella resumed her harsh life, fixing floors and filling in her stepsister’s handicap cards.

Meanwhile, the Prince had a mission. He was determined to find the mysterious maiden and make her his Princess Consort. So, he set out o’er the Kingdom with his entourage consisting Masters Creed-Newton, Wood, Nicholson, Lawrence and Brooks.  Masters Dobson and Kingsley BEGAN the epic journey, but they fell by the wayside when they took the wrong turn near the Kingdom of Knightwick.

The King had declared that all the maidens in the Kingdom had to complete six hoops with two balls, using the oversize mallet. Those who failed the test were ordered to go on the Palace cleaning rota, overseen by Mistress Richardson. Those who failed spectacularly were condemned to cleaning the gents.

By the time the Prince’s entourage reached Hardup Hall, his search for the fair maiden had been fruitless. One Court Maiden, Mistress Brooks, even had the temerity to use stilts to reach the grip of the handle and Mistresses Whittaker and Curphey were so out of practice because they had frequently eschewed roll-ups, they had to have quick refreshers on how to hold a mallet. The only Courtier who nearly succeeded was Mistress Laws, but she swung so firmly, at one point she nearly took Mistress Holt’s eye out. Mistress Disley missed out on the test because she was boning up on Advantage rules ready for her debut in a Court High Handicap team, while Mistress Faulkner was off on a C-Level with her husband, the Court Coachman.

The first of the Hardup women to take the test with the clearly too big mallet was the Wicked Stepmother, Pete Hill (by now she’d dropped the Petronella). Petronella’s visiting sister, Mistress Diana looked on despairingly. ‘My how she has changed,’ she thought. As Petronella stepped forward to take her first stroke, Baron Hardup-Humphreys could be seen crossing his fingers. Frustrated when the ball flew yards past the first hoop, the Wicked Stepmother shouted “What a crock of ****!  I’ve never ******* used such a ******* piece of ********* in all my life!”  She hung her head in shame, silently cursing as she slunk off.

Next to take the crucial test was the Ugly Sister Davina Harington. “Before you start” the Prince shouted. “I’m putting a time limit on you!” Davina gave up after she cleared her own ball with a magnificent shot from long range.  Nichola Reed did not fare  better with the long mallet and Christina Croft performed very poorly having not consumed cake for twelve hours previously. As the last of the Ugly Sisters, Jimona Norris stepped up to the mark, Prince Alan shouted “Did you hear the one about the Ugly Sister who was deemed not eligible to take the test? Bugger off.”  Off, Jimona buggered.

‘That’s your lot!’ the Wicked Stepmother shouted with irritation at Prince Alan.

‘Hang on. A page told me that you have a beautiful stepdaughter who resides at Hardup Hall. Is that not the case?’ said the Prince with menace.

‘Oooh.  Er. Yeah. There IS one.’

‘Let’s be having you then’ said the Prince and within a minute, Carringella was at the junction of the south and east boundaries taking her stance. She looked perfectly at ease with the long mallet and the Prince knew at once that this was his lady.

Long story short, they got married and lived REASONABLY happily ever after, although Prince Alan could never completely eliminate the niggling worry that he’d accidentally married a bloke. I mean, who else in the Palace could possibly always be leaving the toilet seat up??

As for Carringella, she didn’t mind. Prince Alan was always a sucker for buying her castoff croquet hats, which he thought possessed special croquet powers. (They DON’T. Believe ME, they don’t).

Paul Felton

NO PICNICS, BUT IT WAS STILL A GREAT DAY

If you went up to the lawns today

You were sure of a big surprise

If you went up to the lawns today

Be sure that I’m telling no lies

For Alan Stevens (the one with the hat)

Hit one GREAT stroke but I couldn’t see that

Because Barry Kirby walked right in front of me just as I clicked my shutt-er

Other Things Happened, Other Than Alan’s Shot…

In other news, Jimbo Norris told a great joke about snowmen and carrots. You need to interrupt his game precisely at the crucial moment, just to get him to tell you it.

Tuesday’s roll-up appeared to be the biggest of the season so far. Thanks to Barry for carrying on with the organisation and tea-making etc.

And Finally...

Note that by standing in the correct position recommended by the World Croquet Federation, Barry doesn’t obscure the crucial photographer’s line of sight

CONFESSIONS OF A FAILED CROQUET REFEREE

“Are you all sitty comftybold two-square on your botty? Then I’ll begin.”

Professor Stanley Unwin

The roof could have caved in, but I wouldn’t have noticed.

In fact, the roof DID start leaking a few weeks ago but I only became aware of the catastrophe when my wife relayed the news to me via a megaphone held approximately 0.3mm from my ear.  

Such was my determination to pass my resit of the Golf Croquet Referee’s examination at Bath recently, most national news has passed me by since Christmas. My only reading matter from the autumn of 2023 – till now really – has been the World Croquet Federation’s little red book – ‘Rules Of Golf Croquet’ – a tome I KNOW deep in my soul, that every member of Broadwas Croquet Club knows off by heart.

So, to cut a long story short, but making it longer anyway, sometime in the summer of 2023, Club Captain John Guy sent around an email to all members asking if anyone was interested in studying to be a GC referee. I jumped at the opportunity – my reasoning being that having another qualified ref at the club might take some pressure off our qualified referees Jeff Faulkner and John Guy, who often, on top of refereeing duties, also help organise competitions and tournaments during our busy seasons.

After somehow convincing Ian Shore, a GC Rules Committee member who runs the course, that I was up to the task, bearing in mind I was then treading water in the murky 14-handicap stream, I joined the CA Referee’s Training Course early in October 2023 after being provided with extensive pre-course material written by Ian.

The course was a delight. It was held at Bath Croquet Club, over a weekend during which Bath Rugby Club played Exeter. The Recreation Ground – Bath’s home – is a couple of hundred yards away from the croquet club’s lawns and every time the crowd roared, I pretended they were cheering my answers to the course organisers’ questions.

Ian was joined in teaching duties by GC coach and referee Paul Francis, who recently helped set up croquet at the new club at Bradford-on-Avon as well as being the Chair of the (then) Croquet Association Development Committee.

On the second day of the course, candidates take an on-court test, lasting about 40 minutes, as well as sitting a written examination. Anyway, long-story short, I failed the on-court examination. After realising that I’d thrice forgotten to mark balls when asked to come on court to judge short clearances, I quickly became a gibbering wreck and took way too long in coming to decisions. When I did finally come to a conclusion, it was wrong anyway.  Ian gently took me aside after the written exam and told me that my indecisiveness and lack of assertiveness had also let me down, but that I would be able to re-sit the practical test in 2024.

A couple of days after the exam, while I was playing Brian Humphreys in the blocks, I took a call from Ian on the lawns. Ian told me that I had done pretty well in the written exam and that I would be welcome to retake just the practical test in February. 

So while my roof leaked, I went away to Bath again at the weekend, to re-sit the practical test. I was spared having to retake the written exam or pay a retake fee.  Ian had also kindly arranged for Dr Ron Carter – a GC coach and referee to give me some one-to-one guidance before the exam, which was invaluable.

My first three judgements on whether balls had scored hoops in order were just dandy, but it all began to fall apart when I forgot – AGAIN – to mark a couple of balls and my inveterate Porky Pig stammer made an unwelcome entrance as I dithered around subsequent decisions in much the same way that I procrastinate when I’m trying to decide which of Glenys Croft’s cakes to have at a Rollup Friday.

The death knell clanged loudly when my inveterate dyscalculia (the numerical equivalent of dyslexia) made an equally unwelcome return when, although I knew the answer, I couldn’t work out at what angle a ball had been hit during a forceful front-of-hoop clearance. When I finally came up with an answer, it felt like an hour had passed.  The heavy rain did little to lift my mood.

When the other candidates were taking the written exam, Ian and Paul took me into the adjoining lecture room. Ian diplomatically and gently told me that I hadn’t cut the mustard yet again. He didn’t express it quite this way, but he said that he didn’t want me to darken his doorstep again, for at least two years. Both examiners expressed the opinion that on-court, though I knew the rules, I wasn’t assertive enough with my presentation of decisions. Fair enough.

Although it was a huge disappointment, I really enjoyed the experience of  getting an in-depth grasp of the rules of Golf Croquet. Wrong balls hold no fear for me from now on.

But I WILL issue a warning. If you meet me in the blocks in the future and you have made a crush error, I WILL call it, though it may be whispered and delivered three weeks later.

Paul Felton

DIDN’T WE HAVE A LUVERLY TIME, THE DAY WE WENT TO BUDLEIGH…

Earlier this year, I decided to take the bull by the horns and do it.

After being buoyed by the success stories of Broadwas players such as Jon Carrington, Fran Wall, Jeff Faulkner, Stuart Smith and John Guy, to name but a few, I decided to take the plunge and apply for entry into the C-Level competitions.

Anyway, long story short, I reached the final!

So early on Sunday morning, I woke at 4.00am in order to get to the hallowed lawns of Budleigh Salterton, for the club’s 2024 C-Level tournament. Now you may be asking, why 4.00am?  The simple answer is, it’s me. I am a VERY cautious individual. I always add on an hour to the estimated time Apple Maps tells me my journeys are going to take. I felt compelled to consider the probability of having to find an alternative route to the Devon club should a meteorite hit the M5 somewhere near Weston-Super-Mare. There was no way that I was  going to be late for the 8.45am registration and 9.00am kick off. My travel caution quirk also stretches to telling Hazel that films at the cinema are starting 30 minutes before they actually are, and routinely telling her that check-in for our flights is three hours, rather than two.

So, at 8.08am on Sunday morning, I was sitting in the Budleigh Salterton Croquet Club car park (I was the only person there other than two people putting the hoops out) and taking a text from Jon Carrington. Jon was also taking part in a tournament at the weekend – a stamina-sapping two day event at the Cheltenham Croquet Club’s Golf Croquet Open Series Tournament. I was touched that Jon remembered my competition. The fact that he was facing incredibly stiff opposition at the same time, had passed me by, though I had every confidence that Jon would do well.

I was impressed by the energy of our hosts  as I approached the Budleigh  grounds, because I came across a number of posters on my route through the town, which advertised a forthcoming Open Day at the club.  Budleigh proudly boasts eleven international class  lawns and standing on them, you can almost smell the sea. I confess that I was so exhausted before I even began the day’s play, that I couldn’t muster the energy to go and look at the view, though I saw the Severn Estuary near Bristol on my way. That’s nearly the sea, isn’t it?

I was thrilled when Budleigh Salterton, a few weeks ago, expanded the number of entrants to the competition to 24, but was then a little daunted when I saw that some of the entrants looked as if they REALLY meant business – I mean – one of them was from Cheltenham and many of the entrants had those metal-headed mallets that look and sound like Smith and Wesson manufactured them.  

The competition – which was run under level-play rules –  started with a round of blocks  of six players each in four blocks. I was in D-block, which sounded a little like a prison wing for offenders who are of no particular physical threat to society. Either that, or ‘D’ simply stood for ‘dunces.’  All the lawns were double-banked all day.

Let’s go to our reporter at the court side…

Anyway, I was quite uplifted by my first encounter with a nice lady from Bath – a 10 handicap player. I managed, despite my self-inflicted insomnia-induced lethargy, to take her to the thirteenth hoop. John Guy would have been appalled. During the competition I heard the 13^th being referred to as the ‘Golden Hoop’ by players around the clubhouse many times – like it was normal. My opponent took her first shot after I hooped at the 12^th and put her ball about two feet bang in front of the hoop. I had no chance.

My next game was against an eight handicap player from the home club. At the end of it, I felt pretty much how gravy must feel when it’s being mopped up by hungry bread. She showed no mercy as she trounced me 7-0. I would like to have put it down to home advantage – she was a Budleigh member (I don’t know how people play on flat, silky smooth lawns) – but no, I was clearly out of my depth.  By the end of that game, I felt like a Croft sponge cake that’s been dipped in coffee. The tiredness, chronic hay fever (I’m pretty sure I dropped tissues during every game I played) and the fact that I’d just had all of my fighting spirit sucked out of me, left me feeling decidedly limp. I thought Jon might lift my spirits.

My next encounter was with a lady from Eynsham in Oxfordshire. Also, an 11 handicapper, who even had exactly the same index as me. I thought I MIGHT stand a chance.  Again, not so. I managed to take three hoops off her, but she won 7-3. Have you ever noticed that winners almost invariably get seven hoops?

I then took a quick coffee in the magnificent clubhouse, while forlornly waiting for a text from Jon C. But nothing. He had abandoned me, as had my ability to consistently remember the order in which secondary balls are played. In my head, I had to keep reciting a slightly dubious, but memorable mnemonic that Jeff Faulkner had taught me during one of his coaching mornings last year. Ask him about it. It works 80% of the time, even if you ARE terminally confused due to a lack of sleep.

Although I still lost, I was quite chuffed when in the next game I took a Budleigh player to the thirteenth hoop. He was an eight handicap and much younger, more energetic AND had more hair. The only thing he didn’t have, was a Gruffalo sticker on the shaft of his mallet. Only ‘killers’ have those. Again, he played a superb first shot to the 13^th and I could only dribble in admiration at his approach play.

After taking lunch – a vanilla Huel and a packet of Walkers – I played the last group game against another eight handicapper, this time from Cheam. He didn’t mess around either, beating me 7-4, with dispatch.

Triumph

So imagine my surprise when I went back to the clubhouse and on the noticeboard, found myself in the semi-final!

I say ‘the’ semi-final. It was actually the semi-final of the playoffs to decide the 21^st to 24^th places in the competition. But still, it’s the first time I’d ever reached the semi’s in anything. I suddenly woke up. Here was my opportunity to salvage  some vestige of croquet self-respect and prevent myself from being the flimsy lining at the bottom-of-the-barrel.

We moved on to a different lawn for the semi-final and this time we were overlooked by spectators watching from the clubhouse.

I’m proud to say that I broke my duck in the semi, beating a lady from Dowlish Wake (no, I’d not heard of it either), 7-3.  At this point, I was tempted to not insert her handicap, but in the spirit of transparency I have to. She was a 14.  But STILL, it was 7-3! Not a fluke!

I had a quick look at my text messages from Jon. I wanted to see how the other half live.

So there I was. In the FINAL! Unbelievable. I was convinced after the blocks that I was going to be holding up the rest of the finishing table, but I had at least preserved SOME dignity.

The other finalist was an eight handicapper from Guildford. I thought I recognised her and discovered that she had previously played in a C-Level competition on the hallowed lawns of Broadwas. During the day, I found that I was either having to explain where Broadwas is located, or arguing against the notion that in tournaments, Broadwas players DEFINITELY have a home advantage. Pah! As it happened, the nice lady I was playing against loved playing at our club and was actually a pal of Jon Carrington’s. It was amazing how many people knew of Jon and his reputation.

By the time we started playing, I was totally spent. A combination of the early start together with the ridiculous idea of playing a ‘calming’ music playlist in the car on the way down to the venue, turned me into a mallet-wielding zombie. Again, we were playing with secondaries and I kept on playing my opponents ball.  For the first time ever, I had to replace and replay.  She was very  understanding about it, but I sensed that her patience might be wearing thin when despite telling me which hoop we were going for after the eighth hoop, I still went for the wrong one although I was CONVINCED I was right. But by that point, up was down and I didn’t really know where I was. Anyway, I lost 4-7. Jon told me early on Monday morning that I actually ended up 22^nd in the tournament. As Stuart Smith encouragingly said to me on Monday evening, “Onwards and upwards, I’m sure.”

Well, I do hope so.  Being a glutton for punishment – my motto is ‘Once bitten, twice bitten’ – I am playing in another C-Level in Watford in  a couple of weeks. Hopefully after my Budleigh practise session, I might manage 21^st place next time?

So what did I get out of my first foray into competitive croquet?  Well, it was lovely. All of the competitors were super friendly and supportive. Somehow they managed to highlight the positives in my play and I did take encouragement from what they said. They were also quite caring. The lady who beat me in the final emailed me on Monday to check that I got home safely – I must have been a real psychological mess during that game. I bet you don’t get that in other sports. I would highly recommend giving the C-Levels a try. The only advice I would strongly give, is listen to what Apple Maps is telling you and DON’T, under any circumstances play soporific Ibiza Chillout playlists on the way to the tournament.

And as for Jon’s tournament?  I’ll leave the last word with him.

As I say. How the other half live.

Paul Felton (Unwittingly aided by Jon Carrington)

BROADWAS ON THE WORLD STAGE. TELČ? MADRID? NAH! EXETER IS WHERE IT’S AT!

They play croquet quite diffr’nt in Austraylya

Though they don’t place the hoops upside down 

If there’s the lightest of mizzle 

(That’s right – mizzle, not drizzle)

They don’t play,

No commitment- makes you frown 

Croquet’s not the same in Austraylya

The lawns are all dry and quite flat

There’re no Broadwas rabbits, with their digging habits

But it rains here, quite hard

Wear a hat

The croquet’s quite sim’lar in Austraylya

They all find advantage quite confusing

But when the Brits pay a visit, give the score, they say “IS IT???”

“Seven-six? that’s not right, nor amusing!!”

Members of the Southern Highlands Croquet Club, New South Wales gave Hazel and I a lovely welcome at one of their Tuesday morning roll ups last week. 

The club is based in the tiny rural community of Exeter, 17 miles southwest of Bowral, where we are visiting Hazel’s brother. 

The club has around fifty members and they hold their rollups on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday mornings. The club’s two lawns are billiard table flat and are mowed once a week by a professional contractor. 

The sessions begin at 9.30am after players names have been drawn from a bag and put on a playing board. On the day that we played, one court was taken up with a doubles game, whilst the second court had two singles games taking place. After a break for refreshments after the first session ( it was baking hot), a second draw was made. 

Hazel inspects the courts for undulations.

I’m happy to report that we didn’t drag the name of Broadwas down…completely. Hazel played in two games partnering local players, winning one game and losing another. 
While I lost in my partnership with a five handicap player against two very competitive ladies, I did manage to beat another 11-handicap player, Sylvia Sylvester, in a tense 13-hoop singles game. I was tense, Sylvia was pretty relaxed about the whole thing though, despite being pipped at the post by a lucky shot. No worries mate. 

Sadly, we have  been on the edge of the  peripheral swirl of Cyclone Albert in Queensland so sessions since our only visit have been rained off. 

Frankly, us hardy Worcestershire folk would have battled our way through it. Hopefully we will manage at least one more game before we return to Mount Stoney Ley. 

We’ve been thrilled to read in emails about the progress being made on the lawns in preparation for the new season. Excellent stuff.  Well done everyone. 

Paul Felton

BROADWAS ON THE WORLD STAGE. TELČ? MADRID? NAH! EXETER IS WHERE IT’S AT!

BUT TO SET THE SCENE…

They play croquet quite diffr’nt in Austraylya

Though they don’t place the hoops upside down 

If there’s the lightest of mizzle 

(That’s right – mizzle, not drizzle)

They don’t play,

No commitment – makes you frown 

Croquet’s not the same in Austraylya

The lawns are all dry and quite flat

There’re no Broadwas rabbits, with their digging habits

But it rains here, quite hard

Wear a hat

The croquet’s quite sim’lar in Austraylya

They all find advantage quite confusing

But when the Brits pay a visit, give the score, they say “IS IT???”

“Seven-six? that’s not right, nor amusing!!”

Members of the Southern Highlands Croquet Club, New South Wales gave Hazel and I a lovely welcome at one of their Tuesday morning roll ups last week. 

The club is based in the tiny rural community of Exeter, 17 miles southwest of Bowral, where we are visiting Hazel’s brother. 

The club has around fifty members and they hold their rollups on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday mornings. The club’s two lawns are billiard table flat and are mowed once a week by a professional contractor. 

The sessions begin at 9.30am after players names have been drawn from a bag and put on a playing board. On the day that we played, one court was taken up with a doubles game, whilst the second court had two singles games taking place. After a break for refreshments after the first session ( it was baking hot), a second draw was made. 

I’m happy to report that we didn’t drag the name of Broadwas down…completely. Hazel played in two games partnering local players, winning one game and losing another. 
While I lost in my partnership with a five handicap player against two very competitive ladies, I did manage to beat another 11-handicap player, Sylvia Sylvester, in a tense 13-hoop singles game. I was tense, Sylvia was pretty relaxed about the whole thing though, despite being pipped at the post by a lucky shot. No worries mate. 

Sadly, we have  been on the edge of the  peripheral swirl of Cyclone Albert in Queensland so sessions since our only visit have been rained off. 

Frankly, us hardy Worcestershire folk would have battled our way through it. Hopefully we will manage at least one more game before we return to Mount Stoney Ley. 

We’ve been thrilled to read in emails about the progress being made on the lawns in preparation for the new season. Excellent stuff.  Well done everyone. 

Paul Felton

GRASS DOESN’T GROW ON TREES, YOU KNOW

(Broadwas – The Lidl And Aldi Of Croquet Clubs)

I feel that the season is coming

Now the subscription is set

Though to guess the exact date is mind-numbing

So don’t go to Betfred just yet

But why do I think it’s good value?

Why is it such a fair price?

Well there aren’t many good yearly meetings

Where the Chair jokes ‘bout lawns and some rice

So why do our fees outshine Asda?

We don’t do bargains, or discounts or pasta

It’s the excitement and thrills – anticipation!

As Whizzbang Billy’s hoop shots fly right past ya’

There’s not much you can buy for one thirty

A couple of meals of posh squid?

An afternoon for two at the Albion?

For that? Wouldn’t give you a quid!

So what does your fee actually give you?

For a start it will open the door

To hoops, muddy balls and good banter

And repairs, stopping holes in the floor

So it’s well worth a visit to Bank Piggy

If you don’t, you might miss Friday cake,

Or Norris jokes…(second thoughts that’s no biggy)

Send your dosh to S.Smith, or he’ll quake

Clink clink, Asda Price!

Paul Felton

YOU’RE TOO LATE FOR BLACK FRIDAY, BUT….A FEW IDEAS FOR XMAS PRESSIES FOR YOUR FAVOURITE CLUB MEMBERS

Time is running out. December is upon us and yet you STILL haven’t bought a present for your favourite Broadwas Croquet Club member.

I know it’s difficult. I mean, they have their own mallet, so what else could your fellow members  possibly desire?

Well, just a little SOMETHING, a little gift, just to show you care and you’ve forgiven them for being a pain-in-the-proverbial during the season. It’s only been a few weeks since the last roll-up but admit it, you really are missing them, aren’t you.

So why not given them an appropriate token of your esteem this Christmas?  People are awkward to buy for – Broadwas Croquet Club members, in particular – so here are a few suggestions for your ideal gift. You’re welcome.

Malcolm Armstrong – Something, ANYTHING to try and inject some enthusiasm into him for Golf Croquet.

Paula Armstrong – A MASSIVE social diary!

Derry Bancroft – The RIGHT handicap. There is NO WAY he’s a sixteen.

Janet Barber – A copy of The Little Book Of Calm. Honestly, she gets so aggressive and rowdy on the lawns when she’s behind, I don’t know where to look. It’s only a game, Janet.

Janet Bedford – A book on Pony Croquet. Oh, hang on, am I thinking of Polo?

Gill Brooks – Stilts.

Keith Brooks – A salmon fishing mallet.

Jon Carrington – Relaxation tapes so that he can learn that he doesn’t HAVE TO try and get into every GC tournament final in the UK, or Europe.

Billy Cooke – Something, just something, to help him realise his GC potential. I’m sure there’s a half-decent croquet player in there somewhere, but just how do you tease it out?

Gwen Cooke – A bye in the blocks if she’s drawn against me next season.  She humiliated me last time. I’m still having therapy.

David Creed-Newton – A world atlas. He never seems to holiday. C’mon David, get out and see the Mediterranean at least.

Chris Croft – Some sort of rudimentary bakery cookbook so he can at least TRY and raise his culinary game. (One day Chris, you’ll get there).

Sue Curphey – I THINK she knows my name now, but a laminated flash card with my picture on it would be good. Three weeks running in 2024, she asked my name (face-palm emoji).

Josie Watson, lan Dampney, Jennifer Whittaker, Ian Lambert and Billy Nicholson – An open invitation to a roll-up. I’ve never seen them there, have you?

Alison Disley – Whites. She knows why.

Peter Dobson – A longer head for his mallet. His play has improved considerably since he stopped borrowing the stumpy thing from the clubhouse. Just imagine what he could do with a two-foot long mallet head.

Jim & Mary Dryden – Some sort of pulley to drag them up Stoney Ley every day. I couldn’t do it. I swear Jim’s getting shorter with the wear on his legs.

Vivien Ellis – Marbles. As a High Handicap player, Vivien really misses them during the close season. With a handful of the magical spherical marvels, Vivien strikes fear into the heart of every High Handicap player in the Cotswolds.

Jean Faulkner – A new Satnav so she can get round all the C-Levels she’s going for next year. Being in the High Handicap team, she ought to  know her way to Cheltenham and Moreton-in-Marsh by now.

Jeff Faulkner – A voucher for a coaching course from Jon Carrington. I can’t remember who taught who now.

Hazel Felton – An Air Tag for her mallet. She hasn’t mislaid it yet, but the way she treats her keys and debit card, I wouldn’t put it past her.

Howard Freeman – Some form of wearable traffic light warning system (I last saw them in Primark), which tells you what sort of form he’s on. If it turns Red, you may as well give up – he’s on form.

Jackie Guy – Luxury chocolate biscuits. Jackie is taking over stocking the clubhouse. We need to inspire her to make the right choices.

John Guy – Pay for him to have ‘Close The Bloody Gate’ tattooed on his forehead, just in case he forgets to, or a trailer for his car to carry his club papers around in. He might also put his second mallet in it. He’s got TWO mallets. How flash is that??

David Harington – Some stabilisers – like those on back of a child’s training bicycle. I always fret he’s going to topple over sideways when he’s taking his stance. If there’s a sudden gust of wind on top of Stoney Ley…

Peter Hill – A portable intravenous drip of tranquillisers for when he’s playing and/or a muzzle for immediately after he’s missed a shot.

Diana Hill – Earmuffs (see above)

Dave Holt – A new door for the clubhouse. He’s like a cat on hot bricks to fit one.

Eileen Holt – A captaincy. Eileen really needs another captaincy, although she doesn’t realise it yet.  

Brian Humphreys – A portable klaxon that goes off every time he approaches the wrong ball.

David Kaner – An introductory  day trip to Lawns 2, 3, 4 and 5. (He’s never visited them. I began to think he was wearing some sort of ankle tag that delivered a shock if he left Lawn 1).

Debbie Kaner – A free pass out of Lawn 1. (See above).

John Kingsley – Portable aircraft radar, so he can find hoop seven.

Barry Kirby – A silencer for his metal mallet. At the VERY LEAST, pay for it to be tuned to a Middle C.

John & Catherine Lane – A second sitting of the 2024 Annual Lunch (which they missed). They are holding it at their house. You’re all invited.

Peter Lawrence – A barge pole. (Ask him).

Emma Laws –  Her own mallet. She always plays really well when I partner her. I’d imagine devastating play if she had her own mallet. (She might not swear at me as much, either, or shout ‘BIG BLOW’ every time I get my tissue out).

Jim Norris – A joke book. ANY joke book! PLEASE!!!  NEW JOKES NOW!!!!! Though, I’ll certainly miss SOME of the old ones when he abandons us for The Smoke.

Keith Parsons – A specialised tracking device so it tells him EXACTLY where his mallet is located in his car boot. You can get premium ones  from Amazon so that every time Keith passes his car, his mallet will shout “PLEASE KEITH !!! Let me out! I’m buried under your thermals!” Alternatively, a copy of the croquet bestseller by Paul Felton – How To Be A Golf Croquet Titan, Like What I Am: A Ten Year Plan. (Baby steps Keith. Baby steps)

Nick Reed – Pay for a deed poll surname change. It really needs to be spelt ‘Reid’ for the comfort of former journalists. (This is on MY wish list).

Gill Richardson – A bottle of something – and I don’t mean CIF for the cleaning rota.

Shona Smith – A proper grown-ups score clicker. Come and join us in the 21^st century, Shona.

Stuart Smith – A Lilo, so he is comfy when he’s lying down lining up a shot. Or knee pads for protection. I always worry he’s going to fall and hurt himself when he’s running to his next shot.

John Steel – A book on horticulture. He really does need to take more of an interest in how things grow.

Alan Stevens – A stylish hat for croquet. (He’s never worn one in his life, so far).

Gerry Stevens – A coin – so we don’t have to endure that weird ‘balls behind the back’ technique she employs to decide who plays first.

Fran Wall – A big name badge. Since he shaved his beard off, I don’t think even Fran recognises himself, let alone anyone else.

Norman Ward – This isn’t for Norman, but more for me. I want something to eradicate the memory of the look on Norman’s disappointed face when I missed a sitter the last time I partnered him. I have nightmares.

Pauline Watson – A book on the benefits of practising. Honestly, Pauline. Practise makes perfect.

Roger Wood – A silencer for the metal mallet, or a hat. I worry about him ruining all that luxuriant hair. (I am EXTREMELY jealous).

Geoff Hill, Patrick Linturn, Nick Dean Philip Apperley and Chris Bray (aka The Lawn 4 Five) – An Ordnance Survey map and a sturdy compass so they can explore the field of dreams on top of Stoney Ley. One day they might actually discover they won’t be hurt on Lawns 2, 3 and 5.  Just DON’T go on to Lawn 1.  NEVER. There’s a player there who is very possessive about it.

Paul Felton

A CROQUET CAROL

It was becoming increasingly eerie.

Strange things had been happening  at Broadwas Croquet Club, for some months.

The spooky forces behind the weird episodes surrounding the clubhouse refrigerator door had still not been identified. The fridge  had been mysteriously and repeatedly opened over the weeks and then left ajar by a so-far unidentified club member. The club had been shaken to its very foundations. The milk had ‘turned’ with annoying, yet spine-chilling frequency.

In addition, croquet balls, both primary and secondary, had continued to be inexplicably found in  their holders smothered in dried brown ‘ectoplasm.’ No amount of diligent scrubbing by members apparently prevented the appearance of the brown ethereal sludge. In other inexplicable instances, unauthorised notices had been put up on John Guy’s AC noticeboard. The club was spooked.

John Guy sat alone in the clubhouse, pen in hand, furiously scribbling ‘DO NOT WRITE ON THE FRONT OF THE HANDICAP CARDS!’ on the front of the handicap cards owned by people who had written on the front of their handicap cards. “I must have a word,” thought John, darkly.

John suddenly stopped writing. He felt uneasy. A chill had rapidly descended on the clubhouse. “I knew shorts were a mistake” he told himself. John’s mutterings were interrupted by an un-Earthly noise coming from the closed door – the sound vaguely resembled a clanking chain or one of those  particularly irritating metal-headed croquet mallets.

Tentatively, John approached the door, muttering to himself “Can’t they see there’s a handle on it?” He was a little confused. Looking through the window, no one appeared to be at the door. John swung it open to be confronted by a grotesque spectacle.

A bedraggled man, about seven foot tall with a heavy beard, dressed in an overcoat and heavy, rusty chains draped around his neck and arms, was leaping back to avoid being hit in the face by the door. The visitor was surrounded by a green glow.

“Have a care!” the visitor shouted. “You could have taken my eye out” – which was probably true had he possessed any eyes. What he had were two orbs coloured in what would probably be best described as ‘secondary pink.’

John slowly looked the stranger up and down. Unlike John, the stranger was overdressed for mid-June. John was impressed by the unusual newcomer’s quick regain of his balance. “Hmmm. New member. Might be a possible AC player?” he thought. The green slime dripping from the prospective member’s eyes didn’t seem to deter John. He REALLY needed a reserve for the Association Croquet teams.  

“Sorry about that. I didn’t see you. Anyway, a taster session might be best for you…”

‘The reason you couldn’t see me through glass is because I’m a spirit, John Keith Guy”  interrupted the stranger. “Which club are you from?” asked John.

“No. You misunderstand,” said the newcomer.”  “I am the Ghost of Goldie Hoop” and I have come to show you  Croquet Past and Croquet Future.

“The Ghost of GOLDIE HOOP?? Are you taking the p…”

The spectre pointed his bony hand towards John, accusingly.

“YOU killed the Golden Hoop,” the ghost whispered.

“It’s the THIRTEENTH HOOP!”

“YOU KILLED THE GOLDEN HOOP and now, you need to see the consequences,” said the ghost.

The spirit continued. “You were supposed to be taken on those journeys to Croquet Past and Future by other spirits, but they’re playing away at Cheltenham and Eardiston today, so you’re stuck with me.”

“Yes, that’s all very well, but I’ve got to do the cards and rearrange my GC board. I haven’t got time to visit Croquet Past. I need to arrange some fixtures for the future, you know?”

The Ghost of Goldie Hoop picked up a mallet propped up against a clubhouse chair. “That is very unwise” said the ghost, menacingly. You MUST come with me.”

Just then, Keith Parsons walked into the clubhouse. On spotting the mallet the Ghost of Goldie Hoop was holding, he smiled widely “THERE IT IS!!!” he exclaimed. “I’ve been looking for that for ages,” Keith said as he grabbed his mallet, a tube of balls, and strode out on to the lawns, triumphantly.

The ghost picked up another mallet with stickers all over the shaft, but exclaimed “YUK,” wiped his hands clean on his filthy coat and picked up another. He swung the mallet menacingly over his head. “Nice weight,” he muttered. “I wonder if they do these at the Cheltenham shop? Anyway, John Guy, come with me to look and reflect upon Croquet Past.”

Just then, Jeff Faulkner walked into the clubhouse, and seeing the ghost’s unusual grasp on the mallet said “Ah, the Irish grip! You might have to bring your left hand down a bit nearer the mallet head for a decent jump shot.”

“I’m not doing a jump shot” said the Ghost of Goldie Hoop, irritably. I was trying to get John Guy to…” but the spirit was interrupted by Fran Wall, who had come in for a cup of tea. “Have you tried casting?” said Fran, demonstrating his theatrical casting technique to the ghost.

“NO I HAVEN’T TRIED CASTING” shouted the ghost. “Nor have I tried that weird technique David Harington uses.”  The ghost cut himself short in embarrassment. “Sorry David. Didn’t see you there.” David cried out “I can’t help it! You don’t understand! IT’S A CURSE, I TELL YOU. IT’S A CURSE!!”

“Come with me, John Guy” said the ghost. “This milk smells a bit funny. Would you have a sniff?” interrupted Gill Richardson, who had  entered the room unnoticed by anyone.

“No…I…would…not like to smell your milk!” said the ghost. “Can we just get on with this visit to Croquet Past?”  The Ghost of Goldie Hoop was interrupted yet again. “Ah, said Barry Kirby, pointing to the ghost. We’ve got Gerry Stevens, Catherine Lane and an incredibly impatient Alan Stevens waiting out there. You can make up the foursome. You don’t want to make Alan angry.”

“I AM NOT HERE FOR A ROLLUP!” exclaimed the ghost. Suddenly he found a plug of dried soil being held under his nose and was looking eye to eye with John Guy’s faithful helper, young Jon Carrington. “Is it you who has trodden these plugs into the lawns? Didn’t you see the email?”

“No, it was not! I saw you’d been tining. Nice job by the way, but will you go away? I’m trying to take John Guy to Croquet Past and I keep getting these interruptions.

Suddenly behind him, the Ghost of Goldie Hoop heard “Did you hear the one about…?”  Without turning, the ghost said chillingly “Go away, Jim Norris. Yes, I HAVE heard it! Everyone has.” “That’s it! I’m done!” thought Jimbo as he slunk off, dejected. “Think I’ll have a go at singing, instead.”

“Now where was I?” said the Ghost of Goldie Hoop. “I can’t think straight with all these interruptions.” “Welcome to my world,” muttered John Guy.

Before the ghost could collect his thoughts, Janet Bedford came into the clubhouse. “John, can I have a word about the Ryland Trophy.” She stopped and eyed the ghost. “Ooh. You look about eighty! New member? We’re looking for competitors in the Veteran’s Trophy. Would you?…” but even Janet had to break off her question when the noise of shattering glass filled the clubhouse.

Everyone took a few seconds to figure out what had just happened, when Billy ‘Whizzbang’ Cooke’s head suddenly appeared through the broken window in apology.

“Sorry Boss.”  I was doing a jump shot on lawn five and overdid it.”

“THAT’S IT!” shouted the Ghost of Goldie Hoop. “I don’t know how you do it, John Keith Guy. I’m off!”  As he lurched towards the door, he bumped into Chris Croft. The ghost grabbed at the plate Chris was holding.

“Nom! Flapjacks!” said the ghost as he disappeared, munching, through the door, briefly sidestepping a clipboard-wielding Paula Armstrong who then rugby-tackled him to the ground and demanded to know if he was coming to the annual pig-roast.

The ghost was never seen again. I say ‘never.’ He was press ganged into turning out at Cheltenham for the South West Federation AC team.

For the record, the Ghost of Goldie Hoop was absolute rubbish at AC. REALLY rubbish, but John and Stuart Smith were pleased. At least he ‘had a go.’

The mystery of the fridge door remains unsolved.

Don’t have nightmares.

Merry Christmas.

SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO A FRIDAY SUMMER’S ROLL-UP?

WELL???? SHALL I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Friday Roll-Up, Or NOT?

There was a mound of Croft cake

And men with no trousers…

Just a normal Friday roll-up at Broadwas…

An array of strange hats

Mercifully no spats

Just a normal Friday roll-up at Broadwas

David H brought his friend

(A nicely crafted U-Bend)

Just a normal Friday roll-up at Broadwas

Tracey’s her name

Checking grass speed’s her game

Is this normal for a roll-up at Broadwas?

With David on the case

Better watch your pace

Avoid endorsements on the roll-up at Broadwas

Thirty five miles an hour

Cooky’s stroke power’s

About normal for a roll-up at Broadwas

It was sunny all day

I really must say

That’s not normal for a roll-up at Broadwas

What IS normal for a Friday roll-up at Broadwas

Is hyperglycaemia

(WARNING: DO NOT OPERATE SPEED-MEASURING

U-BENDS WITHOUT PROPER INSTRUCTION)

Paul Felton