SAND SPORTS.
Two or three hundred yards behind the sandhills, which seem to be deserted but are really full of sudden hollows, with embarrassing little bathing tents in them, the village sports have just been held. They took place in a sloping grass field kindly lent for the occasion by Mr. Bates. This means that you paid a shilling to enter the field, whereas on other days you can picnic in it or play cricket in it without paying anything at all. Mr. Bates is a kind of absentee landlord so far as we are concerned, for he is the butcher at Framford, four miles away, and only brings the proceeds of his butchery to us on Tuesdays and Fridays, which is the reason why on Mondays and Thursdays one usually has eggs and bacon for dinner.
It was an interesting afternoon for many reasons, most of all perhaps because many of the visitors saw each other for the first time in clothes—in land clothes, I mean—and it is wonderful how much smarter some of them looked than when popping red or brown faces, with lank wisps of hair on them, out of the brine.
Some of the athletic events were open, like the Atlantic Sea, and some close, like the Conferences at Lympne, but very few of the visitors competed in any of them. I don't think any of us fancied our chances overmuch, but personally I was a little bitter about the three-mile bicycle race, because there were three prizes and only three competitors. I am past my prime at this particular sport, but as it happened one of the three broke his gear-chain somewhere about the seventh lap, and it was a long time before he mended it and rode triumphantly past the finishing flag. I felt then that I had missed what was probably my first and last chance of securing an Olympic palm.
The whole affair struck me as being very well managed; dull events, like the high jump and putting the shot, being held quietly in a corner by the hedge, whilst the really interesting things, like the sack race and the egg and spoon race, went on in the middle. We used potatoes instead of eggs, but whether there was a system of handicapping according to the weight and age of the potatoes I was unable to determine. I do feel confident, however, that that girl with the yellow hair and the striped skirt to whom the first prize was quite incorrectly awarded by the judges had put some treacle—But there, I will be magnanimous.
The postman was a great success. He had acquired a light suit of overalls, on which he had painted three large red stars, using, I hope, Government red ink, and with black cheeks and a floured nose footed it solemnly to the music of the Framford Comrades' Band. He also ran underneath the lath at the high jump and tumbled down in trying to put the shot. All round the field children could be heard asking, "What is he doing, Mummy?" and, when they were told, "Hush, dears, he's doing it for a joke," their eyes danced and they tried for a moment to control their emotion and then broke into shrieks of laughter. All the difficult open events which were not won by a young man in puce-coloured shorts were won by a friend of his in a yellow shirt. I have an idea that these two young men came from Framford and go round doing this kind of thing and getting prizes for it, just as Mr. Bates goes round selling his beef.
Amidst all this fun and frolic, if you went up to the top of one of the sandhills and looked across the blue bay to the little seaport opposite, you saw that it was also emptied of its folk this pious afternoon and was in fact holding aquatic revels. Little fishing-boats with brown sails were turning about a given mark. There were rowing races and diving competitions and a greasy pole and very probably a comic man dressed up as a buoy.
I have pondered deeply over these twin feasts, and it has occurred to me that, whilst land sports and water sports are both of them very good things in their way, neither expresses the real genius of a maritime resort, and also that we visitors, if we are too shy to enter with gusto into the local games, ought to provide some suitable entertainment in return. I have compiled therefore a programme of a Grand Beach Gala for next week, and have had a notice put up in the post-office window inviting entries. Not many people buy stamps at the post-office, but, as you get bacon and spades and buckets and jam there, it is a pretty popular emporium, and I think my list of events should prove an attractive one. It runs as follows:—
1. Pebble and Tent Competition.—Fathers of families only. To be run if possible at low tide on a wet and windy day. Competitors to leave starting post in ordinary attire, enter tent, emerge in bathing costume, strike tents, sprint over shingle to the sea, swim to a given point, return, pitch tents, dress and run to winning-post.
First Prize, a ham sandwich, with real sand.