Leckhampton, Crickley & Emma's Grove

Dr Ferris & Robert Roberts hold a secessionist picnic. "The only true picnic," said Robert, before throwing a shape.

What on earth did John Parry just say?

On the stage in the mess hall at Ullenwood in 1979. Plainly, from the fact that everyone is falling about laughing JP must just have said something hilarious to Randal Motkin who clasps a ceremonial block of oolitic limestone (probably that season's 'Personality of the Year' award. Why John is wearing a crash helmet is lost in the mists. Back row, L to R, Dmitri, C-H-M, Bernard Dawson, Randal, Terry Courtney, JP. Front row, David Hole, Zoya Spivakowska, Ros Cleal and Anna Collinge.

Stop press: following a recent straw poll of Crickley veterans this year's reunion will be on the weekend of 16 to 18 July, holding the picnic on the hill on Saturday 17th. This at least gives Noakesy a chance to hotfoot it from his foreign tour just to make it in time ... I will email the usual suspects soon about the arrangements.

All in a good mood

High good humour all round at the award, it would appear to Randal Motkin, of the 1979 'Mr Crickley' title. Back row, L to R, Dmitri, Terry Courtney, Julian Parker, Bernard Dawson, Dave Southwood. Middle row, Training, The Skeleton, John Parry congratulating Randal, Mike Taylor. Front row, David Hole, Zoya Spivakowska, Ros Cleal, and Anna Collinge. The Skeleton is wearing C-H-M's father's demob suit from 1945.

Antics on a dumper truck

C-H-M wishes all his readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy & Prosperous New Year and thanks all those who have contributed to the Crickley blog during the course of the year. Send me more photos, please!

The Christmas Special features three pictures of many of the usual suspects taken by Anna Behan (Collinge) during the 1979 season. It was obviously a slow day on the hill as we found time to devise a sketch involving the dumper truck to demonstrate various principles underlying Health and Safety at work.

Picture 1 shows Messrs Courtney and Noakes at the controls of the dumper truck, with Flight Lieutenant Southwood posing at the back. C-H-M is in the bucket of the dumper which is tipping forwards ... there is someone as yet unidentifiable lurking under C-H-M's rear.

Picture 2, taken a few seconds later from further back, reveals that Mark Spivakowski is also with me in the bucket of the dumper truck, which turns out to have a plank propped on the end of the bucket leading to an Iron Age rampart. As you do. On the plank (obviously) are Mr Bernard Dawson pushing a wheelbarrow and behind him Sarah. The person lurking behind C-H-M turns out to be Mike Taylor.

Picture 3 includes John Parry as well as the previously identified miscreants, and isn't posed at all ...

The Health & Safety Executive would be proud of us. I'm glad my mother never saw these photos, I think, but they have a suitably festive feeling about them and we were obviously having a ball. Until Anna produced these photos I had absolutely no recollection of this episode at all ...