Cottenham Ploughing Society: 4 Oct 08

Yesterday was the day of the annual Cottenham Ploughing Society competition and dinner/dance. The weather was fine for the former and I attended the latter with number one wife and as a guest of Rick Bristow, parish council chair. The picture above is of the ploughing match committee of about 1950 but some of those guys look like they wouldn’t be out of place in an Al Capone movie!

It was a splendid evening and something like number 160 in a series which dates back into the 19th century; there were elements of the evening which make me think that it hasn’t changed much over the years.

The event was catered by a Housdens of Chatteris and it managed to serve a 3 course meal plus cheese and coffee in about an hour. I’d observe that the company employs people of all ages and that the menu doesn’t seem to change much from year to year.

There was entertainment from ‘Rhythm and Rhapsody’ which does what it says on the can. It’s forte is 60s pop and earlier when its lead singer must have been in his prime. He really is rather good though, lots of confidence and vigour, and he was splendidly supported by a rather dishy blond (I was told it was his daughter but suspect that she’s a later generation). It must have been good because wife and I danced a lot.

The speech by the chair and the associated prize giving was an event in itself. The chair made a virtue of reading his speech including reading 3 jokes (the front page joke, the sheep dog joke and the roller skates joke). There were all sorts of prizes but most went to just a handful of obviously expert ploughmen (are there no women ploughers?) and strangely we seemed to award some prizes to second placed people and not the winners. Very curious.

It’s easy to gently mock but it really was a splendid evening. There were lots of ‘juveniles’ there (it seems to be what young people are called in ploughing circles). They seemed pretty normal drinking and making lots of noise like any other group of young people but they were also interacting with the rest of us. It was a real community event. There were also several ‘good dancers’ showing off their jive, waltz and quick-step skills. There was one lady with quite the longest hair I’ve ever seen and another who’d do well in a Babara Windsor look alike competition.

It was bring your own for wine and beer. So on our table we went from Cotes du Rhone to Rioja to an Aussie Shiraz. The purists would say we were crazy but it all tasted pretty good to me. It all helped to enable me to provide this accurate and objective summary of the evening.