1355. 1st July - Monty's Batman; The Star Inn, Tideswell
&
1356. 8th July - Mudslide; Rose & Crown
"Minnies", Stannington
“I love that glow and now I know,
Summer’s in bloom”, sang Gary Stringer all those summers ago, he also sang , ‘I
got a stinging nettle rash for it, but I'm so very happy that I did’, ...and so it
was that the Hash summer season had kicked off.
The last twelve months have been boom times for the Sheffield Hash, a flurry of new recruits, leading to new stories, new naming opportunities and indeed a none stop supply of newly press ganged hares.
First up in July was the not-so-new Monty’s Batman with an exotic offering in Tideswell. Just as Bradwell’s one way system makes it the London of the Peak district, Tideswell’s Carnival clear up surely renders it the Rio de Janeiro of the peak district…or maybe Glastonbury of the Peaks would have made more sense??
Shunter did his bit for the community by helping locals move a large piece of carnival decoration into a white van, either that or a sophisticated gang of art thieves recruiting an unwitting accomplice. There’s been no appeal for witnesses on facebook nor denials from other running groups yet, so one can only assume the former.
The Star inn was our venue, local Hash star Biggles was seen wandering the streets but only joining us for the boozy segment of the Hash. No one appreciates too much creativity on a hash but MTB had not got the memo and tried to combine flour frugality with a tour of the village, through the church, up the steps down the passage, onto high street, say no more.
Finally he took us out into the hills where we belonged. Newly handled Speed Bump brought us a new recruit, who incidentally did turn up the week after, so we may have got ourselves another lifer, watch this space!! He was slightly concerned by some of the hash handles but we made vague promises that the new generation of handles were much more family friendly. Samson le toi and Suction Cup also brought a recruit, so more handles to think up!!
True to form, MTBs hash had saved the bulk of the flour for the snacks, baked no doubt by other members of the MTB tribe and very much appreciated by the Hashers.
There followed some undulating hills and doubts as to whether we were heading back towards the village, local hasher Moist Cleft assured us we were on the right track so eventually by hook or by crook we arrived back at the venue.
In what must be a first we were offered a separate room, a ‘Hash Hole’ so to speak, our swelling numbers soon filled the room and extra seats were required. The diary was subsequently passed round with a least a couple of signatures collected, all in all a nice trip down south!!.
On, On to the next run….
The second summer offering came from newly recruited, named and signed up as a hare, ‘Mudslide’. Never has one hasher given so much material, in so little time, for the joy of so many. Mudslide may prove to be a temporary name until the next legend takes over, (Incidentally mother-hash mismanagement retains the sole rights to a name change).
There was a certain anticipation as to how this Hash may go, a bit like a 1980s quiet Friday night out with Ozzy Osborne and Keith Richards was the feeling in the camp. A series of pre, during and post hash whatsapp messages did confirm that it would indeed be a wild night out with the afore mentioned hell raisers + an Oliver Reed chaser. but we were game and duly took it on.
Backwards, in fact, for why stick with convention? The flour / contents of Mudlside’s baking cupboard took us firstly to the hash home then it was a fairly conventional trot in the wrong direction along the north side of Rivelin valley.
Faced with a choice of left, right, private property or the actual trail we splintered and followed all but the latter. Your scribe unfortunately chose the group with the most opinions and indeed 13 miler Jinx, so we went one way then the other. We then imagined what we thought the hare might have meant and marched along the surprisingly high Rivelin Crags / Edge / Rocks / cliffs...
Faced with slightly up or down then a lot of up, we went for slightly up which proved to be the hedge hopping trail. With the actual path o’er yonder and within view, we talked MTB into going that way whilst the rest of us just continued hedgehopping.
We finally regrouped onto the conventional Hash Home path and headed towards the pub. We were greeted by a very smug looking group of silver hashers, who had done slightly more mileage than the rest of us, alas they did not find the snacks either and the hare was still missing. There were tales of free range chicken fiddling going on in that splinter group, but there was not a great appetite to probe for further details.
Debate raged as to what the actual route should have been whilst simultaneously receiving whatsapp updates from the hare. There was a rumour floating round that said hare had gone home to feed her dog, but then, from out of nowhere, just as she had burst onto the hash she burst into the pub to complete the debrief.
On on, Sticky Shaft
Epilogue
We knew the hash would never be the
same again. A few people laughed, a few people sighed, most awaited an
explosion of joy from our hare. I remembered having tried to persuade our new
hare to do her duty and put her name in the diary. Keen as mustard and as
bright as the blazing sun she signed up solo not knowing that she had
unwittingly become Time, the Destroyer of Worlds...or at least post hash drinking
minutes.’
(apologies to Robert Oppenheimer and the Bhagavad Gita)
-Tek a lot of flour, drop it every 50m / 55 yards.
-Dunt do false trails if unsure.
-Check-backs and back-to-checks are not for the novice and very often not for the experienced hare either.
-We are not insured against the risk of a figure of eight trail going wrong.
-There are countless tails of the ‘hide behind the wall as they pass’ manoeuvre going wrong
-Optional: Leave snacks close to a road for easy retrieval should they not found and devoured on the first pass.
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