Harold vs William: the big game

Top of our ‘must-do’ list on this trip has been the battle of Hastings re-enactment. Held on the 940th anniversary of the big day, this was an amazing weekend - by far the biggest even I’ve ever been part of – or probably will ever be. 3000 or so re-enactors, about a third of them in the historically accurate ‘authenti-camp’, dozens of market stalls, a capacity crowd of 12,000 on both Saturday and Sunday to see the show. Highlights? Watching (and hearing!) 110 Norman cavalry in full armour thunder up the rise toward the Saxon line, standing with 150 archers firing volley after volley in unison at the Saxon centre towards the end of the battle, the organic cider in the beer tent, the hearty meals in pubs in Battle (yes, of course we went in period dress!), the all night singalong with the lads and lasses from Valhalla …

As always, it’s the people that make an event like this – it was amazing to see so many familiar faces when we’re so far from home (expecially after 8 months away!) – clan Dunn, Eggy and all the rest of the lads from Melbourne, Sydney and even Perth! Perhaps the most special memories though, are of the many and varied new faces… our archery commanders Dave (“I don’t do rousing battlefield speeches – blah blah blah!”) and Goose (‘British by birth, Welsh by the grace of the gods!”); the mad Frenchman from Normandie who insisted on sharing his home distilled calvados (which tasted so like paint stripper that even he told us to put it under the tongue, so as not to taste it); Sophie and the other Bretons on the Norman left, who were in our archery contingent and who taught me to speak ‘battle french’; the mad Icelandic guy who was really confused when I answered his finnish questions… in finnish!; Chinky from York; and most especially, Ian the farmer who owned the field we were camped in, and who turned some of his pigs into a mountain of sausages and spent most of the weekend cooking egg,bacon and sausage sarnies for hungry re-enactors…

Best of all, Ants was here!

Naturally, there are loads of online weblogs with pix. I still haven’t managed to get mine out of the camera, but will post another link once I get them into flickr.

http://www.angelfire.com/mb2/battle_hastings_1066/hastings2006.html

http://www.alexmcneill.myzen.co.uk/hastings/

http://s100.photobucket.com/albums/m40/elizia25000bc/
http://s114.photobucket.com/albums/n249/jarlsoe/Hastings%202006/?start=0

http://good-times.webshots.com/album/554873891eaIUbh

http://www.bbc.co.uk/southerncounties/content/image_galleries/hastings_battle_gallery.shtml