A Belated Wrecking Christmas

The twin villages of Kingsand and Cawsand were filled with Wrecking morris folk yesterday as the Wreckers celebrated Christmas as if it had only just happened, rather than having occurred exactly four weeks previously.

Unusually, this celebration didn't involve dressing up in black and gold before whacking at one another with sticks. Oh no - this time we had some party games to play.


After forming teams we set off at intervals around the villages on a murder mystery treasure hunt, finding clues on the route and crossing out dates/suspects/weapons (a bit like playing Cluedo) as we went. Here we see Bex Wrecker, slightly ahead of the group, getting very excited about having spotted the first clue.

And so we were able to cross out the date of 1794 as a possible year in which the "murder" happened. Oh yes - we were looking for a year, not a day - the CID would be appalled.

More excitement followed at each clue as we got closer and closer to solving the mystery. Lesley Wrecker managed to eliminate Dorothy Gray from our enquiries at this bench.

And Mrs The Millbrooker soon did the same with sinister looking Scandinavian suspect Pierce Llars...

Shortly after solving another couple of clues, we came upon a rival team of Wreckers doing the circuit in the opposite direction. It seemed that David Wrecker (right) was well prepared to solve a mystery with deer stalker and magnifying glass, although I'm not convinced that the rest of his team (L-R Marie, Nicola and Steve Wrecker) were taking him seriously enough.

The trail took us all through the villages with one of the final clues requiring a team member to count Duck Steps. Kevin Wrecker was quickly volunteered by Bex. And what's more he was still smiling on the way back down having done the 97 step upward climb at a commendable pace.

The whole thing took about a hour and we figured that we had the right solution so back to base we went. We did have the right answer - huzzah! But with six in our team, we lost out to smaller teams once the points made up of correct answers and time taken were divided by the number of team participants - boo!


Never mind, there was the chance to make up lost ground in the specially edited Christmas quiz. Wrichard Wrecker took a place in our team, as Mrs The Millbrooker and I had compiled the quiz, so we presented rather than played.

But the dreams of a quiz-based triumph for the remnants of our mystery walk team was quickly dashed as it became evident that Christmas general knowledge wasn't a strong point.


A quick look at the quiz scores: The Pink Umbrellas team did well with 70% in the quiz, very closely followed by Jay's BBB team only two points adrift. A rather large gap saw the third placed Smart Arses on around 50% with the inappropriately monikered First Place team (that's our mob) a little below that again. Certain Wrecking folk not even knowing that there are four New Testament gospels, let alone what they're called and which one mentions Bethlehem as the site of the Nativity, didn't help.


Moving swiftly on - Wrichard and Max Wrecker had prepped up a smashing curry or two for tea.

After much guzzling and slurping, Mrs The Millbrooker and I decided the time had come to head off home for a gentle couple of hours by the wood burner, so I guess we party-pooped a little - sorry Wreckers, we'd just reached the end of comfortable consciousness.


I'm sure someone will catch me up on the exciting goings-on after our departure which undoubtedly involved melodeons and singing - or at least that's what usually happens when Wreckers get together.


A big thank you to Wrichard and Max for all their hard work in organising the mystery walk and the food; also to Jules for organising the beer and to everyone else who was there for making it an excellent afternoon of conviviality and fun.


Wassail!