A Year in the Life . . .

A cold field all to ourselves!

Shrewsbury Training Weekend : April 1999

April 17th saw my first organised National Regia event. Only fourteen days after the birth of our son (Owen) I was compelled to only stay one night, being kindly put up by Kevin, in his roomy tent.

Leaving in the early hours of Saturday morning I set off for Shrewsbury.A hefty two and a third hours later, I arrived at the dew laden camp site, where I drove through hordes of apparently undead Regia folk. My fellow Garrison members had (just) roused, but Kevin was not to be seen for a good hours or so. Coffee was drunk and the others scoffed their break fast whilst informing me of what to expect.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain in full what went on, but I shall try to impart to you the colour of the day and a half's proceedings. The activities started at 10am (as usual, I would soon learn) where the group that had assembled there proceeded to practise line fighting in a shield wall. A "shield wall" is meant to offer maximum protection whilst the "armies" try to wear each other down. There are inherent problems in that the only weapon to have any real affect is a spear, and the longer the spear the better.

Eventually one of the shield walls will break down, and the successful side separates and (supposedly) finishes off the enemy using the theory that the side which was broken will have less fighters in it and be more easily dispatched. Once one side is outnumbered, there is little need for the shield wall and the warriors on the offensive side break out of formation. However tempting to go it alone it is advisable to fight alongside another warrior, to reduce surprise attacks - as I myself have learnt on no small number of occasions.

This continued for quite some time, until the group showed signs of boredom. Then came the "games".

Stepping stones : Shields are place on the ground a the teams are split into two sides. The idea is, as usual to kill the enemy and invade their space. The trick is, to stay on the shields whilst fighting. The purpose of this is to try and teach you balance. If you fell off the shields, you were "dead" and had to leave the field of battle.

Long-ship : Spears are layed out in two triangular formations, one signifying the bow of s ship, the other - the front end. The object is to invade the other boat. The shield wall technique is used again here. Of course, as before, if you fell off the boat you were "dead"

Bridge : Similar to the Long-ship game, but a parallel set of spears were used to signify a bridge. Islands : As before but a number of zones were marked out using spears. The difference in this game is the presence of a threat from a number of sides.

Two hours later, it was lunch and time to say "Hi!" to our group leader who managed to crawl out from his tent - suffering for his recent surfeit of playing computer games! A remarkable lack of sympathy and respect was shown by all. There was a brief interlude in which the "Old Walrus" (the pseudonym of the leader of Regia, Kim Siddorn) led an informal discussion on the "Wild Wood" project which revolved around a co-operative venture forming to create a permanent site in Kent. Unsurprisingly, some people seemed quite doubtful about the idea - mostly (from what I have seen and heard) from people unlikely to use it, due to their remoteness from the site. I won't comment too much on the hearsay, but I think that anything that both teaches, entertains and brings in an income, can only be a good idea! Nothing can improve or indeed survive without change. But onto the training; The rest of the working day (four hours or so!) was spent yomping through the nearby woodland where battles were fought in a variety of locations. At a crossroads, up a hill, in a valley, by a ravine (whilst pretending to be Orks and Elves), being ambushed on the return leg on a number of occasions and finally a rollicking hack and slash amongst thorny hedges.

Damn good fun I must say! My fighting technique was praised by a number of occasions, as was my clothing. The day was rounded off with food and drink at a pub not too far away "considering our remoteness", screaming abuse at each other and jumping over / walking through a furiously fuelled camp fire. My first night under canvass for many a year was completely without sleep for a variety of scatological reasons (steer clear of tinned vegetable curry!!!!) and the fact that it was bloody cold, was ended at five o'clock impressing people with my culinary skills, by cooking an impressive fry-up over the rekindled and much more subdued camp fire. The morning was spent having another session of training similar to the day before, but a good deal more relaxed. Finally, after giving the small contingency of archers something interesting to shoot at (in preparation for the event to take place in Hastings later in the year), the festivities drew to a close. A large number left at twelve to vote on the Wild Wood project idea, which after what was an apparently heated discussions, the idea was accepted. I personally look forward to next Easter, when the first planned event will be staged there. At a later date, unless something appears on another site, I will fill you in on the details of the project, and how it fared. Until then, adieu. N.B. : "Wildwood" (or Wychurst) was host to a Regia event later that same year, and by all reports, it was a success.