The ducks at Hunstanton are always a source of much comment, from those who find their antics hilarious, to those who find their noisiness an irritation when trying to sleep off a hangover, to those scared of birds who find they form an impassable barrier when gathered round a caravan eating scraps thrown out.
Many are the tales of Plussers who have tried to entice them into the caravans with breadcrumbs but I had not had a confirmation of any of these tales myself until we managed to get a duck into our caravan – The secret, be very quiet and still and use a trail of chocolate digestive pieces as bait, the ducks can’t get enough of them, we got the duck right into the middle of the kitchen area using this technique
What the Committee said…
Advert in Plus News, Summer 2000
What the Committee said…
What they said…
WASH 2000 was another excellent weekend. The weather the week before had been absolutely terrible, storms had raged up and down the country, flooding roads from the north to the south. A caravan site had been devastated by a mini tornado at Selsey Bill, but WASH had survived the October Hurricane of 1987 and survived the storms of 2000 as well.
Saturdays film High Fidelity
Friday night was the now customary rock night with the first band ‘Willem’ getting the weekend off to a great start and the second band ‘Pancracker’ carried on in the same style, even getting Mike from Rugby up on stage as guest vocalist ! I presume the two bands must know each other pretty well as I went to the bar towards the end of Pancracker’s set and when I came back they had been joined on stage by the guys from Willem and played two or three songs with two singers, three guitarists, two bass players etc… loud and excellent.
Saturday had the usual daytime mix of activities, Swimming, Laser clay pigeon shooting, Karaoke and the first of two films in the Princess Theatre. Saturday nights live entertainment started with 90’s songs from ‘Agent Orange’ oin their welcome return from playing WASH 1999, and then went on to “The 80’s Experience” who covered all the old favourites from Wham, Duran Duran, Human League etc. Saturdays Disco was notable for the strange appearance of a set of dirty old men from Solihull, complete with flasher macs and dirty ‘Y’-fronts… strange who 18 Plus attracts these days !
Sundays film, Grease
Sunday brought a change with tradition, no longer was the comedy show in the Princess theatre on Sunday afternoon, but instead was on Sunday Lunchtime in the Sundowner Bar, this left the Princess Theatre free to show the second film ‘Grease’ complete with much singing along from the 18 Plus audience. Sunday evening brought a ‘Ska’ tribute band ‘UB4T’ who covered Madness, The Specials etc as well as UB40, great stuff if you like that sort of thing (but I don’t !) and finally to round off the evening the return of the ladies favourite ‘Foxx’ complete with ripped clothing and Robbie Williams songs. Judging by the ages of the band members I doubt any of them were in Foxx when they played WASH in 1996. They were however just as popular with the girls and had the audience dancing on the dance floor as well as the chairs and tables. To end it all DJ Lionel Adrians brought the weekend to a close with the usual round of New York, New York and You’ll Never Walk Alone.Plus News Winter 2000
Mike from Rugby sings with Pancracker
Solihull’s Mac Lads
flashed their underwear (and more) on Saturday night
The Sutton Girls singing along in full voice
Dancing on the furniture – as usual at WASH
An annoying thing happened…
I’ve driven to WASH a lot of times and though the roads have changed with bypasses around villages and dual carriageway bits to make the journey faster there are still landmarks I look out for on the way down that remind me of journeys in the past. These days I enjoy driving down by myself so I can dawdle along and go through all the bypassed villages, just to relive those journeys to WASH and Caister from the past. (and on a Friday rush hour it’s usually quicker to go through Long Sutton to SUtton Bridge than it is to queue up along the bypass)
One landmark that tells me I am well into the journey is the Crossroads just after Cranwell RAF college, a point exactly 100 miles from my house, but after the journey down in 2000 I have a new landmark to look out for just a few hundred yards before there. The road past Cranwell is a straight level road where you can get a bit of speed up, but just before the crossroads there is a little dip in the road… and in the bottom of this dip is… a speed camera… you can’t see it until you get right up to it (it’s not the big square box painted yellow type, but a much smaller sneaky thing) It wasn’t there in all the years up to 2000 when I think they put it in as a nasty surprise for the millenium… It clocked me at 74mph in a 60 limit… 3 points and £50 fine. I’ve passed it by at 59mph every year since ! ! !
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