Saturday 30 May dawned with the sun shining out of an almost cloud-free sky, hinting at the heat that was to come. All in all, a good day for a Town Crier Competition. The original date was for the following Saturday, but that was later claimed for the British Championships. I confess that initial frustration turned to thankfulness when it rained solidly on that date!

The Watton competition is held every 2 years, and this was the third such competition. We had 13 Criers (just enough for a coven meeting!) from around the country. It gave me and the council great pleasure that the numbers have steadily increased.

As usual, we started off the proceedings on the Friday night with a meal for those who were staying at the beautiful Broom Hall Country Hotel – our usual venue. It was a lovely meal and the draw for rounds 1 and 2 were conducted at the end of it.

The Criers attending were (in alphabetical order):

Rennie Chivers

Terry Ford

Paul Gough

John Griffiths

Sonya Hauxwell

Adrian Holmes

Jody Huizar

Bob Lloyd

Mark Northway

Andrew Parkhurst

Michael Reddy

Jane Smith

Faye Thompson

This year, I changed how the competition went. Instead of having Round 1 in the morning, and Round 2 in the afternoon, they ran one after the other with a short comfort break between them. This had 2 effects:

1. The competition was shorter in overall time, thus giving those who travelled an earlier start for home.
2. The audience stayed for the whole event instead of wandering off after Round 1 and then not coming back.

I also did away with the so-called introductions.

All in all, it worked very well and that is how it will run from now on.

The day did indeed heat up, and the competitors were allowed to remove their topcoats if they wished to do so for Round 2.

1^st place went to Adrian Holmes, 2^nd place to John Griffiths and 3^rd place to Mark Northway. Mark also picked up Best Themed Cry and Faye Thompson was Best Ambassador.