So at 1315 Friday afternoon I was sat in a lay by on the A36 waiting for the wrecker! It was an injector fault, I had already had one of those so I knew I was adrift a car for the weekend, twenty minutes of phone haggling got me a hire car, a Ford Fiesta, which I would have to pick up by 1700, no problem, it was only 1340 and the wrecker was, according to Green Flag, minutes away. Ninety-three minutes to be precise! Rush hour traffic M27 Friday afternoon, less than an hour to get home, then change cars and get to the hire shop, guess what sort of a mood I was in at that point? Watch the Incredibles, specifically the point where Bob Parr looses his job at the insurance company! Anyhow we made it with minutes to spare. The fella in the hire shop took one look at me and said, "you'll never fit in the Fiesta, tell you what I'll let you have a Mondeo for the same money." Result! I thrashed the bollocks off it on the way home, you know "pushing the envelope", it would be madness to go away on a weekends re-enactment without knowing what the car was capable of, anything could happen!

So two hours of frenzied packing and loading, programme the sat-nav and off we go! I evaded the roadworks and made excellent time, found a slot for my tent under the branches of a mighty oak and got set up! I have never enjoyed setting up in the dark, but with a bit of help from Lee it took less than forty minutes and then away to the plastic camp and car park. This should be the field we use for the event proper next year, and it's a big bugger, Good, no more camping in tree lines that smell of wee then! (You get used to the smell of wee when you camp next to the artillery!) By the time I had negotiated the ten-minute stroll back to the camp Ced and Lynn and Scotty were set up, and several other Bucks were in the vicinity, bottles were opened and the weekend's work began! Most of the early arrivals were in the local pub, always one to support local economies I decided to go and spend some loot there, so did everyone else, Good I hate drinking alone! (When has that ever happened in the Bucktails?) We spent a fairly quiet evening in the pub, that is to say, I discovered a new way to enjoy cider, Ced, Lynn and Scotty met a bloke with a Nazi lorry they had not seen for years and we ended up at that "You're my besht mate" slury, staggery stage that all re-enactors recognise as the prequel to a good event! Back around the campfire we yarned on into the wee small hours, with Maddy complaining she never got to go on the field, we would see in the morning if that was the booze talking! I did remarkably well staying up way past my bedtime, and after adding to the general miasma of wee slipped into unconsciousness at about 0230…

The Dawn came all too soon…. And there were several off colour faces peering from under tent flaps around our "famous five" style round campsite. Jo Bob narrowly avoided serious injury as he restarted the campfire, Tea restored the spirits and we were underway in that typical bucktails fashion, cooking breakfast seemed to take forever, and it was about this time we discovered the wasp's nest on the other side of the tree to my tent! Just goes to show, I thought the buzzing was the result of the previous nights entertainment! The authorities arrived and gave the nest a good squirt of industrial strength insecticide, that'll teach em to mess with us! I disappeared to sergeants call to get the days timings, unusually our parade had been put back to midday to give the punters something to look at, so we had our drill session at 1000 instead, we always seem to do the same thing, Right face, forward march, by company into line, by company right wheel, etc. etc. which in a way helps, when the sun is beating down and your trying to survive a hangover! Maddy was doing well with the company colour, but it was early days yet! It was with some relief that we fell out for powder issue after half an hour, as some Greek hoplites wanted the arena. When you are sweating like an Alabama rapist in wool jacket, trousers, cap, surrounded with more leather belts and straps than a pack mule and carrying a ten pound rifle there is an element of envy for someone wearing what appears to be a tennis skirt and a smear of olive oil!

The powder store was in a hedge, all hot and sweaty, lovely! On examination so was the powder, it was filthy stuff, I knew my Sharp's would have trouble digesting it, oh dear things were starting to go downhill for your old First Sergeant! So with our forty dead men safely in our cartridge boxes it was a long trudge back down green drive to our campsite. Green drive is always worth a look and a laugh, with lots going on, such as Vietnam, Bastogne, Poland, the Spanish civil war, the Boer war, the English civil war, all merging into one huge confusing re-enactment soup, you name it its there! Almost sharing our tiny campsite there was a travelling Victorian freak show, Tom and Simon left their tent flaps open and inadvertently were about to be awarded a prize for authenticity when it was pointed out to the judges that they were in the American civil war camp not the freak show!

Given our location and the general unpleasant aroma arising from the previous usage of our campsite, we were undisturbed by the general public, In fact it was quite amusing watching them approach all smiles and walk into an almost solid wall of ammonia and do a perfect right about, with a face looking like they had just licked a nine volt battery, dragging their kids with them and breaking into double time! It's the little things that do it for me!

Then Horrors! My rifle failed safety inspection! The tool kit came out and the lock was dismantled, all this as the Staff were screaming for us to fall in for parade, Great! On close inspection the sear was showing excessive wear which was preventing it engaging at half cock; this would have to be attended to pronto. The Major and the Adjutant took parade. Squeezed in between the end of a company street and the punch and Judy show it was amusing to say the least, With several members of the public almost forming a fourth company, I'm sure at one point Mr. Punch gave several orders, since "that's` the way to do it" almost certainly is not in Casey's Drill 1861.

Break ranks was followed by some frantic gun repairs with a sharp file, before the afternoons excitement. Grandiosely called the Battle our wee skirmish was billed to last 30 minutes, and to kick off The Bucks were to form a skirmish line in the centre of the arena and await our Confederate chums, when they turned up we would trade fire for several minutes allowing the rest of the federal troops to get on the field. Well it would appear Johnny hadn't read the same script as us, and being equipped with some force field that turned all bullets aside they were able to ignore our skirmish line and close on our position and engage in hand to hand while the commentator on the P.A. system was welcoming the crowd to the event. I suppose arguing with several confederates about who was supposed to be where and who was supposed to be dead in the opening seconds of a skirmish is a first! Looking round at the crowd sixty feet away I felt ridiculous, so much to the Rebs surprise I screamed and threw myself to the floor dead, all pointless really, since he than ran off leaving me dead sixty feet from the crowd. I stayed dead lying in the shade of a leafy tree for the rest of the skirmish, I don't know what it looked like, but it sounded pants!

Battle over, Guns cleaned, it was time for a trip to the shops, mainly because the previous day I had been in such a rush I had not had time to get any scoff, and all my booze had been imbibed the day before. Scotty, Ced, and Lynn and Myself decided on a Mexican dinner, so I went and got the doings for a chilli and Ced and Lynn did the fajitas, the doings was enough for all of us, the whole company! I had to make it in two pots; the last time I had made this for the boys I had produced a "ring stinger" (always entertaining at an event!) I decided this time to make the smaller pot mild and the large pot extra spicy, during the cooking process, which was mainly done by torchlight and firelight since it was pitch black, I did my best to emulate Keith Floyd, several Mexican beers with a wedge of lime and some tequila meant I was feeling no pain by the time service began. Most of those present got stuck in and I think it was well received, the payoff came when J.C. decided to try some, I know J.C. is not fond of spicy food so when he approached the table and asked which was the mild one I pointed it out to him, Tom however said "no that's the hot one", poor old J.C. who to trust? "Which one is it?" asked J.C. Tom and I looked at each other and I silently pointed to the large pot! He took a man's portion with rice, while Tom and I started to choke with laughter. J.C. came back for rice three times, dripping with sweat saying in a hoarse whisper "Jesus Christ I'm glad I didn't have the hot one!" I laughed so hard I snapped my farting strings!!

Another trip down the pub filled the middle of the evening, very nice it was too, with some of the Wyoming Wild Bunch, who were going to have a good old sing song round their campfire later! So 1145 found us round their campfire which wasn't as good as it had sounded in the pub because there were so many people there already it was like bonfire night without fireworks. So several of us slid back to our own fire for a good drunken burble, Good manly fun!

Sunday mornings arrival was as unpleasant as Saturdays had been; my tent looked like a train crash, tea was desperately required. With about three pints of that inside me I was able to tackle snorker sarnies, before trotting off for a drill lesson for NCOs, I needed that like another hole in my arse. All the company first Sergeants had to suffer a pointless session of "Change front forward on the first company" followed by dirt diving it through. Which wouldn't have been so bad if when we came to do it at drill the Major had been reading the same drill book as the Adjutant, they were both wrong so we reverted to the method we always used before. That is something really important to re-enactors, the futility of it all! Speaking of futility, I noticed that the company colour did not appear on parade; incidentally neither did Maddy who was still in her pit!

Drill over we returned for more tea to the camp, Tom was visibly nervous, his parents were due to come and visit and I heard he wanted to spirit them away from the camp as soon as possible since they might not understand some of the less savoury topics discussed around our campfire, specifically I understand he was keen they didn't speak to me because I have a one track mind allegedly. A dirt track!
Parade at noon was almost as bad as yesterdays, thankfully no Mr. Punch but it was damned funny opening ranks and scaring all the punters who had crowded in behind us!

For those interested in the skirmish take a look at the video for Clivden as that is Sundays skirmish which was far better than Saturdays, that'll save my poor bruised typists fingers, suffice to say that for me Sunday was as pointless as Saturday since my caps had gone off. Literally gone off! I wonder if caps have a best before date?

By the time the skirmish was over and powder returned we had had enough, the weekend was catching up with us, mid September had produced some uncomfortably warm weather for re-enactors, you couldn't smell the wee any more, it was drowned out by the smell of us! The crowd thinned out, Maddy got up and the rest of us were able to sort out our dishevelled tents quietly and wait for the 1700 deadline, strictly adhered to this year, before taking the walk back down to the car park to fetch up our transport, it didn't seem that far in the dark on Friday night! It had also grown, and I couldn't remember which car was mine! Bollocks! This year Clivden had been a good event; Next year it should be a great one, it may yet fulfil its early promise and become the next Kirby hall. The boys and girls put a lot of effort into the weekend both on and off the field, the drill was good, the turnout was good, the "famous five" camp was good, and the entertainment was good too! What more could you want from a weekend with the Bucktails? (Apart from a hot bath and a nice relaxin` poo, but not necessarily in that order!).

 Related items

• Go to the past events index
  
  
• Check for future events
  
  
• View the Co. I roll call to put faces to names
  
  
• Play the Clivedon battle video clip