Torchmaking 1998
Torchmaking and dipping has finished for 1998 and I managed to miss the dipping, everyone got so far ahead that it ended a day early, never mind I will have to find some old pictures of the final part for this page.
During the past weeks a number of pictures have appeared in the Newsletter section and I thought it would be nice to bring them together on one page, plus a few that never made it.
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Early days and Brian Gasson, Captain of Firesite, knocks a nail into a finished torch as Roy Robins, joint Captain of Torchmaking, winds some sacking around another, the finished torches are stacked under cover after being counted, they will be dipped nearer to bonfire night. |
The Lone Torchmaker! John Beeching winds sacking that he has just cut around a torch bat, John, apart from being our Captain of Fireworks, the man to whom we gave £2,500 to spend this year, is also leader of The Whatlington Renegades, a Society with no rules or membership, usually found drumming at the rear of processions! |
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Its not all work, here we see Eileen LeNett taking a break from the Merchandising Club to cook a few sausages and beefburgers on the barbecue |
| Gerry Glenister (me) Captain of Marshals, cutting sacking into strips and Peter Breach in the background doing his best to use it all up. |  |
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And now back to 1995 and a different site, Min stirs up his little pot of goodies which will be added to the main tank later, you can just see me with Margaret Trowell our Captain of Press and Publicity dipping in the background, hold them under the mixture until the bubbles have stopped and then they are ready. There are quite a few torches left, in 1995 we dipped exactly 1066 torches! |
| Well back to 1998 and on Sunday 4th October here are the last of the torches draining off, they need to drain for about a week after they have been dipped. |  |
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Here we see Jean Glenister holding a dipped torch up, one that will burn brighty on the 10th October, mainly due to the fact that I forgot to bring any matches with me to have a test run before the event! |
| Well who said that we had finished? here are the two undipped torches still marking the way to our dipping site - back to the water tank filled with oil etc, find some wood to start a fire - all of a sudden I'm very unpopular, I wonder why! |  |
So that really is it for another year, now for the real thing, will I have enough Marshals? will they all turn up if it rains? who knows, but I'll probably tell everyone about it after the event, that is if I recover from standing guard over the fire throughout the night!
Now if you want to find out more about making torches, visit Conrad Bladey's site, he has full instructions. click here
Heres to the 5th, or should that be the 10th October?
