2004 Village Day Olympiad
From Lacey Green History
click Village Day for list of occasions
Report by Joan West, (President of the Sports Club)
Village Day 2004 turned out to be the last Village Day. The Village Hall had failed to get a committee to run it. They decided to ask The Sports Club to take it on for just one year, thinking they had the biggest membership. They said they would ask Lacey Green Church to do it next. That never happened. I think that maybe permission to close the Main Road for the procession could not be obtained.
What the Village Hall Committee did not realise was that the members of the Sports Club actually belonged to three separate clubs for cricket, football and tennis, whose members were represented on the general committee of the Sports and Social Club. There was absolutely no enthusiasm for organising Village Day.
Thinking it would be a good advertisement for the Club (having talked to several people in the village who knew nothing about us, some not even where it was or even of its existence.) The reports in Hallmark obviously didn't paint the whole picture!).
Three of us took it on - myself, Jane Oakford, secretary of the Main Committee, and Linda Gaffin, who was actually on the Main Committee as liason with Lacey Green School next door. It was the year of The Olympics, and being a sports club it seemed appropriate to make that the theme. Click Chris & Jane Oakford and Vic & Linda Gaffin for more about Jane and Linda.
The Main attraction of the day would surely be the procession from the Whip down the Main Road to the Sports Field. Judging would take place at the collecting point on Pink Road. SPORT had to be the theme of the procession.
Led by the Princes Risborough Young Farmers pulling a tractor, followed by little children on tricycles, riders on ponies and the many floats, it did not travel fast, which as you will realise later, was just as well.
The Foundry had made a superb 'Olympic Torch' for us. Ian Ward, a member of The Tennis Club, was to run with it down the procession. We hadn't realised how slow the procession would be. Ian ran the whole length up and down at lease four times - "sorry Ian".
The day started with an accident that few knew about at the time.
It had been decided that a tombola of epic proportions would be one of the main highlights of the day. Every organisation was invited to provide a gift jointly from its members and to send it to me at Stocken Farm. The response was fantastic. Our dining room seemed to be bursting by the time the day arrived. On the day our Volvo Estate was packed out with all this 'treasure' to take down to the sports field.
At 11 o'clock the parade set off from the Whip. John set off in the Volvo to take its precious load to the sports field. Turning from our drive onto the Main Road he found some bunting had come down. He stopped to move the bunting, as a car smashed into the back of the Volvo. Two smashed cars in the road and the procession on its way!
Then followed Lacey Green at its best. Con Roe took the very shaken driver of the car, saved by the air bags, into her house to recover. People pushed the two cars down our drive while others came out with brooms and shovels to get the mass of glass off the road. It was simply amazing!
I was in charge of the tombola that day. We hoped we had removed all the glass off the goodies, but I vividly recall picking up a lovely plump lettuce from a box of garden produce to demonstrate how fresh everthing was to its winner, only to find a nest of glass 'pebbles' sitting under it. I did have to do quite a bit of explaining that day!
