38th Out of 55,000,000!

Darwin and I entered the 10^th All England Stone Skimming Championships. It was open to all and I thought it would be quite fun. It’s quite a serious affair actually!

We paid our £3 for 3 attempts and completed the required paperwork! (Paperwork!) There was then a pile of approved skimming stones all of which by my untrained eye were perfect skimmers, but the bloke looking through them had been there 15 minutes by the time I got to them. I thought he might have been a bit ‘special’ and liked looking at rocks, as it happens he was one of the many serious contenders from the day! Darwin and I chose our stones and made our way to the queue.

Whilst I was in the queue I was listening to the conversations around me. “Are you going to Easdale this year?”, “No, I went last year, but I’m in the USA doing the stone skipping then”. “It’s a disgrace that you can’t bring your own stones” etc… I knew then that this wasn’t just simply a day out for some folk.

I had a chat with Ron Long during the afternoon, he’s somewhat a stone skimming legend. He was World Champion in 2012 and has won the England competition numerous times, and despite being in his mid 70’s, is still going strong.

Ron ended up coming 2^nd on the day, I came 38^th which I’m still quite pleased with. What’s the population of England? 55,000,000. 38^th!

Darwin did even more spectacular, he came 15^th in the under 11 Boys category but I’m pretty sure he got the loudest applause and cheer.

"15th!"

"Ron Long"

"Spectators"