Tradition.

Living in a fairly small town there are bound to be traditions that have been observed for a fair few years. Small of this are happy, some poignant and some down right bizarre!!

Take the wheeled derby, this has been going since the 60's when it began as the pram derby and the competitors were dressed as Mother and baby. These days as long as they are in fancy dress it can be as anything. They have to be in/on a wheeled anything, these ranged from wheel barrows to shopping carts and wheelchairs. One must be pushing the other at all times although they can swop. They have to drink half a pint of ale at each of the 5 pubs along the route before racing to the next and the winners are the quickest to the last pub. This may sound like fun but let me tell you it is a serious buisness, these ompa lumpas, smurfs, 118 men and maybe most disturbingly 2 men dressed just in very skimpy pants and many other racers are very competitive. We watched the start and they flew round the corner past us, there was an early crash when a wheelchair bound ompa lumpa crashed into a wheel barrow containing neon fairys but apart from a bruise and a loss of vital seconds all were fine. We followed briskly behind them but when we got to the next pub all that remained was a large ale puddle. We took a shorter route to them and stormed along the seafront hoping to catch the end but we were only a quarter of the way along when we heard the cheer of the winners!! They did the whole thing in 7 minutes!!

This is my neighbour and a friend - the ompa lumpas who won best dressed. Is there any wonder people think us Dorset folk are slightly strange!!??