Page 533 - Reading Mercury

this proved highly effective until it met with misfortune. The men's innings came to
an abrupt conclusion when a beer bottle which was being utilised as a bat smashed,
and the player was forced to retire, the match ended in a “tie.”
For an hour during the afternoon the “Neveravebeens” played the “Neverwillbes” in
a. comic football match. All players wore costumes reminiscent of Joseph’s coat and
soon forgot which side they belonged to. Nobody quite knew who won, but one
“lady” got so hot that she caught fire and had to be undressed on the field. There were
no fights, but all enjoyed themselves.
Wokingham Win the Ankle Competition
Reading ladies skidded badly when they accepted the challenge of the Wokingham
ladies to an ankle competition. Fifty-four pairs of ankles were marshalled by the
organiser, Mr. Donovan Watts, for judging .at the Drill Hall in the afternoon, and
Reading could not get in the first three. So good were the Wokingham ankles that as
the evening wore on more and more of the legs possessing such shapely ankles were
shown. Now the reading ladies are thinking out a campaign for revenge.
Brig.-General M.G. Wilkinson was the judge of the preliminary heat, but it was
more than a mere man dare do to decide on the prettiest ankles in the show and expect
to get out alive. So Mrs. Long, full of courage, made the final decision from among
those who survived the eliminating process. The ladies appeared in fours on a
platform behind a screen, which allowed a view of the ankles and lower part of the
legs only. The competitors were turned each way so that the ankles could be
thoroughly viewed. The best of the quartet had a card put in her shoe and she
competed again. A good crowd of interested women--and a few men--viewed the
proceedings.
At last the result was made known thus: 1, Mrs. Reed (Wokingham); 2, Mrs.
Saunders (Wokingham); 3, Miss Smith (Bracknell).
Fire Brigade Display|
The cricket match was followed by a fire brigade display, organised by the
Wokingham Volunteer Fire Brigade, the brigade and lady members of Messrs.
Heelas, Sons and Co., Ltd., taking part. The ladies gave exhibitions of hydrant drill--
wet and dry--some people finding it very wet. The brigade started their exhibition
with showing –very strenuously—the old method of fire fighting, using one of their
first fine fire engines, which bears the date 1878. They followed this up by showing
the new style of fire fighting, the six man motor drill. The brigade concluded by
giving an exhibition of Davy drill, several members of the public descending' from a
height by means of .the escape “to) see what it is like.”
The Procession
The spectacle of the day was the carnival procession through the streets in the
evening. It took half an hour to pass, and Wokingham had never seen anything like it
before. Carts, motor-vans, cycles, fire engines, bands, platoons of collectors, all
passed before the eyes—a moving picture of pageantry, with all the colours of the
spectrum moving in a well-ordered throng.
Leading came Wokingham’s first fire fighters—in top hats and with one man
carrying a hand pump a little larger than the kind generally used to squirt water on the
garden. Wokingham’s first engine, a decrepit affair, labelled “1865,” followed, and
then engines of 1878 to the present day. Next was a tableau of Wokingham’s Borough
insignia, the acorn, with archers standing beneath the oak leaves.
Chained together came a band of “convicts” making strong music with curious
instruments. On top of a lorry was a motley gang with “animals” of peculiar
appearance inside; it was “Barmy and Balamb’s Menagerie.” The oldest motor car

531