THE FIRST TICKHILL GALA OF MODERN TIME
Background
Nowadays the annual Tickhill Gala is rather taken for granted, that on the first Saturday in July each year, Tickhill will come to life for a fun day out in the town and on the Football Field off Sunderland Street. There have been galas and shows staged in Tickhill going back in time but they have not been continuous and in the sixties and seventies there was neither a Tickhill Show nor a Gala. Around this time Tickhill began to expand with a number of housing estates being built which brought in a lot of new residents with young families anxious to find outlets for young people to express themselves.
The cubs, scouts, brownies and guides were already established in the town but the 13th Doncaster Scout group was at a particularly low point in 1969 and in its short life was unable to cope with the influx of children wishing to join the group. District Scout Commissioner, Brian Cox from Bessacarr, came to Tickhill and held a meeting in the Methodist Church’s Schoolroom to tell invited parents that he would have to close down the 13th Doncaster Group unless they organised help for the leaders of the cubs and scouts.
Following this meeting a number of parents got together and formed the Tickhill Scout Supporters Association with the aim of providing whatever help was required by the then the solitary cub leader, Janet North and sole scout leader, Chris Garrett. Kath Snell joined Janet North as an assistant cub leader and help was given to Chris Garrett in transporting scouts to camp, swimming trips and fund raising.
The Tickhill Scout Supporters Association were recognised by the Doncaster Scout Association and started meeting each month in the side bar of the Carpenters Arms under Chairman Mike Rush and parents, Peter Marrison, John and Rose Eaton, Lol and Rita Smith, Eunice and Ray Burton, Margaret Wright, Gil Leetham, David Miller, Chris Garrett and Robert Kitchen forming a committee.
Plans were made for fund raising which included Jumble Sales, Sponsored Walks, Christmas Draws and very quickly there were sufficient funds to pay for all the day to day needs of the group.
At one of the regular Supporters' meetings in 1973, Rita Smith suggested that it should resurrect the Tickhill Gala. An idea that found favour with the committee who started to draw up plans for a Gala to be held in the following summer.
At this time the cubs and scouts were meeting in the Methodists' Schoolroom and the brownies and guides met in the Old Tickhill Library and both groups were crying out for the need to expand and have better meeting places. The Scout Group’s parents being better organised than the guide parents undertook to run the new gala but were to enlist the guides in a number of the jobs that were needed to stage a gala. Around this time there was more serious talk about having a dedicated building as a meeting place for scouts and guides in Tickhill and agreement was reached that the money generated from a gala would go to start a fund to pay for a new headquarters for both units.
From this a new combined committee was formed, to be known as the Tickhill Scout and Guide Association ( TSGA ) and it is this committee that has run the Tickhill Gala ever since.
Eric Cutts became chairman, Wendy Mills its secretary with members Chris Garrett, Robert Kitchen, Delia Smith, Jean Wilby, Shauna Laurie, Peter Marrison, David Miller, John Hogg and Frank Frith among others. This committee was a good representation of all cubs, brownies, scouts and guides through leaders and parents. The committee met to begin with in Wendy Mills house before transferring to the Millstone public house.
Gala Preparations
A Gala Supremo was appointed to draw all the strings together on the day with members of the Committee taking up specific responsibilities for different aspects of the Gala.
A plan of the field was made showing the positions of all the stalls and attractions and a committee member appointed to act as “supremo” on the day, available to show where stalls were to go and attractions to be set up. The first “Supremo” was Peter Marrison.
The Football Field at the end of Tithes Lane off Sunderland Street was a good central location on which to hold the Gala and approaches were made to both Tickhill Town and Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Councils to get their permission to hold the Gala on the field. Permissions were given and the Town Council cut the grass in the week before the Gala day, which was to be 6th July 1974. Invitations were sent to all the various organisations in the town to enter a float in the Procession and about twenty replied wanting to enter. There were entries from cubs, scouts venture scouts, guides, brownies, the Sunday School, Mothers Union, the Women’s Institute, the Methodist Church, the two playgroups, residents from King Edward Road, Crown Road, Walnut Avenue, Beech Avenue, Meadow Drive and Lancaster Crescent, the Tickhill Institute, Tickhill Football Club and a ladies keep fit club.
It was realised that the lorries and tractors pulling the floats would not get up Tithes Lane, so an alternative way on to the field had to be found, There was a wide farm gate at the north east corner of the football field but the way to this was across a field from Alderson Drive, entered by a gate opposite The Oval. This would have been a suitable way in except there was a stream about five foot wide flowing through the lowest part of the field in a west to east direction. Among the Supporters Committee there was a civil engineer and an employee of Mitchell Brothers Ltd, the tunnelling plant contractors, on Apy Hill Lane, who between them and other stalwarts on the committee, designed and built a bridge across the stream using plant and materials loaned to us for the job, to allow 32 ton trucks to safely cross. Two 12” x 12” timber main beams were laid bearing on three old railway sleepers laid parallel to the stream’s flow on each bank and a decking of more railway sleepers was laid and tied down on to the main beams. A ramp of sleepers was made each side for the wagons to access the bridge.
The construction was carried out on the Tuesday evening before the Gala in time for fairground equipment to arrive on the Wednesday. Involved in the task were Lol Smith, the employee of Mitchell Bros., David Miller, the civil engineer, Peter Marrison, John Eaton, Gil Leetham, Frank Wright, scouts and Bob Bull who offered verbal encouragement. The bridge was dismantled the following week.
It was agreed by the committee that there should be a limited number of fairground attractions, so Tubys of Doncaster were invited to bring a child's roundabout, a ”Try your Strength” hit the bell machine and they put us in touch with a Mr Hurst of Dewsbury who had a Waltzer Roundabout and a “Penny Arcade” series of slot machines. The roundabout was carried on a large Foden lorry and was accompanied by a large lorry-mounted generator to supply power for lighting and the roundabout’s electric motors and two living caravans of typical showman’s opulence. The “fair” opened on Friday evening with lots of noise and attracted the younger element to the field.
In the weeks prior to Gala Day members of the committee had been out and about seeking local businesses to take an advert in the Gala Programme. They were successful in that they generated sufficient support to cover the cost of a printer, putting together a very comprehensive programme, with a centrefold with all the Arena Events and a statement on the aims of the Tickhill Scout and Guide Supporters Association and four pages of advertisements. Admission to the field on Gala Day was to be by Programme priced at 5p with children of school age going free. The day was set to be the 6th July.
The refreshments tent was to be manned by ladies associated with the cubs and scouts and they had been busy in the days before the Gala, baking cakes and on the day making sandwiches and pouring tea. Paper cups and plates had been purchased from Batleys in Doncaster to avoid washing up later. Tea was made in two large enamel tea pots borrowed from the church and were kept filled on the day by Bernard Marsden who boiled the water in the adjacent bowls pavilion and carried it across to the marquee. Tables and chairs were loaned from the Tickhill Parish Church and Bawtry Methodist Church. The refreshment tent was one of two marquees used on the field, one loaned by scouts in Bessacarr and the other by the Parish Church.
The second marquee was for the sole use of the Tickhill Women’s Institute who ran a huge cake stall selling their products for the Scout Funds. A substantial sum, somewhere around £30 was raised by them.
Frank Wright, a scout father, knew all the local farmers from his work and persuaded them to help in various ways. Alan Senior supplied about 50 fence stakes, which were needed to mark out the arena, Derek Brookfield provided straw bales and a farm trailer to make a stage, steps and seating on the field, John Longdin a trailer for the W.I. float and Jack Durdy a trailer for another float, probably for the Sunday School.
David Miller, another scout and guide father, had contacts in lorry hire and construction materials and was able to obtain free use of a 7.5 ton flat-bed lorry from Smith Hire and 50 ten foot scaffold tubes and 30 nine foot long scaffold boards from SGB (Scaffolding Great Britain). The lorry was used to collect the scaffolding, collecting marquees, tables and chairs and a rope from Bawtry and became a mobile platform to hammer in the scaffold poles which were used to mark out the position of stalls and to have bunting, provided by Jean Wilby, tied around their tops and strung out pole to pole. The scaffold boards were used as table tops for stall holders with items for sale and small money raising amusements, trestles to support the boards came from the garage attached to the Vicarage. The lorry was then used as a float in the procession on Gala day.
The scouts and guides were encouraged to provide stalls to be set around the field and preparations made so that they could be set up and manned on Gala day morning. The guides had a hot dog stall, the scouts a “Cover a Coin” pool, the cubs had a ”Pick a Sraw” stand, the guides had a “Roll a Penny” table and the brownies a “Guess the Number of Buttons in a Jar” stand. Scout parent Margaret Marrison ran a Raffle, other parents, Arthur Phillips and Charlie Ratcliffe ran “Target Golf”, Arthur mowing a strip of the field beforehand, someone had a plant stall, there was a local lady selling her home made pottery and a variety of other trade stalls. One of these was an old gentleman and his wife selling plastic toys, balloons and other colourful items to wave about. This was Mr Margetts who came to the Tickhill Gala for the next twenty years until he died at the age of about 90. The scouts had a stall selling Christmas cards and prints of Scout Leader, Chris Garrett’s, pen and ink drawings of Tickhill’s landmark buildings.
Each stall had a frontage of about 15 feet and minimum depth of about 40 feet. The frontage marked with poles on which the coloured bunting was stretched.
The Friday preparations required a number of parents to give up their afternoons to start the work of fetching and carrying items to the field for the main workforce to complete the preparations in the evening. One gang hammered in the fencing stakes on which to attach the rope to form the oval shaped arena - 8o yds by 50 yds. Another drove the borrowed lorry, providing the platform for someone to stand and hammer in poles while another followed, fixing the bunting at the top of each pole.
On the Friday night before the Gala two scout parents went to Rawmarsh to collect a “Bouncy Castle” to bring back and blow up ready for the following day.
The crowd enjoying themselves on the Gala field in warm sunshine
Best Dressed Window Competition
Every shop in the town was invited to dress their window to show support for the Gala and add to the atmosphere on the day. Three judges were asked to look at each window and choose a winner, the result of which was announced by mid-day, so that the crowd which was expected around the town to watch the procession knew the results. Most of the shops participated and judges Peter Brown, ( Chairman T.T.C. ) Mr Rice ( the ex- head master of Tickhill School ) and Jessie Newborn ( ex Guide Captain ) chose The Strand hairdressers as winner.
Gala Day
Derek Brookfield arrived with his tractor towing a trailer with straw bales. The trailer was to be used as a stage for the opening ceremony with bales forming steps and seating on the stage for the formal crowning of the Gala Queen.
A Mr Wilson from Wickersley had been asked to provide a public address system and he arrived on the Saturday morning to set up his equipment in an old converted Bedford ambulance. The old ambulance in pristine condition served him well over the next twenty years or so and could have been entered in the parade of veteran motor vehicles, which became a feature in later Galas.
A pair of members of the St. Johns Ambulance Brigade were also invited and they set up a tent and were prepared to offer their services during the afternoon.
A waste skip from Worksop Waste Ltd. was delivered in the morning which was full by the end of the day.
Mid morning, Mr Tuby arrived with a Children’s roundabout which he towed behind his Range Rover together with a Ring the Bell, try your strength side show which proved very popular during the afternoon.
Trestles and tables were set up for those stalls which needed them and also in and around the refreshment marquee.
By midday the field was ready to receive the procession of floats due at 1.30 pm. and helpers and Mums and Dads returned home to add finishing touches to the floats on which children and grown-ups were to ride through the town.
The Procession of Floats
The procession was to start on Wong Lane to travel south to Rotherham Road, turning left along Westgate round by the Millstone and up to the Buttercross along Castlegate. At the Buttercross it proceeded down Sunderland Street to Alderson Drive, where it turned left around the Cricket Ground and through the gate across the field, over the new temporary bridge and on to the Gala field where it did a circuit of the arena.
The floats were to be in position for 1.00 pm when the same three judges were to choose the best three floats.
Numbers were painted on the kerbs at intervals along Wong Lane so that each lorry driver knew where to pull up at his allocated position. Once the floats were fully manned with their children and adults on board the judges went along the line and with great difficulty came to an agreement on the top three entries. The guides float was judged the winner and was awarded the Red Rosette. Blue and Green Rosettes, all made by Brenda Miller, were awarded to second and third. The effort which had gone into decorating the floats was truly amazing. Some groups must have been planning them for months before.
The procession was to be headed by the Aldergrove Scout Band playing stirring music to lead the procession through Tickhill. The band was followed by the Gala Queen and two Attendants riding in a decorated pick-up truck supplied by Mitchell Bros Ltd. The resident Director of Mitchell Bros, Peter Woolston was a good friend of Tickhill Scouts over the years and certainly helped get the first Gala off the ground. The floats followed in no particular order but each had a theme and was dressed in colourful cardboard and streamers with a compliment of children and adults laughing and waving as they set off through the town. From the Millstone to the Buttercross and down Sunderland Street the pavements were packed with onlookers cheering the floats as they passed. As soon as the procession had passed, the townsfolk headed for the football field to enjoy the Gala. Such was the crush at the head of Tithes Lane that the programme sellers were overwhelmed and a lot of people gained entry without paying.
The three judges were transported swiftly to the field from Wong Lane where Peter Brown, the Chairman of the Council, was to open the Gala and crown the Gala Queen.
Many people had arrived by car having seen many posters put up on lampposts around the town in the weeks before, advertising the Gala and left their cars wherever they could find a parking space
The Gala Afternoon
It was a glorious summer afternoon and the field soon filled with Tickhill folk intent on enjoying the afternoon. Peter Brown was introduced and proceeded to crown the Gala Queen who with her two consorts had joined him on the stage. After a short speech he declared the gala open. The public address system proved invaluable as the events in the arena were introduced and details given on the rules to be followed and performers to be applauded and encouraged. The first event was a children’s Fancy Dress Competition with prizes for the under sixes and more prizes for older children. The next event was a display by the Aldergrove Scout Band which had led the Procession, followed by The Soap-Box Derby, which was a race for the soap-box which remained in one piece the longest. Next was the Inter Pub Tog o’ War. Both were applauded for their efforts. Prior to the Gala all the Tickhill pubs and The Institute had been asked to enter a team for a Tug o’ War Competition. Eight teams turned up having been ”training” or warming up at their various bases and proceeded to amuse the crowd with a lot of huffing and puffing before the Scarbrough Arms were declared the winners.
The last event of the afternoon in the arena was a Sports for Children. Running races were held for each age group culminating in an Egg and Spoon race and 100 yard sprint for adults over 20.
Among the many side shows was The Wheel of Fortune run by the North Notts Lions with Peter Woolston and Alan Shirtliff persuading you for a modest entry fee to watch the wheel spin and come to a stop by any number but yours and the owner of the lucky number went away with a bottle of Pommaine
The Lions gave the Scouts and Guides a share of their profits.
There were two ice cream vans on the field, one invited and one gate crasher who was chased off and promptly set up at the entrance on Sunderland Street, Manfredi’s from Worksop had agreed to pay us £5.00 for their sole rights. The weather being so hot and sunny meant the ice cream sales were very popular as was the guides’ hot dog stall with Delia Smith and Pat Hope marshalling guides to serve.
During the course of the afternoon Peter Marrison went round all the commercial stall holders, sellers and fun fair equipment providers to collect their £5.00 rent.
Scout, Richard Miller looking after the “Cover a Coin” stall with Wesley Needham and
Parent Walter Horne seeing fair play. David Coward is watching on.
Throughout the afternoon the roundabouts and bouncy castle were in constant demand and the noise they generated added to the overall good time that everyone seemed to be having.
At about 4.45pm people started to drift away and by half past five everyone except stall holders and helpers had gone home. The clear up then started and by 7 o’clock most of the poles, bunting, tables and chairs had been collected up and stacked ready for transporting away. Derek Brookfield came to take his straw bales back on his trailer. All the floats had disappeared and all the decorations taken off and strewn over the field. Mr Wilson had dismantled the PA equipment and was away having been paid his £10.00 fee. Each stall holder was responsible for getting there goods away and more use of the hired lorry was made taking tables, chairs and trestles back to the churches. One marquee was dropped but one left until the Sunday morning when further clearing up was to be done.
Gala Evening
To complete the Gala Day events it was decided to hold a Barn Dance for Scout and Guide parents and their friends in the Old Tickhill Library. A Country and Western band with a Caller to lead the dancing was hired to direct the fun and games. Mums of the Guides and Brownies had worked hard beforehand to provide refreshments for the evening and a game of sliding 50p coins over the length of the hall to get nearest to the prize a bottle of whisky proved very popular.
Thus ended Gala Day 1974, a very satisfactory event which brought the town together in so many different ways. A great amount of hard work went into the planning and preparation which resulted in a great amount of money being raised which was the starting point for the formation of the Tickhill Scout and Guide Association which had the goal of providing a permanent headquarters building for all the cubs, brownies, scouts and guides in Tickhill. The dream was realised eight years later with a brand new purpose built Head Quarters to accommodate all the groups in St Mary’s Road.
Sunday Morning
Sunday morning turned out to be hot and sunny again and about a dozen parents and many scouts turned up to continue the process of clearing up and transporting equipment back to the people that had so kindly loaned the necessary items. The youngsters dropped the marquee, picked up every item of litter and when everyone left at midday, the field was just as it had been before the Gala. The hired lorry was loaded up with the scaffold tubes and boards ready to be driven back to their suppliers on Monday morning. The last act was to take down the posters which had been tied to lampposts and telephone poles around the town.
The weekend of 6th – 7th July 1974 was a great moment in the history of the Scouts, Guides, Cubs and Brownies of Tickhill.
Photographs
Pubs – Tug o’war. In front of stage and Loud Speaker van.
Scouts preparing their float in the morning in St Mary’ Road.
Hammering in posts to mark out the arena.
Mitchell Bros Ltd. Float displaying Mining Machinery.
The crowd enjoying the stalls
Another Float leaving Wong Lane
The Cover to the First Tickhill Gala
Programme
6th July 1974
Acknowledgements
I have relied on my own memory for much of the material but additional information has been supplied by Robert Kitchen, Group Scout Leader, Delia Smith, Guide Captain, Charlie Ratcliffe, Cub/Scout Parent, Alan Shirtliff, Member of North Notts Lion Club and Margaret Marrison, Cub/Scout parent,
I thank them all for their contributions.
David Miller
Chairman of the Tickhill Scout and Guide Association
1974 - 1991