Hastings Jack in the Green again – Battleaxe exhausted!

My, the year goes quickly!  Time, again, for our WI Jack in the Green Refreshment Room upstairs in the Jenny Lind on the May Day Bank Holiday, the day of the great Hastings Jack parade. I’ve written about it in previous posts. Weather was not too good this time, but that helps us – people come in to shelter and get warm. We had a very successful day!

‘Our’ room upstairs at the Jenny Lind – with the flags. Photo from a sunnier day last year off Facebook

   

Looking down at the crowds below

     We are lucky in that the upstairs room at the Jenny Lind overlooks the
parade route – people come and bag the window seats to watch the
goings-on below.  We are very grateful to the pub for letting us use the room. The place gets very crowded, particularly as many of the
customers are wearing enormously elaborate and bulky costumes.

Crowded and chaotic!

  

     This time, we had people coming in even before we opened at 10.30, and threw out the last stragglers at 2.30. They ate every last scrap of food – we had to put a notice on the door saying ‘Closed – sold out!’  Several times during the day we had to turn people away because the room was too full.
     We raised £425 for our charities, Emmaus and Dementia Care at the Bridge.  Many of the WI women are absolute solid gold when it comes to mucking in and helping.  They/we worked like fiends, and many baked cakes etc as well. I’ve said so many times before that I always feel quite humbled at our members’ energy, commitment and willingness to join in. Battleaxe always feels a bit guilty because I don’t bake – but I think I pull my weight in other ways. 
     This is a short post because I am so tired.  Some of these photos come from Facebook – I was too busy to take photos out of the window this year.

     

     Incidentally, I see that the older post I have chosen as a link in the first paragraph above is from 2015. I see that then we were just readying oursleves for the General Election, and sadly for Hastings, we were all mourning the sudden death of the Labour Leader of the Council, Jeremy Birch. When I returned from the Old Town earlier on, I discovered that Jeremy’s replacement as Leader, Peter Chowney, is going to be standing as our Labour candidate in the June 8 Election, against the dreaded Amber Rudd. Life seems to be one long election…. still, Peter Chowney is a good bloke, and I wish him all possible luck. I may yet have to drag my reluctant carcass out onto the doorsteps….