Weekend Fund Raising At Parham Steam Rally 1999

When I worked on an elderly care ward at our local hospital we used to try and raise money to buy equipment that would help us in the care of our patients. We needed a Datascope…a machine that would take temperatures and blood pressures and levels of oxygens.

So one weekend 3 of us decided to attend a steam rally and man a stall which we ran a weekend tombola. A lot of work and preparation in our own time before but a lot of fun when doing it

At long last the Friday came and it was time to go and see if we raise some money to go towards buying a new datascope for our ward…Tilford…Care of the Elderly at The Royal Surrey Country Hospital here in Guildford.

For weeks we had been badgering friends/family and colleagues for white elephant stuff and tombola prizes for our tombola. Each of us giving a private little prayer for good and dry and sunny weather.

Was picked up by M.Car packed up with no space, my other companion was a dear little African violet in a bowl-shaped like a swan which would not have survived with everything in the back ..and someone went on to win it in the tombola.

We set off….S leading the way, M and I following behind. I had never been to Parham before and the big house looked very impressive and very wealthy, surrounded by rolling hills, deers, loads of rabbits and big holes in the hills where one could imagine whole families of little stoats and moles and all the other little animals that live in such places. Mr Bunny going to find food for his family and Mrs Bunny his wife cooking and washing and looking after Robert, Raymond and Rosemary Bunkin

Anyway….to get away from the realms of fairy tale land and the reality of putting up a tent. As you can guess I am a novice at putting up a tent was something I had never done before. Thanks, Sister L forgetting us to use the Brownie tent…we all had our own “bedrooms”.

We found our pitch and we all stumbled out of the cars. The first job was to put up the tent….it took Ages!!, we moved bits of tent structure here and there, there and here to no avail…scratching our heads as to which bit went where until some men took pity on what they thought were helpless females(which intent building we were).they got the tent up in the correct place. Once that was done we were able to finish off and organize where we were going to sleep..S went to collect the tables then headed back to the house to collect the rest of the tombola prizes.

M and I settled down to read and I ended up putting my bottom through the chair….just laughter and no help from M until she had taken a photo…which I guess will end up on the wall at work. On the return of S, we went for a walk to the nearest village……Storrington….4miles…I was able to ring Ron….did not have a mobile then. Lovely fish/chips for supper and then a drink at the pub and the 4 mile walk back in the dark to the tent. Walks along country roads in the dark always seem like ages. At one point people were coming towards us and we could hear that they thought we were a six-legged deer….and they were on the way to the pub!. A little while later I had a funny but terrible experience of falling out of one on the portaloos. Drink in the beer tent meeting people. Very busy and noisy…then back to the tent where we had more wine before falling into bed. Woke up twice in the night by rain and the people in the neighbouring tent arriving at 4.30.

I woke up between 6.30 and 7 and by 8 we were up and beginning to face the day. We organized ourselves by 10 o’clock we had our tombola/craft/tombola stall ready. All-day we had a steady flow of people interested in our stall and we were pleased with what we had raised that first day”.Our Sister Vivienne Bear” being very popular. Attracting a lot of attention. Late afternoon we packed everything away and then our 4mile walk to the village for something to eat. We enjoyed every nice meal. Back to a walkaround the fair, a glimpse into the beer tent then back to the tent for a nightcap before turning in.

Sunday…another full day ahead. The weather was so hot. We had a steady stream to our stall the whole day and at the end of we were well pleased to have raised £500!! we can have our own datascope.

After all the time we spent putting up the tent it came down in 10minutes!! We left around 7.Mand I took the remaining stuff to the ward and I was taken back home….to a very welcome bath.

This has been copied from one of my many journals.