MYTHS ABOUT PIKING

By Pete

THE PIKEHAND WEEKEND - A MYTH EXPOSED

Those of us who are regulars at the Pikehand weekend know what to expect - a comfortably disturbing mixture of the predictable and the unpredictable. But to try to explain it to someone outside the inner circle and ….there’s the rub!!

It all began way back in the early 1970s - slightly before my time, when a group of cousins and cousins’ husbands got together to celebrate the joys of the extended family, and, in so doing, to terrorise waitresses and vomit in shoes. In 30 years, we have moved on to greater heights of sophistication - we don’t vomit in shoes any more.

I myself became eligible to partake of this experience in 1981. Following my marriage into the family in 1979 - yes, in those days you had to make it legal - and the cancellation of the 1980 event due to a Southern distrust of expensive Coventry hotels, I was cordially invited to the famous Manchester weekend. Sadly, I was one of only four that was, so my first experience consisted mainly of people explaining to me that it wasn’t usually like this.

Since then, we haven’t missed a year and, I’m proud to say, neither have I. Locations have varied from North Yorkshire, to Dudley, to France. Accommodation has been as diverse as halls of residence, caravans, neighbours’ houses and a school activity centre - not to mention the odd luxury cottage.

But what do we do? That, to some extent, remains a mystery. We are not told by the organisers what we are doing until shortly before it happens. Shortly afterwards, we have our memories wiped by a mysterious drug - alcohol, I think it’s called - so unless you’re lucky enough to see photographs, you may never know. If you do see a photograph, you might like to let me know what I was doing last year. I remember sheep, cheese, guns, a dry stone wall and much rain!

The pikehand weekend has developed as the family has developed. We have had father and son piking for some twenty years now. The late nineties saw the introduction of pre-marital piking; shortly afterwards, pensioner piking made its bow. We have lost and gained pikehands to divorce and remarriage.

We have progressed from scraping together a few quid to our own bank account, from hard floors to comfortable beds. Whatever superficial changes are made, the essence remains unaltered. Pikehands is what it is, and there’s nothing like it anywhere else in the world.

MYTHS ABOUT IT

By ?????

The mysterious IT

What is IT? IT exists. IT is here. So hover over IT