This August saw the MSS return to its spiritual home of Bodiam Castle in East Sussex and as luck would have it we had decided to make this the event where we tried to get as many of us as possible in Suffolk colours. The castle is aNational Trust controlled site and so the MSS had to go with many of their wishes including having the main Living History encampments ina show field behind the castle, which was a shame and they organisers were a tad touchy when it came to the number of tents the society were bringing and where they would all go. However when we had got over the admin hassles the weekend turned out pretty well.
This was partly due to the fact that the script used for the siege of Bodiam Castle was written by yours truely which meant if nothing else we got to win, Huzzah! Writing scripts is good fun, something I am hoping to do more of. The amusing part is that apart from actual historic events (See Tewkesbury, Bosworth & Edgcote) most events want something from the period which ties the venue to it. In this case the NT wanted the script to be Bodiam orientated. "Fair enough" I hear you cry. However the problem arises when the venue, although right for the period, missed all the action, in this case the siege of Bodiam did occur in 1483 and fortunately for the budding script writer it lasted about 10 minutes which means I had to employ some poetic license. The biggest problem with script writing is getting some of the other commanders to read the damn thing before the battle.
Saying that the script went mostly out of the window on the Saturday as we had to move the location of the battle due to a nasty accident on the jousting field, which led to the demise of a horse:0( this meant we fought elsewhere to dsitract the public. Prior to the battle the weather was horrendous. Several warriors thought better of kitting up in full armour during a thunder storm so we had slightly less on the field than we wanted nevertheless the battle went pretty well considering we had made most of it up and with no PA several commentators were used along the public line and I am pretty sure that the stories were different depending where you stood.
Sunday's battle was much better, the sun shone, the Duke's Blue and Gold was resplendant and we did indeed field a large force, most of which got to command (seeing I was the bloke on our side who knew what the hell was going on) and we won the siege of Bodiam for the second day on the trot, Huzzah! Don't mess with the Duke of Suffolk.
We had a great weekend, joined by a whole host of friends who indulged us in wearing our colours. We also managed to get some NERFing in. Bodiam has a WW2 pillbox which is ideal for setting up Ant's Havoc belt fed blaster and we took great pleasure in assualting the bunker. Much silliness ensued. And the bets bit about ending the Bodiam event was that Bosworth was only a week away...
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