ROTHER RAFT RACE At the Start, Cowdray Park, 2009

THE ROTHER RAFT RACE participants gathered in the lush meadow adjoining Sandy Bay, the launch site and chatted amiably under a roiling overcast.

Everything seemed to go like a well oiled machine, the organisation being present but not intrusively. In the hour I was there, before the launch, speaking to rafters and their friends I didn't once hear a megaphone, although I heard one a little earlier as I walked down the Castle Causeway.

Rafters and friends amounted to a throng of about 150. With a real cross-section of society present this whole event felt like something special; and everyone I spoke to had some story which made the experience unique for them, like the group of former university students from Southampton which came together every year at Cowdray to celebrate their friendship.

With the help of stewards the rafters were quietly and efficiently lined up, and when the hour to go came the first raft slid into the water with a cheer from onlookers. In the meantime, a crowd of some 200 more onlookers had gathered at the Rother Bridge, the favoured view-point to splash and throw flour at the rafts as they passed by, sometimes grounding in the shallows and becoming good targets to missile throwers.

My wife and I didn't follow the rafters down the route or welcome them at the finishing point this year. We had our minds on the future and had spent our time talking to rafters about how we could help the organisers win more support for this event next year, inviting, perhaps, people from as far a field as London who might need local raft builders to create their watery steeds and store them until the day.

We're hopeful that a group of experienced raft builders will emerge. If you know of anyone interested please email me (john.trueman44@virgin.net) or contact me via Comestibles.

The Rother Raft Race - more than any other event - epitomises our sense of community and the need to come togther whenever we can in our fast moving, demanding, mobile phone obsessed society. To make the most of events - to organise them and support them - we need to make best use of social networks like Facebook.

Midhurst Pages is going to build a massive social network called FRIENDS OF MIDHURST with your help. It is a Facebook Open Group which anyone may join and invite others. We have our first meeting place at Comestibles Deli & Café courtesy of Brendon Davies. Our noticeboard already groans with cards, leaflets, photos and ads. So we've decided to double the size. Please make full use of it.

The 'wall' at Comestibles is a physical manifestation of the 'wall' in Facebook. Several months ago we had a children's Tudor Art Competition from Conifers displayed. Everyone loved it.

A big music and drama event (MAD) is being planned for next year at Cowdray Castle. It is still early days. A regular update on this event and others in the pipe-line will be winged to you via your Facebook Membership. In turn you may post information on the wall, create links to blogs, websites and Facebook pages, put up pictures, start and respond to debates and issues; and generally get involved.

ON WEDNESDAY WE EXPECT TO BE PUBLISHING the personal account of the day as experienced by a young rafter on behalf of her rafting team - No 16. Please look in again. We may also have a contribution by an experienced rafter on how to build the ideal raft for the exigencies of the Fish Ladder.

Whilst writing this note on the start of todays race I've been trying to distill in my mind what made the day so special for me. And it is this.

An atmosphere of controlled, purposeful endeavour! A wonderful bunch of 'lifters' and not a 'leaner' in sight. Do you know the ditty Lifters and Leaners? Here it is - and thanks again for the privilege of meeting you all.

There are just two kinds of people on earth today,
Just two kinds of people, no more, I say.
Not the rich and the poor, for to count a man’s wealth
You must first know the state of his conscience and health.
Not the humble and proud, for, in life’s little span,
Who puts on airs is not counted a man.
Not the happy and sad, for the swift counting years
Bring each man his laughter and each man his tears.
No, the two kinds of people on earth I mean
Are the people who lift and the people who lean.
Wherever you go you will find the world’s masses
Are always divided in just these two classes.
And oddly enough you will find, too, I ween,
There’s only one lifter to twenty who lean.
In which class are you? Are you easing the load
Of overtaxed lifters who toil down the road?
Or are you a leaner who lets others bear
Your portion of labour and worry and care?

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox -

For more pictures visit Friends of Midhurst - a Network. Please join.

Anthony Weller of RRR may be contacted here: 07872 307511.

Postcript: an indulgent parent who'd built a raft for his kids - they'd not lifted a finger to help - said to me ruefully " I do the lifting in this family and my kids do the leaning. I like to think my example will be contagious". Here's hoping - Editor

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