Eight teams arrived at the start at Maidenhead Thicket not knowing that a problem had happened to your scribe when setting off into a secluded wood to erect the diabolical aerial complex he had designed. However, on his yomp into the wood he was stopped by a forest ranger who asked what he was doing. After trying to explain DF he was ejected from the area (Blast!). "Where do I go now?", he asked himself as time was ticking away. The only likely place was Stoke Common which, on arrival at 17.45, found it to be just what it was called (a common). With desperation, he found a small clump of felled silver birch trees surrounded by a few small ponds. On quickly surveying the area, decided to put a fairly long aerial out around the boggy water with a earth stake thrown into the pond, then teed off a wire into the hide. Because it was going dark had only bright yellow wire so thought it would finish very early on. It was around 20.20pm when the teams started to arrive and quickly (not surprisingly) found the long yellow wire and proceeded to track it around. During the time of transmitting I heard faint voices of despair as some teams tried to track the earth stake into the pond, but team effort from Mark Coventry and his son Tim managed to find the hide first with Peter Lisle a good second.

It was nice to find all eight teams eventually getting in well before close down.

Brian Bristow.