Each year on Shrove Tuesday, whilst many revellers are chasing a ball at Ashbourne Shrovetide Festival, the Abbotsholme boarders make their way down to the flood-lit tennis courts for the annual event of pancake races. Mrs Witcomb provides suitable pancakes for racing rather than eating - slightly rubberised for longer use!
The whole tennis court areas were used, with badminton nets stretched across the middle. Each team was given a pancake, a frying pan and a tennis racket - there were not enough pans!
There were to be four races: the obstacle race; the relay race; the paired race; and the ‘eat the pancake’ race. Therefore their first objective was to make sure that the pancakes stayed off the floor during the first three races!
The obstacle race went quite well; however, things literally fell apart during the relay race, when the pancake had to be passed from the frying pan to the tennis racket on the opposite side of the badminton net and then back again via different team members.
Race three was interesting, with two people holding hands and carrying a pancake in a frying pan whilst trying to get over a bench, under a net, and through a hoop. After all this (and without them knowing in advance that we would kindly change their pancakes before the eating race), one person had to run out and eat as much as they could, before ‘showing clear’ to the judge and sprinting back to hand over to the next team member until both pancakes had been eaten. You had to be there to actually see how much fun it was, watching pupils trying to eat large mouthfuls of dry, rubber pancakes; it was hilarious. The top two teams received a chocolate prize.
Congratulations to to all those houses that got involved; it was great fun.