Tuesday 24th March
Following a five year break from duty, two crews assembled at Mike’s house in Tadworth at the unearthly hour of 6.00 am. Andrew kindly provided us all with a glass of champagne. (his half price bottle was a special offer from his local supermarket!). Then it was off to Dover in two crates, Roger’s ageing Volkswagen and Les’s Audi.

Priority boarding had been booked. Waiting on the dock, however, ready to board ‘The Pride of Calais’, rookie crew member Declan, disappeared to buy a newspaper. So he was late getting to the car after boarding had started. Thereafter, he was nicknamed ‘Pike’ (from Dad’s Army) to shouts of `Stupid boy Pike`.

It was an uneventful calm crossing to Calais with breakfast, at the Brasserie. Langhams seemed to have lost the franchise. Kittymaster David noted that we were now being charged for extra toast and coffees. Grhh!

We drove straight off the ferry to Wimereux Golf club in a light drizzle.
Tradition was broken in the first day 4 ball line up. There was no competition between the car crews this year due to golf buggy scheduling.

For lunch, David had ordered baguettes for us at the 10th, near the clubhouse

In the freezing and wet conditions, scoring generally was very poor. John Chard, however, somehow managed to grind out 35 points and he was the winner of the singles stableford. ‘Mystery Partner’ winners were Andrew & Declan.

Then it was straight off to Wimereux, Hotel Du Centre, for a hot bath, a snooze, then dinner. Proprietor Jean Marc and his wife Caroline gave us have a very warm welcome as usual. .They have commissioned a lift for the upper rooms, and intensive construction was in progress at the back of the hotel, no doubt in readiness for our future visits in years to come as we get old and infirm!

There was no onion soup on the menu, (Grandma Nelly had retired from kitchen duties), but it was promised for the following day.

Most went off to bed early in anticipation of the Wingco Cup competition in the morning.

Wednesday 25th March
Up bright an early for breakfast and the Wingco Cup at Belle Dune.

There was no real problem with navigation except that Les had taken a strange route to the motorway, starting out in the opposite direction towards Calais. (What happened to the Napoleon Statue route or his direct route through Boulogne?) As an aside, there was no wooden boat sitting on the roundabout on the road to Boulogne so we could not repeat Bernard’s awful traditional joke, repeated ad nauseam on previous tours, ‘The Tide’s Out’!

Both cars had refreshments 'en route'.
a) In the VW we had frequent offers of 'Jelly Babies, colour 'optional'.
b) In the Audi, Les had bought a little round tin of those nice fruit sweets one can buy at chemists and some golf shops. Tucker Barrows managed to get the lid off and spill the sweets and white powder all over the floor.
We were a little concerned of the prospect of sniffer dogs when arriving at Calais port!

Both cars had some difficulties at the ‘Payage’ station. No actual person was there to take any cash this year.
a) In the VW, we managed the pay machine with some delay after John had dropped a few Euros on to the road!
b) In the Audi, when trying to exit the motorway, Kenny directed the car to the wrong kiosk.Les had to get all the cars to reverse backwards to let them out. Then having got into the correct payment line, Kenny could not get the barrier to rise.
The experts in the back seat kindly advised him! "You have to put the ticket in first to find out how much money is required, not money first"..
Eventually the barrier shot up and we rushed through, leaving our change in the machine!
The latter part of the payment procedure repeated itself on our journey to Hardelot, here again we left a little change for the French government!

Brandies and Coffee were enjoyed on arrival at the Club. The sun shone this day and there was no rain which was a huge relief!

The course was in great shape.

The ducks continued to laugh at Les’s shots and we all had another look for Mike’s Strata ball, tragically lost some years ago on the course. No luck!

The Wingco Cup competition was very ‘tight’ with only one or two stableford points separating the top four or five. Roger was leader at the turn with 17 points, but after 2 blobs late on the back nine, Declan won on countback from Roger, with 30 points. Les noted that there would either have been an ‘oldest’ winner on tour or a ‘youngest’ winner. Youth triumphed! Well done Pike.

We had a drink, baguettes and pomme frites at the Clubhouse and Joe presented the Wingco Cup to Declan in the traditional way. Declan supplied champagne.
Nobody had organized a Wingco Tote this year. Too much cash would have been on Declan anyway, so winning odds would have been short.

Then back to the hotel.

Katherine’s place on the front was closed so we had drinks in the Hotel and invited Grandma Nelly to join us. In pretty good English, she entertained us with many stories of the past.
At dinner, Onion soup was enjoyed by some tour members.

The meal was clearly too much for Pike who fell asleep at the table after desert, probably as a result of his exertions on the course.

Thursday 26th March
Having packed and paid our hotel bills, we made our way to Hardelot Pines.
The weather was cold and dull with light continuous rain. There was debate about the wisdom of playing at all in such poor conditions, but we started nevertheless. After nine holes, however, we had had enough and retired to the bar for brandy & coffee.

Hardelot is now considered by most of us to be somewhat of a ‘rip off’ with high green fees, poor course maintenance and high bar prices, e.g. brandy was over seven Euros a shot.

Mike and Declan won the ‘high/low hanicap partners’. Andrew then calculated all the prize money on his tablet and we settled up our golf accounts.
All winners generously donated their prize money to the lunch kitty.
We returned to Wimereux for lunch at the hotel

On the journey back to the ferry, there was some excitement. At the queue to get into the port, a gang of refugees were seen desperately trying to get into a large lorry bound for the UK. They succeeded in opening the back door and one or two got in. A group of gendarmes then raced to the scene and aggressively arrested the miscreants. What happened next to these poor wretched people subsequently, we’ll never know.

The Channel was calm for our return trip, We bade our fond farewells at Dover and drove home via Mike’s house to pick up the remaining cars.

Thanks Les for organizing yet another successful tour.

Vive la France! Vive le golf! Vive le Wingco Tours!