Salle Angelo

Foils, Flood and Food
Most of the Salle’s members fighting in the Royal Naseby Tournament arrived at the Royal Hotel on Friday night and gathered in the Bar, to warm up after the trip from Dunedin and to get away from the frozen snow covering Naseby. Lots of laughter and stories but an early night allowed the curlers to take over the bar.

Next morning, as early as can be expected under the extreme conditions, adjudicators, seconds and duellists gathered in the main street of the town. This was Anton’s public duel for his membership. He fought with honour, against the Salle’s champion, Tony, and was duly admitted.

Banners and devices aloft the gathering paraded to the Town Hall to start the tournament proper. Foils clashed as the pool got under-way and the score sheet started to fill. As the fencers warmed up there was some neat and exciting fencing. A pool of nine takes some time to complete so we adjourned to the local hostelry for lunch.

Returning after lunch we were met at the door by a wave of water. A pipe had burst and covered the piste with two inches of water. Michael broke the stunned silence with “I think I’ll leave my gumboots on for the next bout”. With all hands to the pump – well brooms and buckets really – the excess water was swept out the door, towels soaked up the remainder and in under an hour the floor was ready for fencing again.

The afternoon saw clashes for the minor placings as the score sheet showed who was obviously in the first four. The floor was better to fence on, washed of the powder applied for the dance the weekend before. But the flood had taken its toll: the sabre event couldn’t be run because there was no time left if we were to dress for dinner.

The meal was at the ‘Welcome Inn’, one of Naseby’s oldest hotels, now cared for as a private house by Sam and Wendy Inder. They provided a most elegant meal (including pork, duck and venison), Maurie Angelo provided the speeches, and wine and good company combined to make a very enjoyable evening. Mike Geary was presented with an Award of Honour for his services to Salle Angelo, Anton with his membership certificate and Tony Williams with the main award of the night – the winner of the foil event in the Royal Naseby Fencing Tournament.

The traditional morning after coffee was observed, not in the usual venue with Gio and Ruth as the house’s vitals had frozen but in their motel at the Ancient Briton.

Thanks Barry for all the organisation – we had a really good weekend.
Photos in the Photo Gallery

On Saturday the 7th of July the sun rose (about 8.20) on a cold and frosty Dunedin. The low, golden sun and blue sky promised a fine day and the weather forecast promised that the temp would rise to 8 degrees Celsius. But the sun would have to work hard to melt the remnants of snow.

Fortunately, by 11 am the quad outside the hall where we meet for fencing was drying out and it was going to be warmer fencing outside in the sun than inside. So we did.

For the first half hour we warmed up with free play and then Barry had an idea. Because only five of us could get to fencing he thought that we could form a square of four with the fifth person keeping time. After 3 minutes we all rotated one place in the square where we had a new opponent, the time-keeper coming in as number one and the fourth person into the time-keeper’s place.

It worked well, each person acknowledging a hit against them and also acknowledging a flat hit. After 12 minutes of continuous fighting I was feeling the strain but Barry then suggested we do the same with another weapon – epée. After another 12 minutes of continuous fencing I felt sufficiently exercised, and somewhat relieved that it was lunch-time and too late for a sabre round

A great morning’s fencing. All done in the spirit of the Salle and none the less competitive for that.