INTRODUCTION

The first Great Centenary Charity Auction was held on June 28th 2015, and the Centre for Blast Injury Studies at Imperial College London benefitted to the tune of £20,000. The second auction, for which we have already received some donations, will take place on June 29th 2016. This post is about an event that took place last night at Fakenham Racecourse which was simultaneously a presentation of certificates for those who had contributed to the success of the first auction and the official launch of the second.

GETTING THERE

The journey there was uneventful, and I arrived very early, having walked direct from Oak Street where the bus drops off down to the racecourse. Once I had located the event, which was happening at a…

NEW VENUE

Rather than use the same venue that had been used for the auction, we were in the newly opened Cool Roxy Owners and Trainers Bar (named in honour of one of the most famous horses to have raced this course).

Within the bar was a nice display which served as a backdrop for the presentations.

The bar itself had some very interesting features…

Because we had the great good fortune to have the head of The Royal British Legion, John Crisford, taking part in the presentation we also had a standard bearer…

THE PRESENTATIONS

Auctioneer and Director of the Great Centenary Charity Auction David James told everyone the names and a bit about each person who was collecting a certificate, and they received their certificates and posed for a photo (one of the pictures of someone posing with their certificate looks different from the rest because the official photographer could not do the photograph of himself!).

SOME CLOSE UPS OF IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS

Here are some of the more important documents for you to see…

A SMALL MISHAP ON THE WAY HOME

The plan had been that since there are no buses running from Fakenham late enough for me to get home under my own steam my parents would give me a lift back, but they forgot. Thankfully, a very helpful member of staff at the Bull on Bridge Street was able to locate a taxi, and my parents covered the fare for me. By the time I made it home I was too knackered to check and edit the photos, so I attended to that at 6:30 this morning, before setting off for work. I will conclude this post with a few mor pictures that are tangentially connected to its subject matter…