The four legged race team.

If it wasn’t for the old vicar of Olney, the town wouldn’t have its yearly race on Pancake Day. Back in 1948, the Reverend Canon Ronald Collins found some photos from the 1920s or 30s in an old cupboard.

The pictures showed women running down the street with frying pans; they were running in the pancake race. He decided to revive the old custom and called for volunteers.

On that year’s Shrove Tuesday thirteen women lined up at five to twelve and the 415 yard race began. Nellie Bosworth was the winner, and the Olney Pancake Race has been held every year since.

A waxed wooden plug goes into the touch-hole.

It’s Noon on Monday, the 11th of November and half a dozen loud bangs echo across Fenny Stratford. St Martin’s church have fired their ceremonial cannon again.

The six small cannons are the Fenny Poppers. The poppers have have been fired on the 11th of November, St. Martin’s Day, since around 1740. I went to watch. At the far end of the graveyard off Manor Road, four men were preparing the poppers.

Just under an ounce of Pyrodex is poured into the cannon by Peter White.

Each one is shaped like a tankard, but they are made of gun metal with thick walls. There’s a touch-hole near the base for the fuse. Each popper is just seven inches long, but weighs 19 lbs.

Peter White of the church loaded them one at a time with just under an ounce of a gunpowder substitute, Pyrodex. It’s more stable than gunpowder, but like gunpowder it produces quite a lot of smoke when it goes off, as we will soon see.