Civil War and Cider- Basingstoke

Sooo, I recently went with my darling girlfriend Jessica on a war-reenactment in Basingstoke. This was always going to be interesting because I've never been camping before and I'm definitely more Netflix & Costa than tents and battlefields. It began with (of course) getting stuck in the mud pulling into the campsite, cue ten minutes sing Suspicious Minds by Elvis to myself… “caught in a trap”- see what I did there?

Anyway then came time to try on our uniforms (we both looked effortlessly gorgeous of course;) Jess more so than me) When we finished getting ourselves ready we joined Samantha, Darran and Simon for a quick briefing. We were told we were fighting as Parliamentarians (Oliver Cromwell’s posse in this instance) and I’m not gonna lie the childish side of me was happy I was on the winning team! I had to resist the temptation to tease the royalists! I was told my role was to be a pike-man because they thought I was strong, they thought wrong because I’m a weakling in a rugby player’s body. When I first picked up the pike I nearly dropped it on Simon’s head twice, it was a lot more top heavy than I anticipated so the last time I was that unsteady on my feet was the time when I drank seventeen pints of cider in 2 and a half hours. Anyway after a couple of training drills I realised that I was much too fragile for the pike, meanwhile Jess seemed to be having much more fun being a musketeer so I asked if I could join them. So after being given the appropriate hat and a musket I literally felt like a real life musketeer, just call me D’Arthganan!

Then it was time for battle! Once we were taught how to walk and move in formation we moved to the beginning of the war at a castle, the name of which escapes me at the moment. It was authentic as possibly can be (Though I do wonder if Cromwell ever saw an iPhone on the battlefield? I imagine somebody walking around asking “where art thou wifi?”)

Then it was time to march to Basing House where the battle took place, there was so much going on I got told off a couple times for not following orders because I was watching everything else. I doubt I would’ve lasted long if the battle was for real! It was all so interesting and it was great fun, especially when the cannons & muskets fired (they fired blanks of course) Jess really liked the living history part of the experience too, when the battle was over where we went to an area where ladies wore historical style dresses and gents wore traditional musketeer regalia.

In short we both really enjoyed the experience and we will definitely be doing it again!