Wallington Hall 2009 - Report from Sue and Colin Bell Sunday June 7th 2009 dawned wet ; it was wet when our small team of marshals arrived at Wallington and it proceeded to get even wetter. However, marker signs were put in, the NEMMOC flag was raised and we took our places. Cars were slow to arrive but eventually they did. The rain stopped, the tombola stall was set out and things were looking up.

Sixteen cars had pre-registered and another thirteen arrived on the day. There was a good variety of cars, we had Jaguars, Mercedes, a Bentley, a Lancia plus others and, of course, the Morris Minors out numbered but looking good.

 

It was a very good display. Ten out of ten for effort goes to Paddy Murphy who managed to get to Wallington despite having to repair his car after returning from holiday. The sun decided to come out in the afternoon and people set up their chairs and picnic tables. We asked for a volunteer from the National Trust to judge and Lloyd (House Manager at Wallington) kindly stepped forward to have a look at all the cars and choose the car he would like to receive our trophy. After much consideration he chose a Mercedes.

Wallington is a lovely setting for the event, the cars park on the grassed area behind the clock tower and are seen by all the visitors who pass there to get to the hall and gardens. After a less than promising start the day turned out to be a good one. Huge thanks go to our three marshals (a small but extremely efficient team) - Kath Henderson for running the tombola, selling raffle tickets and doing whatever else was needed; to Arthur Henderson for helping set up, marshalling cars to their parking places, escorting cars off site at the end of the event and keeping the kettle boiled; and to Andrew Henderson who did a fantastic job, single handed, on the gate. Without their help the day would not have been the success it was.

 

Thanks also go to Joe Berriman,Helen Halliday and Mary Olsen who assisted on the tombola on Sunday afternoon.