Clay Shooting

The second MIRTH Xtra event took place at Warwick Adventure Sports on Thursday the 14th March.

Eight intrepid Mirthers were given a real treat. David Harkness who is not only a regular member but also a fully qualified instructor and safety officer opened up the world of Clay Pidgeon Shooting for us. Expert tuition was delivered in a friendly and humorous way.

The clays were fired in a number of ways either towards us, away from us or across the range to simulate the flight of birds or the run of rabbits.

We soon established that pigeons and Rabbits are quite safe in Terry and Mel’s gardens but are in real danger if they go near Ian Roberts or Pete Chambers. Ian won the good natured competition and Pete was a strong runner up.

A really big thanks to David for running such a professional and fun event!

We may be able to run another event soon if you would be interested let us know (Click here for details and to express an interest.)

Walk Around Long Itchington

For the second month running it was raining for our walk. This time we were walking around Long Itchington. Five hardy souls set off, first we were walking on tarmacked paths so I thought my boots might stay clean but Richard soon led us off onto muddier and wetter paths across fields.  After a while we were walking on the old railway route connecting Southam and Rugby before dropping down onto the canal.

We were almost back to the cars when the footpath was flooded as the stream had burst its banks. One of our members sensibly attired in wellingtons helped us find the best route through. 

On arriving back Terry pointed out the blue plaque for the inventor of time travel apparently he will live in Long Itchington in some 75 years time (see photos below)

Once back we retired to the Blue Lias Inn for a well-earned lunch and to dry out. 

The Danny Razzoo Show

Danny Razzoo came to St Paul’s on February 20th to entertain and amaze us with his magic tricks, using mainly numbers and playing cards.

Danny particularly enjoys ‘mathemagic’ in which he uses his excellent knowledge of mathematics (as a former teacher of) to bemuse his audience. Some of his tricks employ straightforward maths and algebra (can algebra ever be straightforward? I hear some of you thinking!). Some of the audience may even remember the significance of these numbers: 10 29 / 18 43.

Time after time he made our jaws drop as he did complicated things with packs of cards and then showed that he had predicted exactly the one which a random audience member had chosen.

Danny passed round a book of some 400 pages and asked audience members to choose a page, read the first three words … and then proceeded to tell us how many paragraphs there were on that page and how many lines in each. He even asked us to choose a word – and guessed it correctly (though of course “guessed” is not al all the appropriate word here!). How did he do it??!!

Danny is of course none other than Cliff Daniel, a regular member of MIRTH. So it was no real surprise to us to learn that he had once travelled on an overnight train from Bangkok to Shanghai, sharing the compartment with three nuns. He showed them some close-up magic…which caused so much laughter that other passengers came towards the compartment to see what was happening!!!

Danny enjoys performing for groups of people around the country, so if you are looking for such an entertainer, then just get in touch through MIRTH.

MIRTH wet walk


Well, here’s a turn up for the books! Two firsts in one day!

Our first first was that it rained … and rained … and rained ☔️. For the whole of our walk 😳!
It had started before we met up at the Plough & Harrow. And it accompanied us all the way as we walked to Sydenham and along the canal and back up towards Whitnash.

Secondly, we walked so quickly that we were in severe danger of getting back to the pub well before opening time. Well we couldn’t have that, could we.
(But why dear reader do you think we walked so quickly? Was it perhaps because of all that training on the exercise machines at Victoria Park during last month’s walk …?)

Anyway, ever resourceful, we stopped at the very enjoyable Blenz Cafe in Whitnash Community Centre. Richard – top gent that he is – kindly treated us all to teas and coffees. Others in the cafe were intrigued by our presence (well – who wouldn’t be 😉) and asked us about MIRTH and what we were up to. One of the throng even offered to take a photo of us (which he said he had sent directly to the police …).

So if you see any of this lot walking around in the rain again, please let the police know they are a really excellent bunch of Men In Retirement Together Having fun, food, fellowship, fruitful exercise and friendly company.

RSC ‘Behind the Scenes tour

On a beautiful sunny day, 14 of us enjoyed a hearty lunch at the Dirty Duck in Stratford-upon-Avon. Inspired by the pub’s link with the world of theatre we then made our way to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre for a ‘Behind the Scenes’ tour of the main theatre and the Swan Theatre. We were joined by two more old codgers and then split into two groups for the tour.

What a fascinating visit! We had two excellent guides who took us all round the two theatres and other parts of the building. We learned so many interesting things.

For example

  • That the RSC is the second largest employer in Stratford with about 800 employees. Plus more freelancers and contract workers for various productions.
  • That the multi-award winning “Matilda the Musical” started in Stratford, is still touring in the UK and other countries, and is still the RSC’s main money earner.
  • That in 1928 there was an open competition for designs for the new theatre. It attracted worldwide interest and was judged anonymously. When the winner was revealed to be (shock! horror!) a woman 😳, called Elisabeth Scott, it was too much for many of the misogynous commentators of the day (so not much has changed then, we said).
  • That the RSC make all the wigs they require in-house. The wigs all use real human hair. We learnt that grey hair is very valuable for wig making as it is the hardest and most expensive to obtain! Some members perked up at the prospect of earning a bit of money on the side – till they learned that it had to be grown very long before it was marketable.

After the hour-long tour, we spent some time looking at the excellent exhibition. We left the RSC with all our (grey) hair (those of us who have any, that is), keen to encourage friends and family to sign up for the tour themselves.

A walk through Leamington

Ten MIRTH stalwarts braved the cold to set off on the monthly MIRTH walk on 9th January. They were not put off by the sub-zero temperature. Nor were they afraid of a ‘feels like’ temperature of minus six (yes! -6 C). Rather they revelled in the beautiful sunshine and the warm company. They strolled from Newbold Common through Jephson Gardens and the Pump Room Gardens along the river to Victoria Park. There they diverted briefly to see the plaque which marks the high water level of the floods of April 1998. Then back in to the park to enjoy the exercise machines which have obviously made them all such models of good health with such fine bodies (editor’s note: if you believe this, you’ll believe anything! Note they are all wearing so much clothing that you can’t tell anything about their bodies …).

On their way back through Leamington, some of them dropped into The Fold – the newly opened, flexible, creative working space recently opened in the old United Reform Church on Spencer Street. What an impressive space it now is – though perhaps a little pricey for us to use as a MIRTH command centre,

Once back at the Newbold Comyn Leisure Centre, they declined the opportunity to hone their bodies even more and settled for a fine good value Seniors Lunch at the Rugby Tavern.

A Walk through Cubbington and Lillington

Despite the weather forecast, a group of 9 men turned up for a walk around Cubbington and Lillington villages. Richard had arranged this walk on paths as the recent wet weather had made the ground very wet.

We set off from St Mary’s Church, Cubbington passing through the cricket ground to Windmill Hill. (Richard told us something about the history of this place.)

Soon the weather turned. As you can see in the photos the group got very wet. We continued with the walk as by now we had no option.

Many of the members had lived in the area for many years but there are always things you notice when walking.

As we returned through Cubbington we came across Ledbrook Hall. A large opening had been bricked up in the building and a heated debate took place among the Mirth members. Had it been a door or a window? (See photo below). To find the answer you can see a photo on this website. https://www.ourwarwickshire.org.uk/content/catalogue_wow/cubbington-ledbrook-hall.

By the time we reached our cars we had dried off we all headed to the Rugby Tavern for lunch.

MIRTH Christmas Dinner

The Windmill Inn was the select venue for our annual Christmas Dinner, on 5th December this year. Thirteen MIRTHers and seven spouses had made their choices from a very appetising menu, (and 19 of the 20 managed to arrive at the Inn on time!).

The spirit of the season was evident in the Christmas jumpers and the pulling of Christmas crackers – which produced the usual groans at the corny jokes.
There was animated conversation along the two tables – but about what topics you may wonder.

The more raucous table was apparently discussing the merits and demerits of different toilet paper products (!!??).
The other table meanwhile was demonstrating how bang up to date our old codgers are (editor’s note: how up to date one of them is …) by comparing their understanding of the Oxford Word of the Year “rizz”* with equivalent terminology from their own youth. Yes – they wallowed in nostalgia for a while ;).

So what will be the word of the year next time we gather?

  • editor’s note: “rizz” denotes style, charm, or attractiveness, particularly in attracting a romantic or sexual partner. It’s the language of Gen Z and TikTok …” but not yet of MIRTH, it seems 😉

The “Cross of Nails”

Eighteen of us gathered for lunch in St Paul’s, then settled in the lounge to listen to Canon Graeme Pringle talk about the “Cross of Nails”. He began by detailing the waves of the “Moonlight Sonata” air raid on Coventry during the awful night of 14-15 November 1940, and showed us what the city looked like the following day. He also showed us a picture of what the Provost of the Cathedral scrawled on the broken wall behind the altar: “Father forgive” (now more impressive in gold lettering) – and explained how powerful these words became, not just in Coventry and around the UK, but also in Germany and many other countries. He had more photos of the original ‘cross of nails’ which the Provost made out of three long nails from the destroyed building, and set up on the altar. This symbol is now integrated into the logo of the Diocese of Coventry. We learned of the development of the Community of Cross of Nails, which has become a network of 260 organisations in 45 countries on five continents. Most of the partners are in Germany, the UK, Ireland and the USA. The Coventry Diocese has on its staff a Canon for Reconciliation Ministry – a full time post, which was filled by Justin Welby, our current Archbishop of Canterbury, when he was based at Coventry Cathedral. He still wears a cross of nails – as you can see in the photo of him with Desmond Tutu. Graeme shared with us the ‘Litany of reconciliation’, prayed regularly by the Community. And emphasised how a focus on reconciliation is a key priority for people and churches in Coventry today. What a very moving and informative talk.

The Lawfords and The Old Smithy

Imagine our disgust!

We were walking peacefully along Ling Lane, near Lawford Heath, when we saw beside the road … ugly evidence of fly tipping! Our members were of course outraged – as you can see from the photo. But we continued on our way and came to a field with a fine crop of plants which we could not immediately identify with confidence. Undeterred, two of our members took out their mobile phones and with their apps were able to specify two different varieties of mustard plus a white flowered radish.

This meant that when we returned to Church Lawford for lunch in The Old Smithy, we were free to ruminate on the meaning of life and other profound philosophical fancies … such as why one member seems irresistibly drawn to order the Moby Dick each time!