With the cancellation of the National Hedgelaying Society Annual Competition 2020 due to Covid, there was a huge sense of anticipation for the 2021 edition.

The competition this year was held on 23rd October on the Rotherfield Park Estate near Alton in Hampshire. The weather forecast was looking good – dry and cool, which was a huge relief after the monsoon conditions that we were faced with at the 2019 competition. Once again, I was competing in the South of England Intermediate Class and was up against 7 other cutters.

Once on site, it quickly became obvious that we were in for a challenging day. The hedge that we were faced with was an absolute beast, with lots of old gnarly hawthorn and plenty of side growth. My section or ‘cant’ was also chock-full of ivy, both up the stems and also entwined within the hedge.

In the event, the organisers and chief steward gave all competitors an extra hour to ensure that everyone was likely to finish on time so we had 6 hours instead of the usual 5.

At 09:00 hours we were off. I quickly set to on my cant and was fortunate not to have to ‘lay-off’ at the start as I was the first competitor in my class. As predicted though, the hedge was an absolute fight from start to finish with many tangled stems and lots of excess growth that had to be sorted through bit by bit. The ivy in particular was really slowing me down and at one point I thought that I wasn’t going to finish in the allotted time, even with the extra hour.

With grit and determination, plus the odd expletive, I persevered and before long my hedge was starting to take shape. Finally, after 4 hours and 45 minutes, and a huge pile of brash (trimmings) I had laid the final stem of my cant, with huge relief!

That left me with 1 hour and 15 minutes to do the staking and binding, trimming up, and to apply the finishing touches. This year, the supplied stakes were already pointed so that saved me some time. Then it was on with the binding and some final trimming before a last bit of tidying up of my work area. I finished with 15 minutes to spare and was extremely tired, but very happy with my work.

All I could do next was to stand back and wait for the judges to get to work.

I was happy with my stake line and the overall finished appearance of my hedge, but I knew that I had also ‘lost’ a few pleachers off their stumps. Had I done enough to win the class?

In the event I came second, losing out by 2 points to my friend and fellow South of England Hedgelaying Society member Mike Mason, who also went on to win the ‘Best Overall Intermediate Cutter’ award. I am very pleased for Mike as he is a nice bloke and a good cutter. I was also very pleased with my own efforts as I have improved on the two 3rd places that I won in the 2018 and 2019 competitions respectively. I also had no practice beforehand either as my wife and I had been away for 7 weeks walking the Camino de Santiago, returning exactly 3 days before the competition!

Next year I will return and compete once again and I am determined to take that elusive first place. Having zero practice from the start of the season undoubtedly cost me this year, but looking ahead we still have several other competitions before the end of the season. I intend to grab those opportunities with both hands.