theanthillmob.com - murder weekend


For Sandra's 40th Birthday we went on an original Joy Swift Murder Weekend. What Sandra didn't know was that I had roped 4 friends, Dominic & Helen and Nik & Charlotte, into going too. So on Friday 4th March, 2005 we all descended on Whatley Hall, Banbury in Oxfordshire for our Blue Peter badge winners reunion ...... and Sandra was rather surprised to find 4 of our friends sitting in the bar! On the first night the theme was of course blue and we regaled each other with stories of how we won our Blue Peter badges ....... apart from Dom, who stole his! The food was great, but half way through the evening someone was murdered ....... but this didn't seem to put any of our party off their food. The following morning was free for some retail therapy but by the afternoon we were all trying to construct competition formula 1 racing cars out off nothing more than a fairy liquid bottle and a roll of sticky back plastic. The afternoon was interrupted by another murder, but this did not deter the team from their creative work. Dinner and a fancy dress party with disco was held on Saturday evening. We were all looking forward to demonstrating our funky moves to Hugh, who we had got to know quite well the previous		All Photos

evening. However when he turned up we thought he'd come as a knife block, only to find out the dagger in his back was real! A game of charades led onto the dancing with YMCA proving very popular.

Sunday breakfast was followed by D.I. Rutherford revealing the murderer. Fenton was a popular suspect with the boys, but fittingly the only person in our group who got it right was Sandra ....... although she didn't quite know why!!

This was the first time any of us had participated in a murder weekend and I think it's fair to say that everybody thoroughly enjoyed themselves. If you get a chance to go you shouldn't turn it down ....... I'm pretty sure we'll all be going on another one soon!

The following year Dom, Helen, Sandra and myself returned for another murder weekend, this time at the Berystede Hotel in Ascot. This took place over the weekend of the 25th/26th February, which encompassed both the girls birthday. This time we came prepared with note pads and large magnifying glasses!! However I believe we jumped the gun a little at dinner on the first night. When one of the 'guests' disappeared just before the main course arrived Dom got the waiter to split the food onto our plates, fully expecting so said guest to turn up dead ....... only for her to return 10 minutes late, alive and well and enquiring as to the whereabouts of her dinner!!

If you want to see how the rest of the weekend turned out, click on the You Tube link below for a photo slideshow set to some suitably appropriate music.

This page was last updated on 15/04/06