SHOBDON : COCKPIT OF HISTORY (1) SPRING BIG GAME 2019

The Spring Big Game 2019 ("Shobdon : Cockpit of History") returns to the North West of the County of Herefordshire and the area generally known, both to locals and beyond, simply as "Mortimer Country". Long term readers of the Hereford AVBCW Blog will recollect (perhaps too vividly for comfort) the events of the Spring Big Game 2018 ("The Great Wigmore Cattle Rustle aka the Fall of the House of Mortimer?) - the notorious misdirection of Captain-General Jermingham, C-in-C Anglican Forces, by an opera loving agricultural labourer (or BUF spy); the slavering "Red Hordes" of Comrade Professor "Bill" Winters, Comrades Gollumroo and Verity and their gigantic traffic snarl-up, the undoubted heroics of Captain James Barleycorn (as he then was, now Major Sir James Barleycorn M.C), the massacre (again) of the Ludlow Light Lancers, the coughs and sniffles from a flu-ridden and wounded BUF Storm Commander Giles (as he then was, now very dead, and not from flu), the destruction of the Communist Armoured Hedge Clearing Vehicle by "friendly artillery fire" and subsequent burning of the Mortimer Cricket Pavilion, the stout demeanour of Sir Barrington Patchpole KC in defence of his wife's ancestral Mortimer lands (and his step-niece's virtue), and not least the canny diplomacy of Major Straitt-Jackett being rendered slightly academic by a very heavy artillery shell descending directly onto his head.....[note1]

The House of Mortimer did not fall. 

To the contrary, as represented by Sir Barrington Patchpole KC, the House of Mortimer entered into a hasty (and rather vaguely worded) treaty with HM Govt. Forces. At the cost of Mortimer Country's previous (quasi) independence and possibly Sir Barrington's personal reputation, the resulting alliance of Government Forces and Mortimer militias (with the assistance of the Wiltshire Police Flying Column) delivered a check both to the invading "Reds" and to the raiding "Anglicans".

Mortimer Country Area Map. Red Forces seek to advance left to right (or west to east), from their rear
 bases at Knighton/Presteigne/Kington and forward bases at Stapleton and Lingen. Anglican Forces,
 already engaged in the Bishop's well known "A49 Thrust" from Ludlow to Leominster,
despatch raiding parties advancing right to left (or east to west) from their encampments
 at Pipe Aston, Richards Castle and Orleton. The Mortimer Militias are based at Wigmore;
  HM Govt Forces support Wigmore from the area Aymestrey-Shobdon- Kingsland and
 (across the River Arrow), Pembridge. Hereford lies off map, to the east and south.

Following such (scarcely to be credited) "check" to the historically inevitable advance of "the proletariat" across the green fields of Herefordshire, Comrade Professor Winters brooded. His mood was not improved by news of the subsequent victory of Sir Gilbert Hill and his Anglican allies at the Battle of Winforton Pontoons (the Autumn Big Game 2018, "Bridge over Trebbbled Water"), and the resultant "rescue" of his old adversary, Superintendant Ronald Bigsworth-Hill, from the vengeful clutches of the British Union of Fascists. He needed a new plan, and as the "Special Comintern Red Phone" began to jangle insistently on his desk, he clearly needed it fast....

[note 1] for the few uninitiated, the story of the assault on Mortimer Country begins HERE and continues thereafter (some would say pretty much ad nauseam).