Ducks Take to the River Dapple for Annual Race

Saturday's Duck Race, launched from Dapple Bridge in aid of the Trinity roof fund, went ahead despite an early hazard: duck number 47 wedging itself firmly under the second arch and refusing, for the best part of twenty minutes, to be coaxed anywhere at all.

Two hundred and sixteen numbered ducks were purchased in advance and released together from the bridge by the Rev'd Paul Thompson, whose aim proved better than his footing. The race itself was closely fought, with a late surge from duck 183 pipping long-time leader duck 12 by what race marshal Roland Stephenson called "a beak, conservatively." Order was briefly disrupted when a spaniel belonging to a spectator entered the water uninvited and appeared to consider the entire field disqualified in its own favour.

Duck number 47 was eventually retrieved with a boat hook and awarded a special certificate for Perseverance, which nobody present was entirely sure the committee had the authority to create. The race raised £275 for the Trinity roof fund, and organisers are already looking into a sturdier bridge arch, or possibly a narrower duck, before next year's event.