Coronation Sports Day, Ham Common – by DM

My father was one of the founder members of what was the Coronation Sports Day.  We had a sports day every June 2nd or 3rd or the nearest Saturday to it and it was an athletics meeting and very amateur athletics meeting and the Common was marked out with running track and there was a tug of war through the pond and there was a pram race round the pubs when the men used to jump into prams and go round the pub and have a pint of beer and pushed on all the pubs around Ham.  I think it was pub teams who competed in the tug of war as well.  I used to help out on other stalls as well.  My grandfather, my father always ran the coconut shy so there were things like that.  There were a lot of side shows and refreshments going on at the time so that was something that used to happen on the Common.