Miss March Pascal, a Box Brownie and the Forward Defensive Stroke

I was reminded regarding that shot of we brave young men at Glastonbury (here, June) that who is missing is of course she who took the shot. Back then when we were according to each of us windswept, jolly, Bohemian, or pondering a beard (but never I am assured, confused) we thought nothing of hiking three leagues before breakfast with a stout song and a beach offering to Ra. But it was the owner of the box brownie that would see it laid ready. For missing from that and rectified here is Miss March Pascal, who once hunted rabbits with an elephant gun and batted (as did we all from need), against New Zealand at Pewsey in ’38.

Sarah March Pascal did not accompany us as we sang and leap-frogged our way to Spain soon thereafter, she already saw how serious things were to become. In France in ’40 she single-handedly rescued adequate wine and good cheese from the Vichy regime, back in the days as you can see when Britain was still in black-and-white. Later and older you might know her as that icon of the 60s like Twiggy and Noddy, she was famously Arsey. Mike Moorcock based Una Persson on Miss March-Pascal, whom he adored and even today it’s her on the backing vocals for the Stones Gimme Shelter.

Yet here and she’s keeping wicket in that deadly game when our normal safe pair of hands, Captain Lindsay, had been conveyed away having taken four wounds – all to the front. The super keen ‘John’ Thomas made a good hand with the ball but it was left to I and ‘Tinker’ Taylor to hold the line with the bat. Whilst I built up runs by nobly throwing the bat at anything that looked like a ball, Tinker refusing to use anything other than a forward defensive stroke stayed at guard for nine weeks, three days and a spotty bun. ‘Certainly’ Nott kept to his usual position whenever we indulge in sport - which was guarding the cake in the company of less forthright gels than Miss March Pascal.