The Arrowgroup

The Journey Begins

The book contained stories, twelve in all, each giving clues as to the whereabouts of the location of said Arrow. Whoever got to the Arrow first claimed it and won the competition. Chris became quite interested in this and soon rang Nic who joined in the enthusiasm. Mark then became involved who told Stuart about it, who asked if he could come along too. So that was the basis of the Arrow Group.

And so it was one Sunday in late March that we began our quest for the Arrow. Maps were bought in, plans were laid and video cameras were hired to capture the event. In truth, we didn't have the slightest idea where it was buried but off we set towards one of the clues in the book, The Wizard's House.In reality The Wizard's House was, we believed anyway, Ratcliffe-On-Soar Power Station. On the way there we stopped to quench our thirst in a pub called the Nottingham Knight, south of the city. We had to stop there to charge up the video camera battery which was flat after recording only a few minutes. As it was a hired camera this was of no surprise.

We got to the power station and saw nothing of interest except a small hill named Winking Hill, that was explored to the full with no real results. The next "clue" led us to a rocky stone in the suburb of Stapleford in Nottingham called the Hemlockstone. Again, nothing of any interest could be gleaned from it save a lot of walking up hills and jumping off triangulation pillars…

At this point we again studiously looked for another clue and it led us down to the River Trent at Long Eaton...at a pub. The camera had all but packed in at this point so as it was getting to evening we decided to call it a day and seek solace in a beer or two...

Another week rolled by and we were no nearer to solving any of the clues. After some discussion about the direction we thought one of the tales may be heading we pinpointed Thorpe Cloud in Dovedale, Derbyshire.

There was to be a stop off on the way there at Kirk Hallam, a rather dour housing estate just outside Ilkeston. It was extremely windy this day, and filming was difficult. We had hired the camera again, but because we had complained about the short battery life we had it for free.

On the way to Kirk Hallam Chris was supposed to take the junction on to Ilkeston from the bypass. He proceeded to miss it-twice! Which meant going all the way up the bypass and turning round and going back up it again. Chris's response was to laugh in the face of his incompetence!

At Kirk Hallam we stopped outside the local pub, called the Nottingham Castle. We were looking at the map for our next destination when the wind took it clean away. Mark managed to retrieve it but as he was returning to the car it was blown from his hand again and was last seen fluttering over the rooftops. Serves us right…

Eventually we moved on to Thorpe Cloud. Naturally the challenge was on to climb it and it was exhausting and VERY VERY WINDY. It was incredible. An unfortunate consequence of this was that Nic's glasses were smashed during a particularly violent gust. A bit more filming later and we trundled off back home via Belper, stopping off at a lay-by for a rest and some scenic shots of a distant quarry…

Well we never did unravel any of the clues. It was eventually found by some ex-miner from Langley Mill. The whole thing was a bit of a swizz really because it was actually buried next to a disused railway bridge at Wilford near Nottingham. The bridge was about to be demolished and so the organisers hurriedly gave out easy clues as to it's whereabouts over local radio. So it ended up with hundreds of people at 7 in the morning frantically digging up a field.

Nevertheless, we returned and did some other work with the camera, intros and sketches about the last fortnight's events. Chris ended up compiling a tape on his video machine which was a great novelty for us.

And so began the history of the Arrow Group. For the years ahead we gathered once a year to go away for a few days and relax, video camera always in hand. Some films have been cut, others await the editor.

Cameras got smaller and we went further afield. But we remember that this is where it began, and long may it continue.